Will Ferrell likes sports.

Two funny Wills—Ferrell and Arnett—are currently filming Semi-Pro, a basketball comedy, due for release next year. In the past two years Ferrell has starred in Kicking & Screaming, a 2005 soccer comedy (he first played a kids' soccer coach on a King of the Hill episode in 1999); Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, last summer's NASCAR comedy; and Blades of Glory, an ice-skating comedy that opens next week and also stars Arnett.

If Ferrell wants to keep making sports comedies and is interested in adding some realism to his characters, it wouldn't hurt for him to team up with Ron Shelton, the writer-director behind Bull Durham (1988), White Men Can't Jump (1992), and Tin Cup (1996). Shelton could use a hit after 2003's Dark Blue and Hollywood Homicide, both of which flopped, but his sports comedies—which also include the poorly received Play It to the Bone and The Great White Hype, although he only wrote the latter—aren't cut from the same cloth as Ferrell's. And if Ferrell is looking to do character-based comedy that isn't so joke-driven, the way Kevin Costner did in Bull Durham and Tin Cup and Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson did in White Men Can't Jump, then Shelton's the man for the job.

I'm not offering career advice here, even though I know you read this blog, Mr. Ferrell. However, I would like to see Shelton direct again, and he's pretty great when it comes to sports comedies (one more I haven't mentioned yet, and still haven't seen—1986's The Best of Times, which he wrote). However, his films usually feature lead characters who are past their athletic prime, who had their shot at something greater but either blew it or never took it. They also never quite learned how to be responsible adults; they're their own worst enemy. Not exactly Talladega Nights territory, but Ferrell seems to want to stretch and has the range to do it.

Before you make more Oscar bait like Stranger Than Fiction, Mr. Ferrell, make a Ron Shelton sports comedy. (Okay, so I am offering career advice.)

a movie poster that could've used some copy editing

The poster for Universal's Dead Silence has this come-on line at the top: "From the writers and director and producers of Saw." What about the caterer? Same guy?

How about a simple "From the creators of Saw," Universal? C'mon, you're in a good spot here, unlike the studios that released 2005's Waiting... and Just Friends, which were both advertised this way: "From a producer of American Pie." (A producer? You mean one of the seven who were credited? Wow! I'm sold.) That sort of dirty trick doesn't really instill confidence in a potential customer.

when pandas attack

One of my favorite bloggers, Jason Hare, was kind enough to let me guest-write an edition of his weekly "Chart Attack!" series. This week I cover the Billboard Top 10 from March 14, 1992. Oh, what a week it was!

a phrase that should be retired in 2007

Any phrase that ends with "... on crack," much like any sentence that includes the phrase "the ___ from hell," should be ceased and desisted immediately. I'm not sure if "... on crack" was ever that funny, but I'm certain it's not anymore.

Besides, it's insulting to crack addicts. How do you know what they're like when they're high? Maybe they're quite mellow and very reasonable. Please don't base your opinion solely on Chris Rock's Essence Award-winning performance in New Jack City.

You know, I feel kind of sorry for crack addicts—unlike heroin addicts, they don't have a cool movie like Trainspotting to hang their hat on. Remember that part with the dead baby on the ceiling? Or that scene where Obi-Wan has to feel his way through his own feces to find some lost suppositories? Hilarious! Man ... junkies sure do get into some crazy shit. I should write a pilot treatment for a sitcom.

Anyway, statements such as "That was like Sunday school on crack" or "He's like Dick Tracy on crack"—nope, sorry, just not feelin' it. Let a royal decree go forth! (Go ahead and respond with "You're like Julius Caesar on crack." See where that gets you, smarty-pants.)

Let's watch some TV!

After she read (well, half-read) my post about PAX/the i/Ion and Charlie's Angels, my friend Mary mentioned that her dad liked Kate Jackson's character on Charlie's Angels the most and that he usually liked "the smart one" on those kinds of shows. I've noticed in my, uh, research that in the few episodes featuring Kate that Ion has shown so far, she's not used as cheesecake the way Jaclyn and Cheryl (and presumably Farrah) are. (Notice who's not bearing any cleavage in the picture above?) They're the ones required to get into bikinis and other skimpy outfits. Fine by me, but what kind of message were you trying to send to little girls who watched the show, Aaron Spelling? That the hottest girls usually aren't the brightest? That's not ni— ... actually, in my experience that's often been true ... but it's still not a nice thing to imply!


Even 30 years later, at last year's Emmy Awards ceremony, the necklines for each Angel hadn't really changed:


One last picture before we move on:


Even Kate's hands are covered up! Good grief, Charlie Brown ...

Wait—we're not moving on yet. There's one other aspect of Charlie's Angels that strikes me as funny: the Angels are detectives who go undercover all the time, yet they always use their real names when they're on assignment. Or maybe I just haven't paid close enough attention to the episodes where Kate goes undercover. It's possible that she uses undercover aliases while Jaclyn and Farrah/Cheryl are clearly too dumb to remember any name other than their own. Did Shelley Hack take on the mantle of "smart Angel" when Kate left? Or did the Angels lose some collective IQ points for the '79-'80 season? Tanya Roberts certainly didn't play the smart Angel in the '80-'81 season.

Okay, now we're moving on ...

As my mom said recently, "Tina Fey sure does show off her cleavage a lot on 30 Rock." That's the advantage of being the star of a show you created, I guess—even if you're more of a Kate in real life, you can pretend to be somewhat of a Jaclyn on the small screen.

