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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Rick Mercer–The Road Years: A Memoir, Continued … (2023)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Dip-in Books, Essays, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Geddy Lee, Jann Arden, Mercer Report, Neil Peart, Political Humor, Politicians, Religion, Rick Mercer, Rush, Stephen Harper on February 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: February 2024] Rick Mercer The Road Years

Sixteen years ago I read Rick Mercer’s first book.  Since then I’ve read a couple of his other books, but I missed the first part of this memoir, Talking to Canadians.  I guess I’ll have to track that book down too.  Because I love the way Mercer writes.  I loved his show and now I love his print.

About his first book I wrote:

Rick Mercer is a great political comedian.  He puts all American political commentators to shame. I’m sure that much of this difference is the way Canada is structured. There seems to be so much more openness to politicians there than in our system.  For reasons I can’t fathom, politicians agree to hang out with Rick even though in the next segment he will rant about their incompetence.

Well, this book goes some way to take the blinds off how the show worked.

So this book picks up where his previous memoir finished–just as he was about to start The Rick Mercer Report.

He explains that the premise of this book and indeed of his show was “What does it mean to be Canadian?”  [Spoiler: he never does find the answer to that].

He talks about how the show was spun off from This Hour Has 22 Minutes and was originally The Monday Report.  (It was going to be on Mondays and they figured if they called it that then the CBC would never move it).  They didn’t really have a plan for the show–it was all kind of seat of the pants until they were about to start filming.  They decided that everywhere in Canada there was something interesting happening.  And he would go to check it out and show the rest of the country.  It would spur local and national pride.  And it would be funny as well.

So Rick travelled around the country and rode on “The Train of Death” (fortunately, the book comes with pictures).  And soon it was established that if Rick could be put in danger or humiliated, well, that was the show right there–locals getting the best of the snooty Toronto TV guy.

So he wore a beard of bees, he was tucked into bed by Prime Minster Stephen Harper, he pulled a sleeping polar bear out of its den and he had lots of crazy adventures with Jann Arden. (more…)

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Scott Thompson as Buddy Cole in King (City Winery Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, February 10, 2024)

Posted in City Winery Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, Scott Thompson, The Kids in the Hall on February 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: February 10, 2024] Scott Thompson as Buddy Cole in King

The last time Scott Thompson came to Philly I missed the whole event, so I was really excited to see that he was back in town.  I don’t really know how to keep up with comedians.  Is there a songkick for comedy?

Well, somehow I saw this announcement and I immediately grabbed a ticket.

The crazy thing about this show for me is that I was already going to a show in the day–a matinee with Nels Cline.  I was really excited to go to a matinee show and be home at night.  Whoops.  But two shows in a day isn’t too exhausting if they are both seated and they are each around 90 minutes.

I’ve always loved Scott Thompson and his Buddy Cole character is hilariously inappropriate.

I’d never been to City Winery before.  It’s a weird setup if you’re solo. I wound up sitting in the fourth of four seats that were already claimed by a family of three.  I arrived plenty early and ate a delicious meal before they showed up.  But wow, the table was the size of two tray tables.  It was really cozy.  And this family was not chatty.  With me or with themselves.  Awkward.  The other problem is that I had my back to the stage, so I had to turn in a weird way to see.  But whatever.

Scott was hilarious.

I had forgotten how much Buddy is, as Scott put it “an offensive stereotype.”

He started off by referencing the “Amazon Debacle.”  I don’t really know what happened, but several times he talked about cancelling Amazon.

Ah, well, here’s some context from Brooklyn magazine.

Buddy was supposed to have a bigger role in The Kids in the Hall revival, but Amazon didn’t like his take on the LGBTQI+ community. So Thompson used the snub as fodder and turned his frustration (and unused material) into a new show for Buddy. He’s bringing his show “King” to New York this weekend.

But the Buddy stories are fantastic.  He was there at Stonewall and hung out with Marsha P. Johnson.  The story is funny and at one point he says, I have to look this up because this part is new.

He was hanging out with Margaret Atwood and Dustin Hoffman at the first Burning Man.  He was on a ship sailing towards the Middle East.

