Candy Everybody Wants

As I mentioned last week one of the strange aspects of the 21st Century version of Halloween is that everyone buys candy for trick or treaters who do not appear because everyone is afraid of sending their kids out to get candy from strangers. This leaves adults with a glut of candy that tends to end up in their offices. My company has decided that the wise solution is to donate that candy in an effort to…promote obesity? I’m not quite certain who benefits from candy donations. Anyway, this is all just a wonderful reason for me to reminisce about some of the candy that I obtained in my trick or treating prime.

Candy Corn: I may be the only person on the planet who actually enjoys candy corn. I could eat it all day. In the middle of July I will see a bag of candy corn in the store that has clearly been there for nine months and have to be physically restrained from buying it. This despite the fact that candy corn has no discernable taste or even reason to exist. I just consider it to be the physical embodiment of awesomeness. Also, I really do have to wonder about why we are donating candy corn to the poor as it is like going, “Sorry you can’t have real vegetables but here is a confectionary vision of what vegetables are like.”

Circus Peanuts: In the history of the planet no one has ever eaten a circus peanut. I believe that they may be the least popular candy ever made. In fact, I don’t even know if they technically make them. I think that they made one batch in 1967 and they have sat on store shelves ever since. If you went into a store and put a note on the back of a bag of circus peanuts and returned in a year that same bag would still be there. Please, if any of my worldwide readers can profess to being a fan of this item let it be known in the comments.

Nerds: Ah, one of the candies of the gods. Now, as someone who was called a nerd his entire childhood (shocking, I know) I was at first a little hesitant about a candy called Nerds. I mean it is just another opening for wet willies and the dreaded rear admiral. But, Nerds were absolutely kick ass. You got two flavors that you could either enjoy on their own or in combination and the entire thing was basically pure sugar. Even better was the fact that it wasn’t something that you would down in thirty seconds. A candy bar is finished in moments but a box of Nerds could last you an entire day. Best fifty cents you could ever spend.



Whatchamacalit: Is it a chocolate bar? Is it a peanut butter bar? Is it one of those damn Fiber One bars that I am now forced to eat as an adult in an effort to become “regular?” No one knows. It is the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction of candy bars. Everyone has theories but there is no conclusive proof.

Rolos: The favorite of dentists everywhere. In fact, I have always assumed that most of the candy industry is funded by dentists in a wonderful perpetual cycle of tooth decay. Nothing can be more tasty and more damaging than the Rolo. Just gooey caramel and chocolate that will stick to your molars and you can actually feel it tear the enamel away and you just don’t care. I mean, it is freaking caramel! You would drink a glass of the stuff if you could.

Dr. Pepper: Wait you say. Dr. Pepper isn’t candy? That may be true everywhere except in wonderful Berwyn where as a kid one of our neighbors would on Halloween give each of us a can of Dr. Pepper. I swear I am not making this up. All of my brothers can attest to this fact. I have never understood why this was the case or why none of us ever questioned it. I love my hometown but you have to admit this might explain why I ended up being someone who you wouldn’t describe as typical.

Best of 120 Minutes: I don’t know if the Freddy Jones Band ever appeared on 120 Minutes but I listened to them in college so I figured that it would be a good match. Plus I believe that this video captures every early 90’s video cliché imaginable. Out of focus band shots? Check. Angsty slow motion? Check. Unnecessary use of blue screen? Check. Great band though.



The five random CDs of the week (new car, same story):
1) Loreena McKennitt “The Book of Secrets”
2) Gillian Welch “Time (The Revelator)”
3) Son Volt “American Central Dust”
4) The Iguanas “Super Ball”
5) Jay Bennett and Edward Burch “The Palace at 4 AM (Part One)”

And you've won a brand new car!

Well I’ve finally done it. I’ve broken down and purchased a new car. Mainly because my old car had broken down as well. Let me explain the entire process.

As I may have mentioned before I have had an issue with my passenger side window. As in it had fallen off the track and now was unable to move. (The moment that it first fell off may have coincided with Kim trying to lower it though I blame eight years of wear over her actions.) Now for the past few months this was crappy but manageable. I’d push the window up so that it was as flush as could be and a week later it slides down, I spend a drive with more wind than I would like and I push it back up again. That worked great until last night when I took a turn that caused the window to fall completely off the track and go down into the depths of the door where it could not be returned leaving me sans a window.

If I lived in a more temperate climate this may not be so bad. It would at least be manageable and since I never keep anything of value in my car it is not like I was at risk of anything being taken. However, Delaware in November is rather cold and rainy and that makes the act of driving to work rather painful when you have one window rolled down in forty degree weather. Hence, it was time to buy a new car.

