Not A Dollarshort

Please Hammer don't.

The stomach churn of the inevitable:

It's the sort of feeling you get while watching a biopic on MC Hammer; he's bought one too many gold chains and he's still adding people to his posse and all you can think is "this isn't going to turn out well."

Pop Culture Rock Bottom.

I'm still not totally convinced that Dr. Phil isn't really Jeffrey Tambor.

Related: The lyrics are "Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, Three's Company too."

Not so much related: The lyrics to Everywhere You Look, the theme song to Full House, opens with the line "Whatever happened to predictability..." I've been wondering just exactly what that line was since the show was on the air but never bothered looking it up until today.

The Purple Tape

spinART Records releases Pixies, a collection of 9 tracks previously available only in bootleg form.

From Salon Audio:

"In 1987 indie rock group the Pixies recorded a 17-song demo cassette at Fort Apache Studios in Boston. Fans came to know of it as the hard-to-find "purple tape." That demo got the Pixies a deal with record label 4AD, which used eight of the tracks for the band's debut EP "Come on Pilgrim," released that same year, yet the original versions of the nine other songs have existed only as bootlegs."

Also available on Salon, the version of Subbacultcha from the album.

We should be together.

Not until I heard the Pet Shop Boys' The Night I Fell in Love (Lyrics) with my own ears would I actually believe its sweet sweet existence. No really, it's a real song on a real album.

We'll be seeing the Pet Shop Boys in a couple weeks at the Warfield, where, we'll no doubt be surrounded by the flick, flick, flicking of cigarette lighters and those kids with their crazy sort of cigarettes. And to think, just last week someone called me a narc ^*. Go figure.

^* If I was really a narc, I would have gone so 21 Jump Street on the teen girls sitting behind us at last night's the Kids in the Hall show, who, in great giddy detail, so discussed their comparitive KITH and Dave Matthews concert buzzes. As if!

Of course, I'm just bitter because I wasn't allowed to attend Kids in the Hall shows when I was seventeen.

Eeeeeeeeee.

If it's lame to write an entry about how much I love a television commercial, then it must be doubleplus lame to write an entry about how much I love a beer commercial.

Still, all dignity is out the window as I watch the Weary Traveler.

I'm a sucker for psychotic ventriloquist dummies.

But, aren't we all?

Les terriers sont mes types favourites.

For those of you who live in the Bay Area and like The Kids in the Hall, you might like to know that tickets for their Warfield shows (May 19 and 20) went on sale this morning.

I honestly can't believe I found out about it through some email from a source that I would consider spam. Spam in the sense that I believe my email address was sold to a "partner." Oh well, one good thing came out of my junkmail box.

On an annoying note, I'm going to miss seeing David Sedaris read for the fourth time. Sedaris, Sarah Vowell and David Rakoff are appearing at Berkeley and the show is already sold out.

I'm going to keep trying, though.

Any leads would be greatly appreciated.

I did it his way.

Oh my. Last night we watched a rather bland made for television biopic about the life of Frank Sinatra. It was on some sort of true stories cable channel -- the type of channel that's sandwiched between the 24 hour Dana Delaney network and the really bad 1980s romance/drama channel.

Despite the fact that my brows were furrowed with frustration over the odd casting choices, I found myself sitting through a full hour and a half of the movie -- all the way from "washed-up, broke and in love with Ava -- Sinatra" to "That's Life Frank."

It was during the course of the movie that I began formulating a good justification for human cloning.

You know, this is just the sort of thing I usually think about while watching television.

Anyway, I figured that if there was ever a real need for cloning, it would be in the entertainment business -- or more specifically, the biopic entertainment buisness.

Why? Well, the main reason that the Sinatra film was so horrible was that no one looked liked they were even meant to resemble their real-life counterparts.

In all fairness, the backs of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were passable -- squint hard enough and you'd think you're in Hyannis Port.

But really, were the producers on some sort of mission to find the chubbiest, non-Italian "Dean Martin" in all of Hollywood?

Or perhaps, they just wasted all the casting cash on their firecracker of a Sammy Davis Jr., who in my opinion, uttered the best line in the whole film.