And who is he going to offend?  Everyone!

He even made a Polish joke!  (If homophobia and racism are coming back, then so should Polish jokes).  Hilarious.

He began the night by talking about circumcision, of course. And how the popularization of circumcision in America was the fault of those who were too lazy to teach their kids how to clean themselves.  He cites Kellogg as being pro-circumcision (maybe true) but it works for the perfect punchline set up about Corn Flakes–why do you think there’s a cock on the box?

He talks about going to a bris and being visible upset by what is happening.  Someone at the ritual says the baby won’t remember any of it.  Buddy noted that pedophiles say the same thing.

He talked about transgender children (so much more chic than a sissy).  He has a funny bit about pronouns, a friend called Gratitude goes by ze/zir.  He said, if you say “ze” and I’m Canadian, I should say “zed.”  They were not amused.  Their friend has a friend called Circle of Fear who also identifies as irritating.

He talks about the #metoo movement and how its a good thing we don’t still call # a pound sign or else we’d say poundmetoo.

The end of the show revealed the origin of the title of the show King.

He ended the night with an encore performance of his first ever monologue as Buddy from The Kids in the Hall.

It was pretty crazy being in the same room as Buddy Cole.  He interacted a lot with the people in the front seats (including drinking their champagne), but I was happy being a little far back.  It was a really fun night.  And it ended early enough that I was home at a reasonable hour too!

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Kevin McDonald: Stories from “The Kids in the Hall” (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, April 7, 2024)

Posted in Kevin McDonald, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Scott Thompson, The Kids in the Hall on February 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 7, 2024] Kevin McDonald

I was so excited to hear about  this show as soon as it was announced.  When Scott Thompson came to PhilamMOCA in 2022 I completely missed it until after it had happened.  So I was psyched to get in on this before it sold out (and a second show was added, but without a musical opener).

The Kids in the Hall was one of my favorite shows in college.  I even liked their “massive bomb” Brain Candy.  I’ve read books about them and books by them. I assumed that I knew all of the good stories.  So I wasn’t entirely sure what Kevin could tell us.  Boy was I naïve.

Kevin came out and was immediately self-deprecating, shying away from our applause.  He then apologized, a lot.  He was sorry that he was a sketch comedian trying to do standup.  He apologized for destroying our childhoods and for making us all fail out of college.  It was a great start.

Kevin told us about the demographics of the people there–34% were 49 years old, dating someone for decades whom they would never marry and who were die-hard KITH fans.  The rest were people who had heard of KITH and lived within walking distance.  And there was a small extra part who were super die hard who loved Brain Candy–they were scary people.

He told us about a time when he was coming out of a place on Queen Street and a very drunk man looked at him and said, “It’s the guy from Brain Cancer!”  He kept shouting “he made brain cancer!” (more…)

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Joe Jack Talcum (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, February 7, 2024) [KEVIN McDONALD]

Posted in Joe Jack Talcum, Kevin McDonald, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Scott Thompson, The Dead Milkmen, The Kids in the Hall on February 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: February 7, 2024] Joe Jack Talcum

I was so excited to hear about  this show as soon as it was announced.  When Scott Thompson came to PhilamMOCA in 2022 I completely missed it until after it had happened.  So I was psyched to get in on this before it sold out (and a second show was added, but without a musical opener).

I didn’t know who the musical opener was going to be until day of the show where I saw it was Joe Jack Talcum from the Dead Milkmen!  I had somehow thought it might be someone from Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, although it makes 100% more sense that it was a local Philly fella.

I have never seen The Dead Milkmen even though I’ve been a fan forever.  I’ve also never seen Joe Jack in any context, so this proved to be a fun, if simple introduction.

He sounded much the same–slightly off-key and really into his songs.  He played acoustic guitar and harmonica and he sang five Dead Milkmen songs and 1 original.

