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Archive for the ‘Funny (ha ha)’ Category

SOUNDTRACK: THE VIOLET ARCHERS-Sunshine at Night (2008).

This is the second Violet Archers CD.  It’s a fantastic collection of mellow songs.   “You and I” is a delightful acoustic guitar and vocals song (and Vesely’s voice sounds great: soft and delicate without being whiny).  “Insecure” features the vocals of Ida Nilsen (a great voice which works wonderfully with Vesely’s songs).  It also has a wonderful trumpet solo (!) (which consists of only a few notes repeated but which is totally great).  It sounds a bit too similar to Siberry’s “The Speckless Sky” but it wins out with its own identity by the end.

“Transporter” is an electric track (still mellow though).  Vesely’s delivery is great on this, with unexpected delays making it just off the beat.  Although “Tired” (we can tell by the titles that Vesely is not a “Party On” kind of guy) rocks much harder than you’d expect for the title, it’s still nothing like a hard rock song.  “Sunshine at Night” continues in this louder vein, but again, Vesely’s voice is soft, so even a louder song doesn’t rock hard.  This has some great harmony vocals.

“Suffocates” returns to the upbeat acoustic style while “Truth” is its cool minor chord downbeat companion.  “Themesong” is a cute, more upbeat track that finally mentions a violet archer.  “Don’t Talk” is the only song that builds from a standstill (as opposed to just starting) and the drums and power chords make it feel like it’s a bid for commercial viability.  And the disc ends with “Listening,” a quiet lullaby of a song that showcases’s Vesely’s falsetto.

The Violet Archers still tour and there are some downloadable shows available on the Rheostatics live website.  And, of course, Tim was super nice, so let’s hope for a left field smash hit on their next disc.

[READ: September 29, 2010] “Anti-Climax”

This piece is from The Critic at Large section of the New Yorker and it seems to be a kind of Books redux section.

I enjoyed this piece more than I had a right to enjoy a thirteen year old article about sex books.  Strangely enough it begins with a comment about televisions in airports (which I agree with JF that they are the devil and are unavoidable and make it really hard to read).  And I cannot even imagine that 89% of air travelers believe that the TVs make “time spent in an airport more worthwhile” (although you know that is one of the more nebulous survey questions)

But this topic segues into the matter at hand: sex books.  He notes how he is also at odds with the norm when Men’s Health says that lingerie is the US male’s favorite erotic aid.  And I can’t believe how in tune I am with JF Franzen’s comment:

What I feel when I hear that the mainstream actually buys this stuff is the same garden-variety alienation I feel on learning that Hootie & the Blowfish sold 13 million copies of their first record, or that the American male’s dream date is Cindy Crawford. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: ODDS-Neopolitan (1991).

This was the first Odds album.  For such a quirky name, Odds played some pretty standard music. I’m not even sure if the first song qualifies as “alternative” as it sounds not unlike an early Phish song, only less quirky (and much shorter).

The disc offers a pretty nice range of poppy tracks, from acoustic based songs like “Are You Listening?” to louder guitar rockers liked “Evolution Time” (probably the most interesting track here).

Another notable song is “Wendy Under the Stars” a surprisingly explicit song about the day Elvis died.  The other track that stands out is “Love is the Subject” which has a harder more abrupt sound that is actually a bit premature for that style and sounds quite funky for this album.

Lyrically, the cleverest song (and one that seems to foreshadow their future songs is “Domesticated Blind” “Making babies, buying houses.  A French guy’s name is on our trousers.  We used to be such rabble rousers.  Before the world revolved around us; I’ve been domesticated blind”

I like this album, but I admit that it’s not the kind of disc that makes people go, “Ooh, who is this?  I want to get it!”

[READ: September 12, 2010] “Vogalooooonga”

This is the last of the Outside pieces that Tower wrote (not chronologically, just for my reading schedule).  And I’m really pleased that I saved it for last.

It does what Tower does best: tell a story while relating an event.  In fact, if he just changed a few details, this would make a great short story.

Wells and his brother have apparently been on many “assignments” together, and it transpires that when they travel together they often end up at each others throats.  So the piece opens with them agreeing to never do another story together again.  Then they get a call to go to Venice together to ride in the Vogalonga, “a 19-mile noncompetitive rowing regatta, held in late May, that promises a breathtaking tour of the old republic’s lagoon and outer islands” and that is traversed only in vehicles that can be paddled.  Wells’ brother says that they can’t pass up a trip to Venice, so he agrees to go along.

Based on the other stories that Wells has written, he is an athletic guy (and his brother is evidently bigger and stronger than he is).  Nevertheless, a 19 mile canoe trip in the canals of Venice can only lead to trouble.