For the record I’ve been planning to buy a new car for months. My Grand Am was eight years old with just under 84,000 miles on it, all of which I had driven. She still ran well and someone is going to end up with a nice car when they fix her up but it was time for me to say goodbye. And yes, I did literally have to go and say goodbye when I traded her in. Think about it: that car was with me every moment from when I went to Notre Dame to today. That is a pretty sizable chunk of my life spent in the comfortable, if stained, seats.

So I went to my local Ford dealer to pick up a car. I chose Ford for two simple reasons. One, I’m not a communist so I buy American. I had been a GM guy but given that Ford has been doing well and I don’t trust GM at the moment they had my vote. Plus, Kim is from a Ford family and if I have learned anything in life is that you keep the family happy. Not that I would have chosen differently even if she wasn’t but let’s face it, after the whole paying for dinner fiasco of a few years ago I now try to be as conscious as possible about these things.

What did I buy? I am now the proud owner of a Ford Taurus and trust me, this isn’t one of those old Taurus’s that you probably drove in Driver’s Ed. This car is pretty freaking sweet. Great pickup, nice engine, stylish as all get out. I am really psyched about owning this car. Officially I am going to refer to it as the Taunton. Partly because I used it to escape from the cold and partly because there is a glow in the dark emergency latch in the trunk that will allow me to escape from the inside. Hence I literally can crawl up inside the belly of the car if need be to protect myself from the weather on Hoth and then escape in the morning. What better reason to buy a car than that?

The unwritten rules of pro wrestling

· Victory can either be by pinfall, submission, countout or disqualification

· Submission can be signaled by the wrestler tapping out or by the referee lifting the wrestler’s arm and dropping it three times without the wrestler keeping it raised, thus signaling that the wrestler is unconscious. In the history of pro wrestling this has never happened. Every single time the wrestler will let his arm fall twice and on the third try start his comeback.

· If one wrestler offers to shake another wrestler’s hand the other wrestler will look at the crowd using their reaction as to whether to shake hands or not.

· If they do shake hands, within thirty seconds somebody is getting punched.

· If a birthday cake is brought into the ring someone is going to be shoved into the case. Likewise, all trophies carried into the ring will likewise be broken over someone’s head before the end of the match.

· The strongest substance in pro wrestling is the championship belt. Being hit with the belt will cause immediate unconsciousness even if the other wrestler had spent the past thirty minutes seemingly impervious to being dropped on his head or smacked in the face with a steel chair.

· The second strongest substance in pro wrestling is the skull of a Samoan wrestler. It is assumed to have something to do with the fact that they are unable to wear shoes.

· Under no circumstances are wrestlers allowed to acknowledge the camera crew in the backstage segments in which they reveal their nefarious plot to attack another wrestler.

· Likewise, none of the wrestlers backstage watch the show that they are currently appearing on in order to realize that “Hey, those guys just mentioned that they planned on jumping me in the parking lot. I think I should be cautious when I go out there.”

· Newton’s First Law of Wrestling: Force equals mass times acceleration times the number of flips in the air

· Einstein’s Corollary: The cooler it looks, the more it hurts

· If a good guy starts to grow facial hair it means that he is about to become a bad guy.

· Foreign wrestlers are by nature evil no matter where they are actually from. Thus we can hate Nikolai Volkoff even though he is from Detroit. Or better yet the case of Ludvig Borga, a wrestler from Finland who played the role of evil foreign monster even though no one in the crowd could figure out precisely why we were supposed to hate Finland.

· If a wrestler comes to the ring without entrance music he is going to lose

· Touching a referee will render him unconscious for a good five minutes. However, he will regain consciousness just in time for the match to have a proper finish.

· If a match is announced as having a time limit said match will be a time limit draw. (Sadly, we have done away with time limits in pro wrestling as well as the announcing of home town and weight. Thus we no longer have wrestlers hailing from parts unknown with weight unknown. Parts unknown I always understood but how can you have weight unknown? Is the guy deathly afraid of a scale?)

· Russian wrestlers always lose Russian Chain matches. However, wrestlers with a “dog” nickname will always win dog collar matches.

Wednesday Night Music Club: In honor of their new album here is a Swell Season song.

Music on a personal level

I read Nick Hornby’s latest novel “Juliet, Naked” this weekend and like most of Nick’s work it is an absolute masterpiece. To be honest if there is any writer that I would like to be like it would be Nick Hornby as his books center around music, relationships and literature and how they all interact. His latest is no exception as one of its central themes is that of being a music fan and the connection that one can create to music.

Of all the art forms, music may be the one that creates the most intensely personal reaction between the artist and the consumer. I think that it is because at its core music is mainly consumed on a very personal level. When you put on your headphones music becomes an entirely solo experience. Only you are hearing that song at precisely that moment and no one around you can even tell what you are listening to. The act of listening alone changes the facets of a song, which is why listening to a band live is so much different than listening to an album. It is not just the fact that the slick production is missing; listening with others changes the way a song sounds.