In the credits of tonight's episode of 30 Rock I noticed Anna Chlumsky's name. Remember her? The little girl in My Girl? And My Girl 2? And Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain? (I don't blame you if you don't remember that one. Anna and Christina Ricci played literal gold diggers in the movie. But don't fret—in the sequel I'm currently writing, they play conniving, money-grubbing hoo-ers.) Anna's a grown-ass woman now! On 30 Rock she played "the other Liz." I didn't recognize her at all. Then again, why would I? Gold Diggers came out in '95, and that's the last time I remember seeing her.

I wonder who wrote that "Blue Oyster Cult/cowbell" sketch on Saturday Night Live back in 2000? Or who originally pitched it, at the very least? The sketch has its own lengthy Wikipedia entry, but no writer is mentioned. Whoever you are, you deserve some public recognition.

Today I saw a rerun of Married ... With Children on FX in which Marcy, the Bundys' neighbor, was trying to keep a college radio station on the air. I only saw the last ten minutes, but the only Bundy seen in those ten minutes was Bud. Was this one of those episodes where Ed O'Neill and Katey Sagal and Christina Applegate got to take some time off? I remember Moonlighting, my favorite show in grade school, featuring one episode a season in which Maddie Hayes and David Addison would bookend an episode but disappear for the rest of it so that Agnes DiPesto and/or Herbert Viola could solve a mystery on their own. I didn't care for those episodes as a child. (SORTA FUN FACT! The fourth season of Moonlighting only produced 14 episodes, 8 less than the average for prime-time network dramas. Agnes and Herbert got two episodes to themselves that season, and one of them wasn't even bookended by David and Maddie. Actually, neither episode featured Maddie at all, seeing as how Cybill Shepherd was either pregnant or on maternity leave throughout much of that shortened season.)

Okay, back to Married ... With Children, the only sitcom in TV history whose studio audience always seemed to be on the verge of running onto the set and gangbanging Christina Applegate. According to TV.com, the episode I saw today was set up as a potential spin-off for the two college-DJ characters who were prominently featured. I don't know if a pilot was ever produced, but no spin-off ever made it to air, although one Married spin-off did last seven episodes in the spring of '91: Top of the Heap, starring Joseph Bologna and Matt LeBlanc. And I'd completely forgotten about the spin-off of Top of the Heap that aired for seven episodes the following year: Vinnie & Bobby, also starring LeBlanc (and a young, already vocally irritating Joey Lauren Adams), but not Bologna. Thanks for the reminder, IMDB!

Sorry—back to today's episode! Wait, more tangential information—Keri Russell from Felicity was in the episode as a girl who had dated Bud. She was supposed to be a total babe, and she is a good-looking woman, but Keri also seems to be smart, and what did Aaron Spelling teach us? Sorry, Keri, but it's just not working out.

Why did I even bring up this episode? Oh yeah, here's why—the college radio station that was in danger of getting yanked from the air was 106.2 FM on the dial. WHAT?! Pardon me, but aren't the majority of college stations somewhere around 88 to 92 on the left of the dial? No one's going to give prime radio real estate like a 106 frequency to a college station. Married ... With Children writers, use your brains! Oh wait ... are you writers also really hot women? Never mind then. My apologies. But may I give you a word of advice? Stay far away from your show's studio audience.

the most beautiful girl in the indie-rock world

I'm sorry for objectifying you like this, Britta Phillips, but you are the prettiest woman in indie rock.


Phillips turns 44 this June. How have two decades of life on the road not weathered her? They've weathered this guy, and he's been living comfortably in a mansion since 1994:

Phillips provided the singing voice of Jem on the animated series of the same name back in the '80s. Around the time that show ended, she appeared as one of Justine Bateman's bandmates in Satisfaction, a 1988 feature-film vehicle for the Family Ties costar that quickly became better known as one of Julia Roberts's first movies. (A pre-stardom Liam Neeson's in it too.)

I think I saw Phillips from a distance in early 2002 as I was leaving the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia. She was part of the Atlanta band Ultrababyfat for at least one album, Eight Balls in Reverse (2001), and toured with them to promote it. I had come to the 40 Watt that night to see David Cross do stand-up—he opened for Ultrababyfat (sorry, UBF, my friend and I didn't stay, but you're about to find out why, because I know your friend Mary reads this and will rat me out to you)—but I ended up passing out in the middle of his set. I'd never passed out before. All I remember is thinking, "It's really hot in here and I feel nauseous, so maybe I should go outside and get some fresh—"

Next thing I knew, I was being lifted up off the ground—I'd fallen backward onto the people behind me. I had an empty beer bottle in my hand, so I'm sure the people behind me thought, "This guy can't handle his alcohol." Well, sure, sometimes, but not after one beer.

Wait, why am I talking about an embarrassing moment of mine from five years ago? I'm here to objectify Britta Phillips's beauty, not discuss my firsthand knowledge of "the vapors."

In 2000 Phillips became a member of the critically acclaimed indie-rock band Luna, which broke up five years later. She also recorded an album with Luna frontman Dean Wareham in 2003 called L'avventura, and now they have a follow-up, Back Numbers, ready for release.

Phillips is a talented singer, songwriter, bassist, and actress. But it doesn't hurt that she also happens to be gorgeous (say it like Lionel Stander did over the opening credits of Hart to Hart). Get thee to a cheesecake-y Blender photo shoot, posthaste!

Boston and its wicked retarded reaction to guerrilla marketing

Here at Mulberry Panda 96, I like to stay on top of breaking news. Did you hear about that thing in Boston a few weeks ago? Well, thanks to patience and lots of procrastination, I finally have some perspective on it. Here's what I think: Boston, you looked foolish when you panicked over those Aqua Teen Hunger Force ads. Even your own citizens were laughing at you. So you felt really embarrassed, and what do embarrassed cities do when other cities laugh at them? They get crazy pissed.

