Friday Morning Spew

I figure if ladies man and inhuman freak of nature Larry King could spend 20 years working for USA Today as a syndicated columnist by vomiting stream of consciousness statements and the occasional plug for a celebrity project,¹ then this can't be too hard. Let's see how I do. Note: this blog is also posted on Thunder Matt's Saloon, but not Hitler Getting Punched - at least, not yet.

After Kevin James and Seth Rogen both took the plunge, who's the next Hollywood Heavyweight to star in a Wacky Mall Security Guard vehicle? The smart money is on Chris Farley's Painfully Unfunny Right Wing Lunatic Brother......Some people may prefer A.J. for his plus fastball and dazzling curve, but MSNBC's Erin Burnett's dazzling curves can be on my fantasy team any day.......Sure it was loaded with clever wordplay and knowing references, but I think Edward Everett Horton's voice work is what made the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show special......Jimmy John's may claim to be "America's #1 Sandwich Delivery," but faced with a choice, I would have Potbelly Sandwich Works......Rashida Jones seems to be a very pretty lady. I had no idea her father was famed producer Quincy Jones. Her mother must have been hot as hell......When one is an atheist raised by Southern Baptists participating in a passover seder with your fiancee's family, try not to switch Israel and Egypt. It doesn't go over well......For my money, a sciatica outbreak is the best way to remind yourself you aren't a teenager anymore. I'm glad I still have some leftover vicodin, but I hope it hasn't expired......Anyone else remember the song "A Deeper Shade of Soul" by Urban Dance Squad? Man that sucked.......The vicodin is kicking in. I can't feel my fingers......I am shocked and saddened by the death of Angels starter Nick Adenhart. But not a deep enough man to then speculate about how the Angels will fare in the first month of the season missing 3/5 of the planned rotation. If I believed in a hell, I would be going there......Hank Williams III is my favorite member of that celebrated country family, if only for his slam on Kid Rock for pretending to to be the heir to the legacy......I may be a godless heathen who hates the troops, but Captain America riding a motorcycle over Nazi lines while his sidekick shoots them with a tommy gun gives me what I can only call a "'F*&K YEAH' hard-on for the USA."......Why are ants with human faces crawling all over my monitor?......I think every Friday is Good, so why is the Roman Catholic Church so big on today? Must be sweeps week......The ants are shrieking accusations at me......Who ever expected Iowa to legalize gay marriage before California, or as I call it "America's Gomorrah?"......Do they still sell Teddy Grahams? I mean, I know Tato Skins are still around......Dixie Carter is a registered Republican that leans Libertarian. Think on that the next time you sit around in your underwear watching a "Designing Women" marathon on We and Julia Sugarbaker gets all Liberal and shit......I AM BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS!......I can see why Hugh Laurie's American brother loves this stuff. I feel like I could make rude observations and diagnose the critically ill with aplomb......I'm sleepy. Wolter go bed now.

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1. I know that link is technically to the Onion parody of King, but it's almost identical in style to what he wrote.

Shameless Self-Promotion of Sorts

Like watching Hitler getting punched? Then I have just the halfassed side project for you!

http://hitlergettingpunched.blogspot.com/

I'm hoping that everyone will submit their own examples of Hitler getting punched (send them to HitlerPuncher AT gmail DOT com). I have a small library of pics that I will be gradually releasing on the world, but I need more. Special primacy will be placed on original works of artistic Hitler-Punchery, whether they be cartoons, sketches, photographic recreations, or short literary works.

I will, of course, give credit and/or links where they are due.

Won't you join me in punching Hitler?

P.S. - Artistic skill is not mandatory: I don't care if it's in crayon and done by a five-year-old; I just want to see and hear about Hitler getting punched. And I bet I'm not the only one.

The Gayest Song I Love

Short entry today, I'm going to expend my creative energy on another Pomp Culture article (if you missed my last one regarding Iron Maiden's supremacy to the United Nations, by all means check it out here). And I need to once again make the disclaimer that I am not disparaging the gay community at all in this entry, as regular readers will know that It'd look like I was throwing stones from a glass (bath)house.