Compare this to other media. Movies are meant to be viewed with other people, which is why a comedy is never quite as funny at home as in the theater. Laughter is contagious or so say the people who put laugh tracks on television shows. Television is also more of a group experience and most other performance arts require a crowd. But music is pretty unique in that it can really be an intimate experience with mass produced content.

(Yes, I know I should put books in the same category as music here especially given there is no concert analogue for literature. No one is going, “Dude, did you listen to that Tom Wolfe book reading bootleg I sent you?” A lot of these arguments would fit for books as well. Just go with me for a moment. I mean, what is a good song other than a poem with a good beat.)

What the intimacy of music allows for is a connection between the fan and the artist that no other media can match. A song can speak to you, can be used to inspire you, can become the soundtrack for your life. It can be an enigma in which you spend hours trying to decipher every last meaning. Certain artists become parallels for your own life with their records seeming to tie to every moment you encounter. For me I can say things like “The only thing that kept me going in 1998 were Kelly Willis CDs” or “Every time I listen to Josh Rouse something good happens” and mean every word of it. There is a connection there that can’t be denied and that I have never felt from a movie or a TV show.

The strange thing though is that most, if not all, of that connection comes from the fans themselves. When Kelly Willis recorded “What I Deserve” she did not do so in order to provide me personally with music that made my life worthwhile. She created great songs, songs that she felt had meaning and heart, and hoped that someone out there would listen to them. But the meaning and importance that I put into them are all my own. Same as people do with Bon Jovi songs or Bruce Springsteen tracks or god forbid the latest Creed album. Music creates fans who feel an incredibly personal connection to the music even though it may be one the musician never intended.

Nick Hornby understands that nature of being a fan of music. Yes, sometimes it is very geeky to spend all of your life centered around little discs or computer files that you use to define who you are as a person. But to be honest, I’ll still listen to Kelly after a hard day at the office. At times, music is all you need.

And a battle kite

I need a Cylon toaster. Like, now.

Ok, I fixed my post from last night so that the video doesn’t cause complete havoc with the formatting. Had to play around with some HTML code to do it, which just shows you the level of difficulty involved in operating a blog. Basically, MTV Music doesn’t format as well in terms of embedding as YouTube does. I would have posted the video from YouTube except that Sony Music will not allow me to do that. The fact that I cannot post a twenty year old Social Distortion video because of Sony Music is a level of delicious irony that even I can’t believe. The man wins after all these years.

(For the record, Ball and Chain is still my ringtone. Which does draw some interesting stares during meetings when people call me.)

(Editor's Note: Crap. Ok, the edits didn't work so I just removed the video to keep the formatting normal. Thanks MTV and Sony Music! Enjoy your complete lack of relevance!)

Survived my first day back in the office after my vacation. It is always a challenge when you return to the office because you never quite know what may have happened in your absence. You always have a sinking suspicion that the entire world has collapsed while you were gone and if you are like me you find yourself kind of sad that it didn’t. I mean, how else am I supposed to maintain my massive ego?

Seriously though, I still follow the rule that a friend of mine taught me. For every day out of the office it is an hour for you to catch up. Emails, voice mails, no matter how much you tried to maintain things while you were away it takes a full hour to get yourself back to normal. Add in the time change that makes the last hour in the office seem extremely late and you really end up just being happy to make it through.

The piles of Halloween candy did make it worthwhile though. That is the strange side effect of frightened parents. Whereas I walked around my entire neighborhood knocking on random doors as a kid today parents now only take their little ones to select houses if they go out at all. But parents still buy bags and bags of candy for children who will never appear. Hence, adults eat all of the candy. I’m not sure of the logic behind all of this other than Halloween was a lot cooler when I was a kid.

That's right, you're not from Texas

Sorry for the lack of posts but Kim and I were having a nice vacation in San Antonio where we were remembering that place that was surprisingly difficult to find and even after you found it you were slightly underwhelmed. Incredibly, if Wikipedia and our river cruise driver is to be believed, San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the country. That makes you wonder how Kansas City can have baseball and football teams while San Antonio has only the Spurs.

We had just an amazing time in the city. We were in town for the Notre Dame – Washington State game, which I have yet to hear a good reason for why the game was in the Alamodome. On the plus side, it was very easy to tell who was rooting for which team as everyone was decked out in team colors except for Kim and myself. We were for game day of course but the rest of the time we dressed in clothes without logos and I swear we were the only ones who did so. The River Walk was a blast, the weather was perfect and it was a few days of pure enjoyment. Got to meet up with a few friends along the way as well, which makes life even better.