Which is . Hey, it happens. Remember Chicago in the summer of '68? Not a single hippie has been spotted here since that summer. You showed 'em, Chicago!

Boston's reaction also reminds me of an incident from my own life a few months ago. Luckily I didn't have to resign from my job because of my sociopath coworker's embarrassment, but the head of Cartoon Network, Jim Samples, did feel compelled to resign. Samples was the head of CartoonNetwork.com when I started working there in 2000. Nice guy, and good at his job. And maybe guerrilla marketing has gotten out of hand, but the fact that those Aqua Teen Lite-Brite-esque ads had already been up for two or three weeks in plenty of other major U.S. cities, like New York and Chicago, and hadn't caused any panic makes Boston's reaction seem even sillier. If New York didn't freak out, doesn't that prove the ads were fairly innocuous?

Nelsson

I hope that a sketch-comedy group somewhere in this country in the fall of 1990 brainstormed a scene or song parody featuring the heretofore unknown, model-handsome twin sons of Harry Nilsson. "We can't live / If living is without your love and affection ..."

Andy Dick's new album

Andy Dick's new stand-up/music album came out today. It's called Do Your Shows Always Suck? 

A lot of people I know think Andy Dick isn't funny. But they think Family Guy is hilarious, so we'll call it even. I generally prefer a less abrasive approach to comedy, but there's something about Dick's timing and commitment to his shtick that I've loved ever since I first saw him on The Ben Stiller Show back in '92. I never saw NewsRadio during its original run on NBC, but Dick's sketch show, The Andy Dick Show (MTV, 2001-'03), had its moments, and The Assistant (MTV, 2004) was a great parody of the reality-TV genre that allowed Dick to act like a dick (or be a dick, depending on how "real" you think the show was) and comment on his "Hollyweird" image all at once.

AllMusic.com's review of Do Your Shows Always Suck? isn't favorable, and judging by the track titles, I don't think I'll be buying it. Dick has probably been helped more often than he's been hindered by network censors who won't let him say, or at least will bleep out, whatever foul-mouthed thought comes to his mind. I'd like to think he's better off when he has to rise to the challenge.

Here are some of the track names:

"Beautiful Urinal"
"Dip Your Cock in Vodka"
"Cock & Balls"
"Cancerous Testical"
"Jerkin' Off a Wombat"
"Before AYDS Came Out"
"Damn Good Pussy"
"Poke a Hontas"
"Leonard's Ass Is Bleeding"
"Dirty Sanchez-V-Hot Karl"
"Mom, You Fucking Whore"
"Niggers!"

And probably the most telling of all:

"Look at Me"

comedy math

Let's review:

1. fake-obese Ben Stiller singing Kelis's "Milkshake" = end credits of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

2. fake-obese Eddie Murphy, as a woman, singing the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha" = trailer for Norbit (2007)

3. chubby Kyle Gass singing "Don't Cha" = TV ad for Wild Hogs (2007)

4. husky Will Ferrell singing the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" = TV ad for Blades of Glory (2007)

Conclusion: laughs may increase in relation to actor's girth, prosthetic or otherwise; actor can be black or in drag, but whiteness of actor increases intended hilarity of hip-hop song being performed poorly.

Am I missing any movies from '05 or '06, or before '04? Let me know.

you and your sister

From the Chicago Reader, 2/16/07: "[Sean Moeller] couldn't see the point in starting his own printed zine in a rapidly digitizing world, and as for blogs, he says, 'Everyone and their sister has a fucking blog.'"

For the record, I don't have a sister.

'Bout time ...

Late last month I discovered that Sly and the Family Stone's first seven albums are being re-released in March with bonus tracks and new liner notes. This is great news ... except that I already own these albums, and sentimental value will only allow me to sell one of them, 1971's There's a Riot Goin' On, back once I get the new version. (I bought the original at a not-so-great time in my life.)

In 2004 I bought a reissue of Hall & Oates's Private Eyes, mainly because the copy I already had was in desperate need of a volume boost. But did I sell the first copy back? Hell no! I bought it in the fall of '96, which was an amazing time in my life. Maybe it's not a great lesson to pass along to your children, but one day I hope to teach my kids the value of being a pack rat. Memories you can actually hold in your hands deserve your respect.

Warner Bros. and Rykodisc have been threatening to reissue all of the Replacements' albums for a few years now, and when they come out I'll have more "twins" in my collection. So be it. Like a lot of people, my musical tastes matured and solidified (but hopefully didn't petrify) in college; also like a lot of people, my college years (three of them anyway) were some of the best years of my life, so I don't want to part with the CDs I bought back then.

One complaint about these Sly reissues—Epic/Legacy isn't putting out 1975's High on You. This is the one Sly album I wanted that I was never able to find in stores when I was in college, and in the Internet age I'm not that interested in paying for a $40 copy from Japan on Amazon.com. Yes, I'd pay that much on a whim if I found the album in some random record store, preferably in a city I was visiting, but finding an import CD on the Internet takes away the thrill of the hunt.

High on You features two great Sly songs that I know of: "I Get High on You" and "Crossword Puzzle." There may be more great songs on this album. I just haven't heard them yet. You should reconsider, Sony bigwigs.

PAX begat "the i," which begat Ion Television, which begat ...