"They'll all say, 'there goes the cat with the glass eye!'"

Back to cloning. Now, how inhumane would it be to set up some sort of dead celebrities amusement park? In exchange for room and board, the celebrity clones agree to film real-time biopics. It would be a way for the clones to keep their DNA buddy's memory alive while entertaining the masses.

You see, we all win.

It's still better than Trading Spaces.

For some time last year, Ben and I watched an inordinate amount of television. We had just ordered digital cable and not only had an assortment of pay channels but also BBC America.

Now, receiving BBC America had always been a television goal of ours.

Note: Having any sort of television "goal" other than "watch less" is probably the first indicator that someone needs to re-analyze priorities.

Back to BBC America. While in England in 1999 we had spent many a night watching the British programs that -- as I described them in my journal -- are "shows that I could never imagine existing (out of pointlessness) but now can not live without."

Prime example of this television genre: Channel 4's Watercolour Challenge.

Naturally, then, while watching BBC America, we fell under the Anglophilic spell of Changing Rooms -- the inspiration for the horrible American program, Trading Spaces.

We even went so far as actually discussing who our favorite Changing Room personalities were -- Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Graham Wynne won out, incidentally.

Despite our love for the show, we always doubted the actual quality of the work. Sure, many a time they have made the most dreary room look fantastic, but really, what how structurally sound is MDF? Come to think of it, what exactly is MDF? Is it particle board? Is it some sort of plastic/wood hybrid. Regardless, I don't think I'd want my new bed frame to be built out of it.

So then, yesterday, Tom posted this great link to Joshua Sofaer's story about his Changing Rooms experience.

Handy Andy as a primadonna? It can't be true!

An irritable Carol Smillie? Oh My!

It's a fascinating read for those who watch the program.

Damn you Father Ralph!

I've claimed that The Poseidon Adventure is my ultimate guilty pleasure. Perhaps, after tonight, I should amend the list of wickedly bad things I love.

You see, while watching The Romance Channel tonight, I was reminded of my twisted love for the very epic, yet very creepy mini-series, The Thorn Birds.

Even since I was a wee one, I've been fascinated by this film. And although I am a major sucker for any sort of generational saga, The Thorn Birds has a power over me that I can't quite rationalize nor verbalize.

I ask myself the difficult questions:

Why am I so enthralled by that Australian trash epic? Why am I so determined to watch a love affair between a proud priest and a God-hating girl? Why do I continue to watch, even when I find myself putting a blanket over my head during all the "I'm breaking all my vows" sort of scenes?

What draws me in?

Perhaps the spell has something to do with the unsettling Richard Chamberlain as Father Ralph de Bricassart.

Similar to David "call me a magician and I'll kill you" Copperfield, Chamberlain has has a look in his eyes that just isn't, well, right. I'd probably describe it as the look of a man who's had to make mini-series love to one too many women.

The image of The Chamberlain will give me goosebumps -- and not the "isn't he handsome" sort. I may not know a lot about the film industry or acting, but I do know that this probably isn't a desired effect.

If you've ever seen the film The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, think of the scene featuring Tony Randall as the goat-man, Pan.

Multiple the disturbing suaveness of that creature by 1/4 and you've nailed how I feel about Chamberlain.

But like a car wreck, I can not turn away and I find myself watching The Thorn Birds for the thousandth time in my life.

That's just not right.

And what's worse? I've inflicted the film onto Ben.

Weird? Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.

Happy Holidays, folks!

It's Christmas Eve and I'm still working on one of the presents for my mother. Along with her "official" present, a compilation of stories about Cuba, I made her a mix CD of some Latin pop. And, since I needed to make a cover, I combined my mother's two major loves -- Cuban music (via Desi Arnaz) and her Sheltie, Augie.

Presenting Augielu'.

I guess it's one of those familial jokes that is often quite creepy to those outside our inner circle.

Oh, and there's also Annie Miranda.

And now, a Christmas present for you: Desi Arnaz singing Quizas, Quizas, Quizas (2.0 megs).