It was also Halloween while we were there (obviously) and I have to yet again bring up a comment on Halloween costumes. Mainly, are there any costumes for women that cannot be described as “slutty?” Seriously, I know that this adults wearing costumes is a bit of a recent phenomenon but I swear that every costume looked as though as it was purchased in the back room of a shop with age restrictions on the door. I understand that this would be an option for some costumes but pretty much every single one fell into this category. You’d think that at some point somebody would try something different.

And we didn’t even go in the Coyote Ugly on Halloween so I am not even using that as a reference point. But yes, we did drink there one afternoon. No, I didn’t dance on the bar. I did look for Piper Pearbo though.

That is about it for tonight. I’m rather tired from the trip, the flights, and the numerous time changes. Remember to turn your clocks back, even if you live in Indiana. Actually, apologies if you live in Indiana. Changing clocks should be the least of your worries. I am going to go to bed and have a nice long, non-margarita enduced nap.

Best of 120 Minutes: Social Distortion. I have only two words for you. Fuck and Yeah.

Video removed due to awesomeness

The five random CDs for the week:
1) U2 “Achtung Baby”
2) She and Him “Volume One”
3) The Freddy Jones Band “Lucid”
4) John Wesley Harding “The Confessions of St. Ace”
5) Emmylou Harris “Wrecking Ball”

Sports as art

I very seldom give ESPN any respect nowadays. Mainly because every story I read about the backstage atmosphere makes the Bristol campus seem like a modern day Caligula. I swear in about two weeks we are going to be reading about Chris Berman hosting key parties. Debauchery aside though, I must give them credit for their 30 on 30 series. Twice in the past week I have had to drop everything in order to watch one of the films.

The first was on the USFL. Now I am in the wonderful age group that just loved the USFL. I was eight or nine when it debuted so with no true allegiances formed yet I was free to become a huge fan of the Chicago Blitz with Tim Spencer in the backfield and Trumaine Johnson the kick ass wide receiver. I can still name most, if not all, of the franchises and it may be one of my favorite leagues of all time. Which made the story of the history of the league all the more interesting.

See, if you ask people today about the USFL most would shove it in the same category as the XFL in terms of it being an absolute flop. Except that was is no way true. The league had Heisman Trophy winners, strong ratings and pretty solid television coverage. A lot of Hall of Famers played in the league and the games were always fun and exciting. Add in the fact that it gave us instant replay, the two point conversion and Burt Reynolds as a team owner and you have a great league.

Plus, spring football was a wonderful idea especially in the early cable era. People forget that college basketball didn’t really take over as a huge sport until the late 80’s. March Madness didn’t even have 64 teams when the USFL started. February and March were horrible times for sports because football was over, baseball hadn’t started and basketball and hockey were still making their way towards the playoffs. There is a reason why Sports Illustrated always published the Swimsuit Issue in February. There are simply no sports to talk about during that month. Having football in the spring was awesome. I still wish someone would give it a chance with a developmental league.

But the USFL is a story of failure featuring Donald Trump. He really did help to demolish the league with the foolish notion of taking on the NFL, moving to a fall schedule and suing the league in a case they would win and lose at the same time. The NFL wouldn’t be where it is today in terms of popularity, player’s salaries and expansion if it wasn’t for the USFL. Great to see a film that memorializes that fact.

The second film touches on a little known aspect of my personality. Some people know (and the rest will once I finish this sentence) that if there is one sport that I have a natural understanding of it is boxing. That will make no sense if you know the way I am as I look like someone who has never been in a fight in his entire life. That is true but I grew up watching boxing, I come from a family with a history of champion boxers, and it is the one sport that I gravitate towards naturally. As a result watching a film on the Holmes – Ali fight is just mesmerizing.

The fight took place in 1980 and while I don’t remember it I do remember the aftermath and the even more ill-fated Ali – Trevor Berbick fight that followed. Watching training footage of Ali in 1980 can only be described as sad, to the point where you are stunned that they allowed him to fight. Physically he looked great and in no way had the body of a 38 year old. But listening to him talk you can hear the words begin to slur and his vocal rhythm being just a little bit off. In the ring it wasn’t that he had lost a step but seemed to be just a little more confused. Even working the speed bag it just didn’t look right.

Much of this is viewed through the lens of history. We know the story of Ali and what he has become so we are trained to look for those signs in his later fights. But even with that anyone who understands boxing could see it in his movements that he was not in any condition to fight the champ. And the fight itself where Holmes, who was Ali’s sparring partner years earlier, just pummeled him round after round while Howard Cosell discusses how horrible it is to see a great fighter’s legacy destroyed in such a fashion is truly heartbreaking. Which raises the question, why did the fight take place and why did people bet on Ali?