Back in 1998, PAX TV came on the national network scene like a bat out of hell. A Christian bat out of Christian hell, that is, because PAX tried to rival the major networks with sex-and-violence-free shows. Nice try, PAX, but you need more original programming than It's a Miracle, the Billy Ray Cyrus vehicle Doc, and Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye (that kind of cutesy spelling is inexcusable, even if you are a good Christian) to compete with all the great sex and violence that's on NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox every night. (Sorry, CW, you still don't count.) And do I really want to watch Montana doctor Billy Ray Cyrus teach Christian values to New Yorkers when I can hear Courteney Cox tell someone to suck her dick on a cable show like Dirt? Of course not! My TV time is limited and must be used wisely.

In 2005 PAX became "the i." CBS lawyers, did you notice this? Your network is "the Eye," and all of a sudden PAX is calling itself "the i." I don't know if "the i" had any original shows, and I'm not going to look it up either, but I'm pretty sure they dropped the Christian angle for the most part at this point.

Last month "the i" became Ion Television. The last three letters of "television" are "ion," see, but I prefer to think of Ion Television as dropping an atom bomb of great programming on regular TV every single weeknight! Here's their Monday-Friday prime-time lineup:

8/7c: Mama's Family
9/8c: Diagnosis: Murder
10/9c: Charlie's Angels

On weekends Ion shows movies and things like BodogFight: USA vs. Russia. (Would a formerly Christian network resort to canine death matches for ratings? Maybe if they promote Cold War-era patriotism. Is Sue Thomas's seeing-eye dog one of the competitors? If so, I'll tune in. Wait—according to Wikipedia, Sue Thomas was a deaf FBI agent. But I know she had a dog. What was the dog for? Was it a "hearing-ear" dog?)

The show that I'm happy to see on this lineup is Charlie's Angels, which probably made lots of conservative TV watchdogs uncomfortable 30 years ago. Charlie's Angels was known as a "jiggle" show because it featured its three lead characters running around in bikinis or other skimpy outfits or just plain bra-less quite a bit. I was five when this show was canceled after five seasons and four cast changes: Farrah Fawcett left after the first season (somewhere a 21-year-old David Caruso began to admire Farrah for more than just her feathered bangs and iconic swimsuit modeling) and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd; Kate Jackson left after the third season (apparently she was offered Meryl Streep's Oscar-winning role in Kramer Vs. Kramer but couldn't get out of her Angels contract to do the movie, so she quit in '79) and was replaced by Shelley Hack; and Hack was replaced after the fourth season with Tanya Roberts, who didn't bring up the low ratings that Hack was blamed for, but it was about time the Angels had a hot redhead on their staff. Jaclyn Smith was the only Angel to stay for five full seasons. Way to stick it out, Jaclyn.

What I love about Charlie's Angels, as viewed in 2007, is that it's so ... quaint. Thirty years ago there were only three networks, and cable was still a long way from being in everyone's home. Even when the show was canceled in 1981, cable was a new phenomenon, so I wouldn't be surprised if "low" ratings for Charlie's Angels were probably something like 12 million viewers a week, numbers that a show like The Office would love to have today.

Right now Ion is airing the fifth season of Charlie's Angels. I'm a sucker for final seasons of long-running shows, when the writers and cast are going through the motions and seem ready to move on. Pity poor Tanya Roberts, the newbie, but at least she got her big break on the show and was then ready to star in big-screen classics like The Beastmaster and Sheena, a movie that somehow got rated PG by the puritanical MPAA even though it features full-frontal nudity. (Not that I'm complaining ...)

An episode I saw last week featured a villain who dressed up like Robin Hood and went around the backlot of Mammoth Pictures shooting at people with arrows. The Angels posed as stuntwomen at the studio to find the masked archer.

See what I mean? Silly but charming, especially in light of current shows like CSI and 24, which usually deal with grim subject matter. Maybe post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America needed a lightweight detective "drama" like Charlie's Angels 30 years ago. And maybe, as our current "long national nightmare" winds down in the next few years, it'll be time for another show like Charlie's Angels that can become a top-ten hit.

(Never mind that I hated the Charlie's Angels movie from 2000 and skipped the 2003 sequel. It's tough to make Bill Murray look bad, but Charlie's Angels accomplished that task easily. No wonder Murray skipped the sequel too.)

movie names

Hey, you know what's a good title for a movie? This one.

And guess what? It's the one-year anniversary of my internationally broadcast scratch paper! Set off the confetti cannons! Thank you so much, letters that make up words and words that make up sentences and sentences that make up paragraphs and paragraphs that make up rambling screeds. I couldn't have done it without you.

band names

I proofread concert and club listings at work on Wednesdays. Here's a band name I like a lot:

Neil Diamond Phillips

But then I've always liked celebrity-themed band names. In Atlanta 20 years ago there was a group called Kathleen Turner Overdrive, whose name popped up in the movie High Fidelity in 2000, though I have no idea if John Cusack and his fellow screenwriters knew about the "real" KTO. A great name's a great name, after all. Still, I wonder if the band took it as a compliment. (I'm pretty sure they disbanded long before High Fidelity came out.)

finite

It's not that I want to live forever. I just want everyone I care about to live longer than me.

blood blister update

The visual reminder of January 31's blood blister finally peeled off my middle finger on Saturday. Please pass this news along to your loved ones.

chaff-less

Back in October I mentioned one of my new favorite songs, Wheat's "Closer to Mercury." It comes from their third album, 2003's Per Second, Per Second, Per Second ... Every Second, which I finally bought yesterday after copying it from my brother back in December. He found out about Wheat back in July after copying "Closer to Mercury" from my computer and immediately thinking, "I wonder if they have more songs like this one."