I recognized the first song which was from the final Dead Milkmen album that I seriously listened to.  It made me want to relisten to the album. (more…)

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Nina Simon–Mother-Daughter Murder Night (2023) [audiobook 2023]

Posted in Audiobooks, Funny (ha ha), Gilmore Girls, Jane Oppenheimer, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Nina Simon, Violence on January 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: December 2024] Mother-Daughter Murder Night

This was described as Gilmore Girls meets mystery novel.

And while I want to be clear that in no way was it Gilmore Girls related, it had a Gilmore Girls vibe.  Three generations of women living together (out of necessity) working together to solve a mystery.

The grandmother is Lana Rubicon (terrible name).  She has created a real estate empire.  I enjoy that she is a strong and powerful woman who had been pushed down but fought back and built her own fortune.  But she’s also cold and distant–especially to her daughter, Beth.

The plot moves on when Lana is diagnosed with cancer and has to move in with Beth and Beth’s daughter.

Like Gilmore Girls, Beth was impregnated when she was a teenager.  She decided to keep the baby and move out.  But she moved into a property that Lana owned in a waterfront community.

Lana thinks she’ll be back home pretty quickly but she winds up in worse shape and needs to be there for a a lot longer than she imagined.  Beth and Lana are quite antagonistic.  But Lana and Beth’s daughter Jack get along pretty well. (more…)

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Isiliel (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, November 7, 2023)

Posted in Coaltar of the Deepers, Isiliel, Necronomidol, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA on November 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 7, 2023] Isiliel

This was my fourth show in four nights and I was surpirsed how little it had caught up with me.  I was fortunate in that most of the shows were fairly short.  And this one promised to be super short.

There was no opening act, so despite a 15 minute soundcheck and setup delay, the show still ended by 9:30, which was perfect.

So, who is Isiliel?  She is Himari Tsukishiro who is the main singer in the Japanese band Necronomidol.  As her site puts it

Isiliel is a solo dance/vocal project by Himari Tsukishiro (NECRONOMIDOL).
Mixing genres as diverse as folk, blackgaze and city pop via a worldwide team of veteran songwriters such as King Dude and NARASAKI of COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS, through Isiliel Himari will express hitherto unexplored depths of pathos and beauty on stage.

As Isiliel, she has one album out.  It is, as implied, a heavy metal sounding album, with heavy guitars and a lot of double bass.  But she does not sing like a heavy metal singer.  Her delivery is quiet and slow (and it’s in Japanese).

I hadn’t heard of either her or her main band until about a week before this show was announced.  But when I saw what Necronomidol looked like, I wanted to go to this show too.  It turned out she has some real fans in Philly.  The audience was probably about 30 people, but the show had about a week’s notice.  And several of these fans brought identical small red lanterns which they waved in time to the beat (I asked the merch guy if he was selling them and he said no–they brought them in!) (more…)

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Jeff Tweedy with Seth Meyers: World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 7, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Jeff Tweedy, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Philadelphia, PA, Seth Meyers, Seth Meyers, Theatre of Living Arts on November 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 7, 2023] Jeff Tweedy with Seth Meyers

Usually any show with Jeff Tweedy is one I want to go to. For one reason or another I wasn’t really feeling the need to see Jeff Tweedy read from his book.

Ironically I just finished listening to his first book (on audio with Tweedy reading) and loved it.  So, really there’s no reason I shouldn’t have gone.

Later on, when I found out that he was going to be interviewed by Seth Meyers, my personal choice for Late Night hijinks, I was really bummed that I didn’t get a ticket.  By then it was sold out.

I guess I didn’t realize it would be a kind of fun night of q and a and reading or whatever.

Oh well.

I did get to go to Isiliel that night, so it’s all good.

That night or the night before or earlier that day (who knows) Jeff was on Seth’s TV show.  I wonder if they talked about the same things in Jersey City as they did in NYC.