More than anything, more than being one of the best heavyweights of all time, Ali was a showman. There is something to be said that his growing up a fan of Gorgeous George and pro wrestling contributed to his success. He was the first athlete to take the theatrical aspects of pro wrestling and apply it to his sport. He made you believe that anything could happen, that miracles were in the script. Given his career and his fights against Foreman and Liston and Frasier he even had the resume to back up the most amazing claims. He fought because in a movie he would have won. But as history has shown, life is not like a movie.

Again, great series for those who are interested in the stories behind sports.

I may also go off on a cosine

Instead of starting my post with a set topic and then going off on a random tangent I have decided that my post tonight will consist entirely of random tangents. It makes writing that much easier.

Tangent # 1: How can How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory be in reruns already? Didn’t the Fall season start like last week or something? Plus, how can The Big Bang Theory skip out on a Halloween episode. If I know my geeks, and good lord do I have a fine understanding of the mental makeup of the people who hang out at comic book stores, if there is one thing I know for certain is that they will never pass up a socially acceptable situation to be in costume.

Tangent # 2: I finally saw the commercial for the fashion forward Snuggie. For those who haven’t seen it the commercial features a woman who mentions that everyone loves the Snuggie but wouldn’t it be better if it came in more stylish designs? Like zebra or leopard print? Well now your prayers have been answered as now you can wear your Snuggie on an African safari and blend in with the animals. This raises the question though that if you have already reached the point at which you will purchase a Snuggie doesn’t that mean that you have lost all respect for yourself that any sense of fashion is now irrelevant? I mean, would you even wear it out in public to begin with?

Tangent # 3: Saw online that Sublime is reuniting. Personally I think we should create a new word for bands that reform after the death of the lead singer especially when he is the only person from the band that you can ever remember. The same thing happened with Blind Melon and Alice in Chains. Maybe we should now just call it “The best tribute band ever.” Just as accurate.

Tangent # 4: On a sad note they are closing all the McDonald’s in Iceland. Guess Kim and I went to the country just in time. That said, I don’t recall ever seeing a McDonald’s, which is extremely odd given that the entire island is like five miles across so you would expect that they wouldn’t be hard to find. Found the Quiznos and the Domino’s Pizza (which was awesome) but never the McDonald’s. Speaking of Quiznos…

Tangent # 5: I am in a bit of a quandary at work. I tend to try to go out to grab lunch because after spending four hours staring at three computer monitors filled with spreadsheets my brain is screaming to look at something, anything, that might be interesting. So one of the places I hit is the Quiznos, which on the whole makes a good sandwich. Except that the one by my office seems to turnover the entire staff every two weeks and thus no one knows how to do anything. I’m stunned that in a country with like twenty percent unemployment I can’t even find someone to make me a sandwich correctly. So do I keep trying and hope that one day the service will improve or give my business to the better run, if slightly less tasty, Subway down the street?

It is like they are twins or something

Now I want to state up front that I really don’t care what anyone does with their body. If you have to go through immense surgery just to feel comfortable in your own skin than by all means go ahead as long as I don’t have to end up paying for it with my tax dollars. But I really wish someone would have told Chastity Bono that the Charlie Weis look is not the one to choose. No one: man, woman, Charlie Weis, or member of the Hutt clan should aspire to looking like Charlie Weis. Still, if this makes Chastity happy then by all means congratulations.

(Props to Kim to pointing me to E Online for the photo and the absolutely uncanny resemblance.)

Oh, and Charlie Weis didn’t cost us the Boston College game this year! For the first time since before I was actually a Notre Dame student. Well, he tried really hard to screw it up and I agree with DJ why the BC defenders didn’t jump on the eight yard out route at least once is beyond me but we did finally beat Boston College. It does look like my prediction that Notre Dame should go 9 – 3 will come true. Again, no reason why we shouldn’t go 11 – 1 as USC is the only team we play with more talent but Charlie will typically lead us to two losses that we shouldn’t have (Michigan and Pitt as my prediction.)

The other big news from the weekend is that Obama has declared a national emergency due to a rash of zombie outbreaks. Oh wait, that press release wasn’t meant for the public. I mean swine flu. Just ordinary, everyday swine flu. Ignore any rumors you hear about the living dead feasting on human flesh. No, I don’t know why Congress has decided to all go to the Canadian wilderness. I assume it is for the health care debate. Just carry on, all is well…(checks supplies, rereads the Zombie Survival Manual.)

Actually swine flu is a national emergency right now and you would think that I would be more nervous about it. I mean, I am someone who did at least make some preparations for Y2K (made sure my car was filled with gas, hit the cash station, checked the computer code on my robot butler) and I travel all the time. Yet on this one I am not overly concerned. I did get my regular flu shot and am taking every precaution that I can, which is mainly washing my hands a lot, but otherwise I am not too up in arms about it. That is not to say that it isn’t a serious manner and those most at risk should be vaccinated. However, it is not as though we are living through a retelling of The Stand. Though if you start having dreams about an old woman in a farmhouse in Nebraska you might take it as a bit of a sign.