They do. "I Met a Girl," "Some Days," "These Are Things," "Life Still Applies," "Can't Wash It Off"—every single one has giant pop hooks and ready-for-my-close-up vocals by Scott Levesque, who also gets nicely swoony/dreamy on songs like "Don't I Hold You" (the hidden track that's an update of the version that appears on 1999's Hope and Adams), "The Beginner," and "Hey, So Long (Ohio)." The reviews from 2003 that I've read—from both critics and bloggers—say that Wheat changed their sound quite a bit for Per Second in an attempt to gain a wider audience. This seems to have angered certain fans who fell in love with Hope and Adams, an album you can hear for free at thiswheat.com, a band-sanctioned Web site. It's also giving away Wheat's first album, 1998's Medeiros, as well as demos from 1996 and early versions of songs from Per Second that were recorded in 2001 for Nude Records before that label folded—Wheat then signed with Aware/Columbia and recorded the Per Second songs all over again in the fall of '02.

It's awfully nice of Wheat to give away their first two albums for free (both are out of print), and it gives new fans like me a chance to see if their sound changed that much from '99 to '03. It did, but it's not like they sold out to get some face time on VH1. (If that was in fact the plan, it obviously didn't work.)

If you're a fan of smart, shiny pop music like I am, it seems clear that what Wheat did for Per Second was to bring their previous sound into focus and give it some caffeine. They upped the tempos and added lots of background chatter and chopped-up guitar fuzz that don't overwhelm the melodies, and they weren't afraid to put glorious falsetto "hoo hoo hooos" in the choruses. I have a ridiculous crush on this album.

(Here's someone else's love letter to Per Second. It's hard to follow at times, but the writer makes a good point about Per Second in comparison to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, albums that are easy to like but hard to fall for.)

One review favorably compared album opener "I Met a Girl" to vintage Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates, which reminded me that back in 1998, New Radicals' hit "You Get What You Give" was alternately called Rundgren-esque and the best song Hall & Oates never recorded. (When Hall & Oates covered New Radicals' "Someday We'll Know" in 2003, with backing vocals by Rundgren, it seemed like they were returning a compliment.) Personally, I kept focusing on the fact that New Radicals' lead singer, Gregg Alexander, sounded a lot like World Party's Karl Wallinger. And in 2002, when Santana and Michelle Branch's "The Game of Love" came out, I thought, "This sounds like 'You Get What You Give.'" It turned out that Gregg Alexander cowrote the song.

Let's see, where was I before this tangent? Oh yeah—if you liked what New Radicals did on Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, you'll probably like what Wheat does on Per Second. And you should already like Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates, but that's a given.

Did Wheat hire a big-time producer in order to make what was once blurry crystal clear? Nope, they used Dave Fridmann, former Mercury Rev bassist and perennial Flaming Lips producer. (John Fields is credited with producing the songs "Breathe" and "Closer to Mercury.") Fridmann also produced Hope and Adams, so it's unlikely he forced any kind of agenda on Wheat, although the sonic quirks you hear on Lips albums like The Soft Bulletin also shine through on Per Second.

Per Second seemed to come and go in late '03 and early '04, which is a shame. Songs like "I Met a Girl," "Closer to Mercury," and "Some Days" belong on the radio and should be on the radio, but that battle's never going to be won. And with Wheat's popularity still safely contained, much like a virus, fans can continue to appreciate them as a well-kept secret. It's just that Wheat now has two types of fans, I suppose—those who love them for Hope and Adams and those who love them for Per Second. I'll take the instantly memorable hooks of Per Second's songs any day over Hope and Adams's less immediate melodies.

Their new album, Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square, is supposed to come out this spring, and judging by the two songs I've heard so far, the remaining members of the group appear to be retreating from the big pop shine of Per Second. I'm disappointed, but I don't blame them. Maybe they weren't entirely comfortable with the gloss the last time out. But they hit one out of the park with Per Second, so there's no need for them to feel embarrassed.

(On a side note, I often wish AllMusic.com allowed for open editing the way Wikipedia does. All Music incorrectly lists the 12th track on Per Second as "This Rough Music" instead of "This Rough Magic," and the review of the album states that "Closer to Mercury" is a remake of Hope and Adams's "Don't I Hold You" and that there's a second version of "Closer to Mercury" tacked onto the end of the album, even though, as previously mentioned, the hidden track is the 2003 version of "Don't I Hold You," which sounds nothing like "Closer to Mercury." There's a box marked "Corrections to this Entry?" at the bottom of almost every page on All Music's site, but nobody seems to have checked the few corrections I've sent in since 2000. Pay me to do it, All Music. I'd love to.)

snark

I've been a little too snarky lately in this space. I apologize for that. But John Parr, Little Richard, and the Ewoks, you had it comin'.

power-hungry teddy bears

Recently my favorite coworker teased me for having the "Ewok Celebration" song from Return of the Jedi on my iPod. Kind of embarrassing, especially since I was going to delete it from the iPod after I got home from work, but not because I don't like the song—I just didn't want the six-minute version I'd found over at Looking at Them. I wanted the seven-minute, 55-second version from 1993's Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology, see, with all the weird Ewok chirping intact. (Once a Star Wars nerd, always a Star Wars nerd.)

But after singing/serenading part of the song to my coworker, I decided to look up the lyrics. I'm glad I did—it turns out the Ewoks were singing "yub nub" instead of "jub jub." That's like discovering Jimi Hendrix was saying "excuse me while I kiss the sky" instead of "excuse me while I kiss this guy." Knowledge is good.

Here are the lyrics in Ewokese:

Yub nub, ee chop yub nub
Ah toe meet toe peechee keene
G'noop dock fling oh ah
Yahwah, ee chop—

Alright, that's enough of that. If you want to see all of the lyrics in Ewokese, go here. ("Peechee keene"? I smell a rat.) It's the English translation that interests me.