 

 

 

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Suki Waterhouse–All Things Go Music Festival [Day 1] (Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MS, September 30, 2023)

Posted in Alex G, All Things Go, Alvvays, Arlo Parks, Boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen, Columbia MD, Daisy Jones and the Six, Dayglow, Detective Pikachu, Ella Jane, Ethel Cain, Flecther, Free Range, Hemlocke Springs, Jensen McRae, Juliana Madrid, Lana Del Ray, Last Dinosaurs, Leith Ross, Lizzie McAlpine, Maggie Rogers, Meet Me @ The Altar, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Mt. Joy, Muna, No Vacation, Peach Pit, Raye, Samia, Sudan Archives, Suki Waterhouse, Tegan and Sara, Tommy Lefroy, Vacations, Vundabar on September 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 30, 2023] Suki Waterhouse

Sometime in April, my daughter asked if we could go to the All Things Go Festival.  I had never heard of this Festival and assumed the answer was no.  But then I saw that it was at the Merriweather Post Pavilion which is exactly three hours away from us.  So when tickets went on sale, I managed to get two pre-sale tickets for Sunday.  And then when they went on proper sale, I managed to score two more for Saturday.

Sunday was  the far more important day for music.  I mean, the whole reason she wanted to go was to see boygenius (and Lana Del Rey).  But this was a great day of music to be sure.

I had vaguely heard of Suki Waterhouse.  It wasn’t until she started playing that I looked her up and realized that she was an actress as well.  I had seen her in Detective Pikachu, but had no recollection of her.  My daughter loved the show of Daisy Jones and the Six, which is probably why she was interested in seeing Suki play. (more…)

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Sleep Token / A.A. Williams (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 9, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in A.A. Williams, Philadelphia, PA, Shevy Marie, Sleep Token, Union Transfer on September 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 9, 2023] Sleep Token / A.A. Williams

I had never heard of Sleep Token until about a week ago when Shevy Marie, the woman who plays all of the women in Ice Nine Kills’ live performances, announced that she would be touring with Sleep Token.  I have no idea in what capacity.  Ad when I looked up to see where  the tour was taking this band, I found out that they were playing Union Transfer and the show was sold out.  In fact, the whole tour appears to be sold out. Wow.

So, who are they?  Interestingly, no one know.

Sleep Token are a British alternative metal band from London, formed in 2016. The group are an anonymous, masked collective led by a frontman using the moniker Vessel. They have been categorised under many different genres, including alternative metal, post-rock/metal, progressive metal and indie rock/pop.

There’s obviously so much for me to like about this band–masked singers, calling their shows “rituals”, toying with heavy metal, Shevy Marie.  Although when I listened to a few songs I didn;t really like them all that much.

Well, it being sold out saved me the worry.

A.A. Williams is a singer from

The first thing that comes up when searching for her is a cover of Placebo’s “Without You I’m Nothing” which is even more gothy than the original.  It’s good and moody.  Her other stuff is similarly moody and gauzey with a healthy dose of goth.  Or as Kerrang says

a stunning work of minor-chord perfection that announced its author as a genuinely exceptional talent. A perfect expression of beautiful melancholy that touched that same delicate, isolated, rainy-night nerve as Anathema, Nick Cave and Deftones at their most understated,

I’ll bet this show is really good.

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Damian Bradfield / David Sánchez–Algorithmic Reality (2022)

Posted in Corporate skewering, Damian Bradfield, David Sánchez, Dystopia, End of the World, Environmentalism, Graphic Novel, NBM, Outer Space, Sci-fi, Technology, The Future on July 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: July 15, 2023] Algorithmic Reality

I received this book at work with a bunch of other graphic novels from NBM.  I liked the stuff they sent out–anti-corporate and promoting the underground.  And this book fits in with that ethic.

I don’t know David Sánchez’s work, but his style in this book reminds me of Chris Ware and Ted Rall.  Ware in particular because the characters look vaguely the same in every panel (on purpose) with minimal changes between panels.  Damian Bradfield is a British businessman (that’s pretty much all it says about him on the book) and he has written four tales of dystopian technology takeover.

In the first, a man goes to a store to buy a pair of shoes.  He doesn’t buy any but the employee follows him seemingly everywhere to make sure he doesn’t want them.  On the street.  In the grocery store (where the employee has photos of the sneakers).  Then he sees the employee in different outfits everywhere until finally the employee is in his house. The employee is never aggressive, just always there–like your ads on your phone. (more…)

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