Best of 120 Minutes: I am going to try to bring back my regular music video postings. 120 Minutes of Sunday, the Wednesday Night Music Club on Wednesdays and your 80’s weekend rewind on the weekends. Mainly because I enjoy searching for music videos online but hopefully others will enjoy them as well. We’ll start off by going Dutch with Bettie Serveert’s Ray Ray Rain.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) Liz Phair “Somebody’s Miracle”
2) Damien Rice “O”
3) Howie Day “The Madrigals EP”
4) Neko Case “Live from Austin Texas”
5) Cowboy Junkies “Open Road”

I shall do exactly 6.02 shots

I want to start off by wishing everyone a happy Mole Day on Friday. 10/23 get it? Damnit, Sheldon would have found that funny.

So I am now being confronted with all types of political advertising as I drive to work in the morning. As this is an off election year we are dealing with all of those local races that no one cares about and you are completely surprised that the candidates can even afford yard signs. Especially for the candidate who is running for Coroner. I’m not making this up. Not only is there an election for the job of coroner but people are also openly campaigning for it.

I am at a loss to think of what a debate between coroner candidates would look like. Would they be quizzed on their favorite Quincy episodes? Would imply that the other will, on occasion, wear a patient’s brains as a coonskin cap? Or state that their opponent simply “Really likes dead bodies if you know what I mean?” What should my criteria be in this election anyway?

On another note, it looks like Lil Wayne will be getting a year’s worth of jail time for a gun charge. Let’s study how this will impact his musical career, shall we? Tupac averages a new record every year despite the slight problem of being, for all technical purposes, dead. And we’re not talking “spending a year deceased for tax purposes like Hotblack Desiato” I’m talking when he rolls over in his grave the Earth has to shift type of deceased. So I’m thinking that a year in prison should equate to a five disc box set for Lil Wayne. Ah hip hop, the musical genre where neither death nor imprisonment nor talent get in the way of new record releases.

Since we are going into the last weekend before Halloween (and since I am obviously grasping for topics tonight) I think it is time to start discussing costumes. Especially with Halloween being on a Saturday this year even if you just want to have a normal Saturday night at the bar, sitting on your stool in the corner, talking to no one, and drinking until you can no longer remember your own name, you will now be forced to deal with people in fancy outfits. My question is: at what age is dressing up in a costume to go to a bar no longer appropriate?

I am not questioning wearing a costume to a costume party. There it is a social norm and often there are prizes involved. Or at least that is what I assume happens at those parties. Certainly I will never question wearing a costume to either a science fiction or comic book convention. I mean, do you know what people would say to me if I went to a Star Wars convention in anything other than my Wedge Antilles costume? I would never be able to show my face in public again. But to a bar? That just seems a different matter.

I think at some point you reach an age where doing something because it is fun and stupid no longer becomes acceptable. Dressing up as a human sperm when you are 23? Perfectly understandable. Wearing face paint when you are 35? Kind of depressing. Any thoughts on this matter? Or should I just break out the penguin costume one last time?

40 Years of Python

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the debut of Monty Python and as someone who goes well beyond being defined as a fan I figured that I would take up a post to describe just how momentous their work is to me. At this moment I have the scripts to all of the episodes sitting on my desk and that was before I decided on this topic. Over the past week I needed to remember a) the details of the Montgoflier Brothers sketch and b) the list of candidates from the Silly Party. Compare that to the fact that there isn’t a single detail from a Friends episode that I can recall (wasn’t one of the characters some guy named Rod?)

As most people can gather much of my sense of humor and my writing style is taken from Monty Python. It was the comedy style that caught my eye and fit with my overall personality. The humor was witty and could vary from being extremely dry (most of the John Cleese bits) to being broad slapstick (such as the fact that every episode seemed to feature Terry Jones in a dress.) Plus, in the entire series there is only one episode with a linear plot. Everything else is randomness with sketches ending midway through and bizarre segues. As anyone who has ever had a conversation with me knows that is pretty much how I live my life.

The interesting point to look at is exactly why myself and a lot of others my age gravitated towards Monty Python. I mean, by the time I started watching they had broken up and I had to search out reruns or old episodes. It was much easier for me to find highlights of the original Saturday Night Live cast but I much more associate myself with Michael Palin than John Belushi. For that we have to dig a little deeper into the nature of the cult classic and fandom.