Freedom, we got freedom
And now that we can be free
Come on and celebrate.

Power, we got power
And now that we can be free
It's time to celebrate.

You got power? Please. Ewoks, you may have taken down a bunch of Imperial stormtroopers with nothing but slingshots and cuteness, but the Rebel Alliance would enslave your entire race in a matter of minutes if you tried to stage some sort of coup. As Han Solo would say, don't get cocky.

blood blister

I have one on my middle finger on my left hand. I don't remember my last blood blister, but I've never had one on a finger as far as I can remember.

Brilliant observations like that one are catching the attention of bloggers everywhere. How do I do it? Well, I get my fingers caught in drawers as I'm closing them, that's how.

another word that should be retired in 2007

I heard "poop" too much in '06. Sure, it's a hilarious word if you're five, but why do adults in America find bodily functions so funny? Damn this puritan heritage of ours. We'll never move past it. (P.S., ladies: I don't need to know what you do in the bathroom. Ever. Do you hear me? Especially if you're attractive. Or related to me. I'm not denying you have the same functions as me. More power to you. But I'd rather not know.)

It's almost February.

It can't come any sooner. I've never really liked January, and it's my belief that it's the first month of the year so we can go ahead and get it the hell over with. February's much better. But I just realized something—the month that's designated for the celebration of black history is the shortest month of the entire year. Have black stand-up comedians already commented on this? Am I the last to notice? Did black people or white people choose February for Black History Month? Who thought one of the 30-day months was a few days too many for this celebration? Do the people who made this decision get really angry every four years when Black History Month is extended by one day?

beautiful spam gibberish

"University bombings pleasure—you may feel slightly"

man in motion, singing voice in storage

This video was posted on Terje Fjelde's blog back in December, but I'm going to act like I thought of posting it first. I'm also going to steal my comment back from his blog and use it on my own.

Ladies and gentlemen, here's John Parr, the singer of 1985's "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)." I still like this song, but if you were expecting a newly acoustic version to be performed at the 2006 Children's Choice Awards in Sheffield, England, too bad. Instead, Mr. Parr sings ... well, see for yourself:



What an inspirational message for disabled children: If you try hard enough, you can accomplish anything—except singing. Don't push yourselves too hard when it comes to singing, kids. Don't wanna hurt the pipes, especially not at some rinky-dink charity event. I mean, the organizers should be grateful Mr. Parr bothered to show up in the first place, right? Also, kids, don't waste further energy by actually playing the guitar at an awards show like this one. What if a string were to break? Strings don't grow on trees, you know.

The American-flag design on Parr's guitar is interesting, as Terje pointed out, because the guitar belongs to an English musician who's performing at an event in England. Luckily, Parr still has a great mullet, and that's something every American can be proud of.

quotable notables for the dead of winter

"They say it ain't the knife through the heart that tears you apart / It's just the thought of someone ... stickin' it in"
—Graham Parker, "Protection" (1979)

"It’s not your fault / Yeah, things didn’t turn out the way you dreamed at school / And now you're raising two"
—Bill Stevenson, "Become the Enemy" (2006)

"No longer angry, no longer young, no longer driven to distraction / Not even by Scarlett Johansson"
—Lloyd Cole, "Woman in a Bar" (2006)

"Losing my hearing from listening to last year ..."
—Tony Goddess, "Starting to Be It" (1997)

"I met a girl I'd like to know better / But I'm already with someone”
—Wheat, “I Met a Girl" (2002)

"Because when you start to doubt / Somehow it all works out / The line becomes the truth / And what we need right now / Is somewhere to just lay down / And dream the whole night through"
—Josh Rouse, "The Whole Night Through" (2002)

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir people's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that your children and grandchildren are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty."
—Daniel Burnham (1910)

"Neocon sex fantasy"?

Some people have been complaining the last few years that the TV series 24 is a neoconservative's dream come true because of the multiple torturings and mangling of Constitutional law inflicted by Jack Bauer and his colleagues. But what kind of neoconservative has ever fantasized about two black bachelors being elected president in one decade?

At least David Palmer had already been a senator when his term of office began, and he had raised two children with his ex-wife (but it seems unlikely that a presidential candidate's rhetoric about traditional American values would hold much water with certain voters if he was going through a very public divorce during his run). His brother, Wayne, as far as I can remember, had never held any kind of elected office before he became president; he was his brother's chief of staff, but as my friend Beau said, "That's like seeing Karl Rove become president."

And Wayne's never been married. Did he win solely on sympathy votes cast by people who liked his assassinated brother? Sorry, but Wayne is no Bobby to David's Jack. Plus he's bald. Who was our last bald president? Gerald Ford. And just like my friend Beau, Ford was an accident! (Sorry you had to find out this way, Beau.) I think we're still a ways off from electing a black president, yet here comes Barack Obama, who's most likely going to run. (Okay, so he's half black.) Prove me wrong, Obama. But if you really want my vote, I dare you to begin divorce proceedings sometime around Super Tuesday next year.

Real America just isn't as progressive as 24's version of America, but at least real America hasn't watched its last three presidents either (a) decide not to run for reelection because of a personal scandal, (b) become critically wounded in a plane crash and have to cede power to the vice-president, or (c) resign from office because of a political scandal involving treason. Maybe Wayne Palmer got elected because nobody else wanted the job. Good luck handling all of the nuclear—and political—fallout this season, Wayne.

I saw the light ...

I'm really enjoying not showering every single day. I'm also enjoying not flushing every time I use the bathroom. I feel like I've turned a big corner in my life. Thank you, moderately hygienic friends, for showing me the way.

Little Richard invented rock 'n' roll, not politically correct stage banter.