Anyway, like most people who commute on public transportation, I listen to music on headphones. An iPod nano to be exact, partly because I am attempting to transform, butterfly-like from post-punk hipster to yuppie sleazebag, but mainly because none of the Zunes I keep in a bucket by my front door seem to be working at present.

Like many who make the Geek "lifestyle choice," I often succumb to an axiom that my friend Susan and I uncovered more than a decade ago (note I am using Courier, the Official Font of Logical Verities):

"To the untrained eye, the line between a
well-groomed geek and a gay man is indistinguishable."

(Cf. Sweatervests, designer nerd glasses, unseemly public excitability, the inability to throw a 10-6 curve)

Yeah, I come off pretty darn queer at times. Over 15 years in theatre-with-an-"re" has not helped this, either. Or the fact that I spent Sunday night in a gay bar (my girlfriend was singing in a band, Your Honor!). Or that, in between songs, I actually overheard someone in that bar say "An honest to God GLORY HOLE. I shit you not!" with a lisp that rivalled Buddy Cole.

Anyway, as I rode in today, after I wrapped up listening to Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express (Note: believe it or not, that's NOT the source of the gayest song. And a day where Kraftwerk is the most macho music I have listened to so far is already red-letter), I decided to listen to the Associates collection I recently acquired.

Not to be excused with The Association (of "Along Comes Mary," "Cherish," and "Windy" fame), the Associates was a two-man Scottish band that had minor success in the early 1980s (mostly in the UK) in the height of the New Romantic movement (sorry Djakarta: no pics of Adam Ant this time). It consisted of a multi-instrumentalist (Alan Rankine) and a vocalist (the late Billy Mackenzie).

The song in question is, first and foremost, a cover of an exceptionally gay song: Diana Ross's "Love Hangover" (which happened to be the #1 song the day I was born). One might think that would be hard to top. One would be right. But that one has not heard the Associates.

Musically, the Associates, at least during the early period I'm moderately familiar with, had a sound that ranged from minimalist post-punk to Duran Duran-esque New Wave pop. And the music of this particular song is actually a pretty cool post-punk-white-funk that reminds me of Remain in Light-era Talking Heads with a more jangly lead guitar.

And the resemblence doesn't end there. At first Mackenzie's voice sounds very much like David Byrne. Very much so. Until he belts a series of ridiculously sweeping falsetto yells, laden with vibrato. Add in some ridiculously cheesy female backing vocals, and the picture is complete. This song is, well, gay...

This is a song that ran away from home at 17 to go to New York to become a dancer, stays in touch with it's mother, but hasn't spoken to its father in 10 years. This is a song that wears men's capris and clogs when it shops at Treasure Island. This is a song that owns the Director's Cut of Moulin Rouge. This is a song that the average Pet Shop Boys fan would eschew as "a little too queer for me."

And this is a song I think is awesome. This is a song that I have already played 3 times today, at the expense of listening to the rest of the album, which I haven't heard.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't find a gayer song if I looked through my girlfriends collection of showtunes and asked Clay Aiken to cover the gayest one I found. I dare anyone to find a gayer song, in fact--

Oh, wait...I'm finally listening to the rest of the album, and a cover of "Heart of Glass" just came on. Wow.

You win again, Associates.

In which I spread myself even thinner...

Just an FYI: Starting very soon, I will be contributing occasional articles at Pomp Culture, the less-baseball-centric spinoff to the late, lamented Thunder Matt's Saloon.

In fact, I just held a press conference there, if anyone's curious.

Soon, I plan to make some grandiose claims about Iron Maiden...




P.S. If you're ever in a jam and need some quick legal advice, the Law Offices of Panini & Rye have gotten me out of a few scrapes in the past few years. Sure, they're hitting some tough times right now, but aren't we all?