On some level a degree of popularity is driven by the fact that something is not popular. As the music business clearly shows talent and popularity are not directly related. Something can be the best in its field and not gain mainstream acceptance. That was the way with Python. You had to work to watch it: stay up late to watch PBS, understand jokes about British currency, try to realize why everyone is in a dress. Being a fan took effort and became a mark of honor. It showed that you were dedicated to the cause. And if you are not going to be one of the popular kids at school you try to get your revenge in other ways; mainly by finding something cool that they don’t know about and becoming an expert in it. Music, books, television it all works the same way. A cult classic is something that attracts the smart outcasts who can use it to bond and annoy the popular kids.

Python was perfect for that. Most of the cast went to Oxford and Cambridge and the episodes are written from that perspective. Yes, at times they can be extremely silly but the amount of history and literature on display is incredible. You have the philosopher’s song and the summarize Proust competition along with the Spanish Inquisition. No episode was the same, no plots carried over, it was just smart comedy time after time.

Plus, sometimes there were boobies. Again, can never question the importance of unexpected nudity in the creation of a cult classic.

I still watch episodes from time to time. This blog is littered with references to long forgotten sketches. There is something about the humor that is groundbreaking and timeless. Think of it this way: forty years from now do you think that anyone is going to remember a joke from a Dane Cook set?

We now care about Jersey?

I hate to say this but I kind of wish that we had a small boy floating away in a balloon right about now. At least that way I would have a ready made topic to write about. I mean, what am I supposed to write about? The runoff election in Afghanastan? The continuing debate on health care? The fact that one of the candidates for New Jersey governor is so fat that it may prevent him from getting elected?

Actually, I’ll at least touch on that last one. First off, while Christie is rather large he is not what we would describe as “Orca Fat” in the wonderful language of Kayser Soze. True, he could definitely spend some time on Wii Fit but I don’t see it as a reason why he cannot hold public office. What I do have an issue with is the fact that I have to watch commercials for New Jersey political races. I thought it was bad in KC where I had to deal with both Kansas and Missouri debates: mainly Kansas residents voting on how much corn to plant and Missouri residents trying to approve casinos and brothels for Branson. Now I have to watch commercials for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. And I’m not even sure if Delaware technically has a government. For all I know governor is chosen by a game of musical chairs.

(Ages and ages ago I wrote a story about an international musical chairs tournament. Given that the Rock, Paper, Scissors championship has been broadcast on ESPN I think I might need to advance this topic a little more.)

I’ll close up with a My Beloved Lindsay update. One of the gossip websites I read (and yes, there are several) did a before and after picture of Miss Lohan from just three years ago. She goes from looking kind of drunk but still attractive to looking like that forty eight year old woman at the end of the bar smoking unfiltered cigarettes and looking at you way too closely. I mean, the combination of hard partying and botox has taken someone who was naturally very pretty and turned her into something that can’t even be described as a shell of her former self. At least shells are clean and pure. She’s more like the empty hamburger wrapper of her former self. Personally, I like the story that people want her to go to rehab but she won’t because she wouldn’t be allowed to drink there. If you are going to go out you might as well do it in style.

Ten questions

Just some random questions that have been on my mind recently. If anyone has any answers please post them in the comments:

1) If you swung a lightsaber at Superman what would the end result be? Presuming that he doesn’t fly away of course.

2) Why can Superman fly anyway? I understand the whole super strength aspect due to coming from a planet with different gravity but why would that enable flight? At best he should just be able to jump really, really high.

3) Plus, wouldn’t life be an absolute pain in the ass with super strength? I mean, how would you pick up a newspaper without just demolishing the table? Or lean on a wall without collapsing the building?

4) On a non-super hero note do you think that anyone in the major leagues was that kid in little league who they stuck out in right field who could never hit the ball or were they star athletes their entire lives? I’m really curious about this. I cannot recall a single story about someone who went from a complete nothing to a top athlete.

5) Why do baseball managers wear uniforms? Basketball coaches aren’t in shorts, hockey coaches are in suits even though hockey jerseys are the coolest things ever. Did we ever anticipate Tommy Lasorda to come out and pitch a few innings?

6) On my flight yesterday there was a teenage girl wearing a snuggie. Should I take this as a sign that the planet is doomed and I might as well just empty my 401K now?

7) Should I be depressed by the fact that they are publishing new Winnie the Pooh stories? I don’t have a problem with the new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, which is actually pretty decent, but the fact that they are introducing new characters into the Hundred Acre Wood just seems to be rather crass. Like adding another character to Hamlet to make it a little hipper.

8) Green Lantern weakness is the color Yellow. Is that the dumbest thing you have ever heard? “I’m the most powerful being in the universe. Oh no, a classic Morton Salt umbrella!”

9) What should my Halloween costume be this year? I’m thinking my usual Where’s Waldo costume might be a little too overdone and apparently my Illegal Alien get up has been dubbed offensive.