From Ben Ratliff's New York Times review of Little Richard's performance at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City on January 15:

Little Richard is wary of photography. During “Blueberry Hill,” he noticed a lot of digital cameras. “Nobody do no video,” he ordered. “I ain’t hired you. Ain’t nothing going on unnoticed on this planet. The angels keep a record. You can take my money, but your child may get killed.” Quite a few people in the crowd drew a sharp breath at that.

Who knew Little Richard had some Native American* in him? "Steal my soul with your electronic flash bulb and I'll steal your firstborn's ability to breathe oxygen. Ah-wooooo!"

“Could I get two black ladies to dance?” he ventured. “I’d like to have two fat white ladies, too. Juicy ones. And two Mexicans.”

But not fat, juicy Mexicans? Just Mexican Mexicans? Fair enough. Form a line, people—we don't have all night.

The most eloquent speakers in the world hail from Macon, Georgia. Hometown pride, y'all! But Mr. Penniman did end his concert with this piece of friendly advice:

“... remember, the Lord is coming soon. Never put a question mark where God has put a period.”

But if you find yourself putting your foot in your mouth, don't be surprised if people react with exclamation marks. Ah-wooooooo!

* In Little Richard-speak, "Native American" translates as "Injun."

Once I can convince a girl to date me for more than three weeks ...

... I'm going to introduce her to my friends as "my lady love." Not "my girlfriend" or "my sweetie" or "the only reason I don't end it all right here and ruin this white carpet." No, I prefer "my lady love." I think she'll prefer it too, whoever she turns out to be.

Let's go to the movies!

Boy, I love the movies! Well, I used to. We broke up around 1998, but we're still friends, I guess. And it's actually good for both of us that I no longer obsess about the movies like I used to, although I doubt the movies have noticed. Now, let's talk about some movies I've seen in the last few months:

1. OCEAN'S TWELVE (2004)
When this sequel to the remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) came out, I heard it was a disappointment. Sequels often are, but Steven Soderbergh directed it (as well as Ocean's Eleven and this summer's Ocean's Thirteen), so how bad could it be? Soderbergh, like Ang Lee, has a long track record of making good films in any genre he chooses. With 1998's Out of Sight, Soderbergh proved he could make smart, entertaining mainstream fare, and he continued in that vein with Erin Brockovich (2000) and Ocean's Eleven.

But with Ocean's Twelve, Soderbergh stumbles a bit and shows that sequels aren't his strong suit. Not yet anyway—here's hoping Ocean's Thirteen is better, and judging by the trailer, it seems to be paying close attention to the unofficial Movie Trilogy Rulebook, which states that you must follow up a not-as-successful second installment with a third installment that sticks closely to the elements that made the first movie successful. It looks like Ocean's Thirteen will be set in Las Vegas, like the original, with Ocean and his gang (which now includes Andy Garcia and Ellen Barkin) trying to rob Al Pacino's casino. (That rhymes. I guess that's why Al was cast.)

Twelve is set in Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, and other European locations, and although Garcia is back as Terry Benedict, the bad guy from Eleven, he's the secondary bad guy this time. Unfortunately, the primary bad guy, Vincent Cassel's "Night Fox," isn't all that interesting, and his breakdancing routine near the end of the movie is cringe-worthy. Eleven did a great job fleshing out all the members of Ocean's gang as well as Benedict and his love triangle with Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Ocean's ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts). The balancing act doesn't work as well in Twelve, with Bernie Mac, Elliott Gould, and Carl Reiner's characters absent for long stretches of the movie. And although I didn't like the whole meta-tastic "Tess looks just like Julia Roberts" subplot (why didn't anyone notice this in Eleven?), it did lead to the funniest scene in the movie, in which Bruce Willis, playing himself, thinks Tess is Julia Roberts and Tess ends up on the phone with Julia. Sadly, the rest of the movie is pretty unmemorable and even confusing in some parts, and there's nothing along the lines of Eleven's serene little moment at the Bellagio fountains after the big heist.

2. BASIC INSTINCT 2 (2006)
I've been on a sequel kick recently. And it's not over yet. Like Ocean's Twelve, Basic Instinct 2 is considered to be worse than the original, but on a much larger scale. It's generally not wise to release a sequel 14 years after the original, especially if the original's director, writer, and male costar aren't returning for the sequel. Sharon Stone is back, but she's not even the main character in her own star vehicle. Like Basic 1, the sequel is structured around the horny guy who's obsessed with Stone's character, Catherine Tramell. And here's a big problem with Basic 2: Stone is no longer the hottest woman on the planet. It's a little embarrassing watching a woman in her late 40s who appears to have had some botched plastic surgery on her face and breasts talking dirty and trying to seduce every man she meets. (Stone apparently has a scene in Bobby in which she stares at herself in a mirror and realizes her age has caught up with her. Too bad that self-awareness is nowhere in sight in Basic Instinct 2.) I saw Stone interviewed on Primetime Glick in 2003 and she looked great. I don't know what happened between then and 2005, when this movie was shot, but Stone isn't given many close-ups in Basic 2, which is odd considering she's the star of the movie and the reason it got made in the first place. Maybe you just need a higher SPF, Sharon. Ask the hot fortysomethings on Desperate Housewives for some helpful hints.

3. STRANGER THAN FICTION (2006)
Meta-tastic redux! This one didn't intrigue me as much as I'd hoped, but then I remembered that I never fell in love with those Charlie Kaufman-penned films like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind like friends of mine did (however, I really liked Adaptation up until the third act, which is when the meta-tastic qualities started to overwhelm everything else). But to be fair, I was distracted quite a bit by the sound system in the theater where I saw Stranger Than Fiction—it sounded like a plane was about to take off during most of the movie, and that didn't help during the quieter scenes.

I was also bothered that the movie was filmed in Chicago yet no mention of Chicago was ever made. Look, if you're going to have some nameless big city in your movie, film the thing in Vancouver—they're used to it! Granted, people who don't live in Chicago or haven't been here won't notice much when they see the movie, and it's not like Stranger Than Fiction shows the Hancock Tower or Sears Tower or Wrigley Field at any point, but it struck me as odd. Maybe Columbia Pictures was offered a huge tax break if they filmed the movie in Chicago, but I doubt it.

On the flip side, two days after I saw Stranger Than Fiction I watched an episode of TBS's new sitcom My Boys. It's set in Chicago but clearly filmed on soundstages, yet the writers do a good job with the details, name-checking streets like Ashland Avenue and having a character wear a T-shirt with the logo of the Metro, a concert venue here. In Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell's character catches the Kronecker bus every morning. There's no street named Kronecker in Chicago.

4. BORAT (2006)
This movie starts to slow down at the point where the frat boys pick up Borat in their RV (gee, do you think that was staged at all?) and make their sexist and racist comments. But up till then it's as funny as everyone says it is. Sacha Baron Cohen is a funny man.

5. THE DEPARTED (2006)
Another great Martin Scorsese crime movie, with terrific performances all around, although I thought Matt Damon's accent sounded more authentic than Mark Wahlberg's, which is odd since Wahlberg actually grew up in south Boston, right? Didn't Damon grow up in Cambridge? I assume the accent isn't as strong in Cambridge. I like to assume lots of things. My only problem with The Departed is that the plot is moved forward in several instances via text messaging between characters. I hate technology.

6. DREAMGIRLS (2006)
Yeah, Jennifer Hudson has a great voice, but she's not a great actress yet, so people should stop saying, "She's going to win an Oscar!" Eddie Murphy's the one who deserves an Oscar nomination for this movie. It's good to see him this energetic again in a movie for adults, not three-year-olds.

These reviews are getting shorter and shorter. Can you tell I'm getting tired?

I'm gonna burn your Manhattan playhouse down.

Over Christmas my dad read me a short profile on Eugene Levy in the New Yorker. (Yeah, my daddy still reads to me. I dress him, so it's a fair trade.) One detail that immediately stood out was this one:

He doesn’t do appearances in character, except for a turn, with John Candy, as the Shmenge Brothers on Letterman ten years ago....

What? Ten years ago? John Candy died in 1994! I thought you had the best fact checkers in the business, New Yorker. I guess not. I'm going to enjoy lording this over you. Of course, the newspaper I work for, the Chicago Reader, recently ran an article in which June 1968 was listed as the month that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, even though he was murdered two months earlier. I never got to proofread that article, but if I had, I hope I would've noticed that error. To make up for this fact-checking blunder, all of us at the Reader are here at work on MLK Day.

Eugene Levy and John Candy appeared on Late Night With David Letterman as SCTV's Shmenge brothers (their attempt at "breakout" characters a la Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas's McKenzie brothers) on February 26, 1985, according to Wikipedia. No, Wikipedia isn't the definitive source for this kind of information, but right now I trust them more than the New Yorker. Hurts, don't it, New Yorker?

about a grotesquely obscene car

I just saw a commercial that features Badly Drawn Boy's great song "About a Boy," from the soundtrack of the movie of the book of the same name. The commercial was for Hummer.

Is BDB (not to be confused, of course, with Bush I-era supergroup Bell Div Bevoe) donating the royalties he makes from this commercial to environmental causes the way Moby did earlier in the decade? I don't know. Maybe he lives under a rock and thinks the Hummer is some sort of musical toy for children. Or maybe he thinks he's going to be compensated with another kind of hummer.

Matt doing Matthew

Yet another reason to like Matt Damon ...

I stand corrected.

I took Marrie and Cary's advice and didn't shower yesterday. And guess what? I'm a new man!

No, not really, but it felt good to save a little time in the morning, especially on a Wednesday, the day when I'm supposed to be at work at 10 AM after leaving work only 10 hours earlier after a 14-hour shift. I move slowly on Wednesday mornings, or, more precisely, even slower than I usually move.

So here's to no-shower Wednesdays unless I end up sweating a lot on Tuesdays. If not showering seven days a week helps my skin, so be it. Lord knows I don't want any new dermatological problems.

100% cotton dress shirts

These kinds of shirts take too long to iron. Give me a 60% cotton-40% polyester or rayon blend or give me death.

I need to stop taking showers at 2 PM on my days off from work. Prioritize, panda boy! But at least I shower seven days a week—I found out recently that some friends of mine shower five days a week at most.

I can't remember who said this, but it's true—you get one day for your birthday, not an entire weekend or week or month. I have no problem with gently reminding people that it's your birthday, because most people outside your immediate family aren't going to bother jotting down your birthday, no matter how many times you remember their birthday (no, of course I'm not speaking from experience). Just don't shove your birthday down people's throats or use tired excuses like "Okay, I'll be at the rehearsal tomorrow at noon, but don't expect me to be too productive, because today's my birthday, so I'm gonna be really hung over tomorrow morning." Prioritize, non-panda boys and girls.

two words that should be retired in 2007

I think "vagina" and "douchebag" should go away this year. We all overused them in 2006. If you're a doctor I think you should still use "vagina" when addressing your female patients' problems, but otherwise it should stop being used so much as a funny word. And "douchebag" really seemed to take off in 2006, but let's give it some time to hibernate. Unless you're a doctor who has to hand out free douchebags to his female patients who have vaginas, of course.