10) God I hate Wil Wheaton. That is less of a question than a fact but…Wheaton!!!!

Up was apparently not scientifically accurate

Well, it looks like for all intensive purposes that the entire balloon boy incident was a hoax and not a very well thought out one at that. Let me put on both my scientist and con artist hats to explain just where they went wrong.

First off, from a basic science perspective there is no way that balloon would have ever gotten off the ground (much less to 7,000 feet) with a six year old inside. As anyone who watches Mythbusters knows the amount of helium balloons required to lift a small child into the air roughly fills up an airplane hanger. There just isn’t enough displacement to lift that much weight. Now, while watching the highlights on Thursday I did not have a sense of scale until they showed it landing. Given that it was the size of a backyard trampoline and flimsily constructed at that it made even the concept of it being real very doubtful.

I will say the kid being scared and hiding to be a pretty decent story. It makes sense as to what a six year old would do. He’d accidentally untie the balloon, get nervous and hide. Except that they filmed it taking off, which doesn’t tie into an “accident”. Or the fact that the attic in the garage had no apparent ladder in which a kid could reach it. Whatever happened to hiding under the bed or in the closet? That would have worked at least for a few hours.

Then there is the mistake of trying a cry wolf defense when you were already on Wife Swap as well as some viral videos. That immediately calls your motives into question. You can’t try to pull off a con when everyone already assumes that you are an attention whore. There were questions regarding the reality of this from the beginning just because they were on reality tv.

Finally, and the biggest mistake of them all, is that you do not hinge the entire con on a six year old named Falcon. (Seriously, if you are going with that name spell it Falken in honor of War Games.) Do you trust a six year old to stick to a story with hundreds of cameras in front of his face? Or when the morning shows have him talking at four or five in the morning because you are in Denver? Of course the kid forgot what he was supposed to say. That is what kids do. Have you ever seen a grade school play? Plus, isn’t there something ethically wrong about dragging your kids in front of the camera crews less than 12 hours after all this drama unfolded? Wouldn’t you as a parent want to keep them off camera for at least a little while and wait a week to be on Dateline?

Oh well, the parents are looking at jail time and no hope for their reality show. See, this is what happens when you try desperately for your own show. They should have just gone for the tried and true method: attempt to date Flavor Flav and be interesting enough to warrant your own show.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Richard Thompson “Live from Austin, TX”
2) Fionn Regan “The End of History”
3) Beausoleil “La Danse de la Vie”
4) Tori Amos “To Venus and Back”
5) Cowboy Junkies “At the End of Paths Taken”

Up, up and away

I have reached the point in my career where I am sent on business trips. Not overnight trips mind you, I yet have reached hotel room status, but still a trip there and back is now part of my job criteria. Outside of allowing me to see things that I might otherwise not see (mainly Sbarros at various airports) it does create a very strange disconnect from what is going on in the rest of the world.

I’ll explain with today’s big news story. When I made it to the airport for my flight home this afternoon I saw a television turned to CNN with a Breaking News logo and something that looked very similar to a UFO. I was thrilled that a UFO invasion would be considered breaking news but rather surprised that CNN didn’t already have graphics premade with “Aliens Attack!” I look at it and quickly find out the a six year old has floated away in a helium balloon and am a combination of surprised, amused and concerned about the little guy’s well being.

So I fly out and as I make my way out of the terminal after landing I make sure to try to find a television. The image of something falling from the balloon took most of the humor out of the situation. The story was now somber and dire. It is not the way you wanted that story to end.

I drove home dealing with crappy traffic due to the rain and when I get to my apartment I flip on CNN to get the update only to find that the kid was never in the balloon. He had been hiding in the garage because he was scared that he would get in trouble for releasing the balloon from the parents’ backyard. This was a great relief because no one wants to see a six year old hurt and it raises fun questions like what did this cost law enforcement and who builds a flying saucer balloon and keeps in the backyard in plain reach of small children anyway?

Thanks to the internet I was able to find out just who. Apparently the family had appeared on Wife Swap: the reality show that isn’t nearly as dirty as it sounds. It also mainly exists to highlight the most unstable families in America as we get to see the worst parenting techniques imaginable. So the next time you see a madcap character on a reality show remember that they might be building their own spaceship in their backyard.

For the record though, I still feel sorry for the little guy who is going to get yelled at for starting all of this. I remember when I was his age and my robot got loose in the neighborhood and destroyed several garages and scared more than a few dogs before it was stopped. Sure, it probably wasn’t wise to allow a six year old to equip flamethrowers to a machine that had a high probability of becoming sentinent but how is a kid every supposed to learn unless he makes mistakes? It wasn’t my fault that I got the sign backwards in the source code.

Enjoy the weekend everybody. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.