And so this piece reads a bit like a David Sedaris story of familial in-fighting (although it’s a lot more manly than any of Sedaris’ pieces).  They fight from the get go (including his brother’s suggestion that they assemble their 17-foot canoe in their 10-foot hotel room.  And aggressive hilarity ensues. (more…)

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Beloved Canadians The Kids in the Hall who were hilarious for five years on their skit show (and who ended their reign while still being very funny) have returned to TV after a sixteen year hiatus (not including their underrated movie Brain Candy and their awesome live tours, naturally).

I was beside myself with excitement when I found out about this show (and I’m rather vexed that I didn’t hear about it until it showed up on IFC recently.  Although I suppose if I had known about it sooner, there’s no way I could have watched it anyhow).   I was also kind of surprised at how little I knew about the show before it started.  How many episodes were there for instance?

So, the details (now that the show has finished its run on IFC, with repeats to come, no doubt): It is an 8 episode mini-series.  All of the Kids are in the show, and they each play multiple roles (although the opening credits and promo stuff suggest that they each play one character).  They play:

Bruce:  Mayor Bowman, “Big City” Lawyer (one of my favorites on the show), and Ricky (an obese man).
Dave: Mrs Bowman, Levon Blanchard (news producer), Dr Porterhouse (The town abortionist), and a wonderfully ambiguously accented, where-the-hell-is-she-from? nurse (my favorite minor character by far).
Kevin: Marnie (a forgetful, middle aged woman), Shaye (the news teams’ sound guy and hipster) and Sam Murray (depressed cat loving DA).
Scott: Crim Hollingsworth (1/16th Native and a great performance by Scott), Heather Weather (the TV weather woman), and Dusty Diamond (town coroner).
Mark: Corrinda Gablechuck (anchorwoman), The Judge, and the titular Death.
Bruce & Mark also play cops, like in the old series.

There are also other actors in the series, and (according to post show interviews) a lot of the locals from Shuckton, Ontario (which is really North Bay) were used as extras.

I admit that I was a little disappointed in the first episode. After the non-stop hilarity of the skit show, this one took some time to get going.  Exposition is a bitch.  But there’s enough humor (the opening with Bruce’s CGI bid for the 2028 Olympics, Death’s arrival on a kids’ bicycle (with a motor), and Dave as the drunken mayor’s wife) to keep the show interesting.

Once the exposition is out of the way though, the story is just fantastic and very funny. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: ODDS-Bedbugs (1993).

This CD features the minor “novelty” hit “Heterosexual Man” (the video featured some of the Kids in the Hall in it).

This disc feels like a big step forward from their first disc.  It isn’t radically different, but it feels more accomplished and maybe more confident.

The bluesy tracks feel bluesier (“Car Crash Love”), the rocking tracks feel more rocking (“The Little Death”) and the acoustic songs feels more substantial (“What I Don’t Want”/”Fingertips”) with really nice harmonies.

And of course, there’s “Heterosexual Man” a great, funny rocker with a fantastic sing-along chorus.  Odds are still doing poppy, slightly alternative rock, but they’ve simply gotten better at it.

[READ: September 13 2010] Light Boxes

I received this book from the Penguin Mini at BEA.  It’s been sitting on my shelf tempting me since then and I decided that I would give it a read (even though I am anxious to start the two books that are next on my list).  Well, it was certainly a good book to read first as it is even shorter (and faster) than its tiny size suggests (it’s 150 pages).

I’d never heard of Shane Jones before (he’s a poet and this is his first novel), but the premise sounded so intriguing: a small town is experiencing perpetual February (going on some 900 days now).  It is cold and dark and depressing and for many, sunlight is but a distant memory.

And plotwise, the story is interesting: a spirit/god/being (let’s call him February) is playing tricks on the townsfolk to keep them in this state of February.  He convinces them that someone in town (let’s call him February) is causing the perpetual cold.  He also seems to be inspiring the town’s children to go missing.  And all of this is a punishment for men’s attempts at flight: kites, balloons, even birds are now verboten (and the priests enforce the rule). (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: Week of September 13, 2010] Ulysses

Episode 15 is a huge one, so I finished up that and 16 this week.

One thing I noted about Episode 15 is that in this section:

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot, Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!

the texts that are printed backwards are played as the forward recording flipped in reverse.  It was a cool effect.

I really didn’t enjoy Episode 16 while I was reading it.  I felt it was overly long and perhaps too focused on the mis-named sailor.  Plus, I was really looking forward to Episode 17 (which is my favorite).  But this time, with someone else reading the hard words, I was able to appreciate quite a lot more about this Episode.

Lar’s comments about Skin-the Goat also helped to give some background to this odd character.  And this leads me to a question that I sort of thought about while reading, but which comes up a lot more for me in this listen:  Joyce’s opinion of Ireland and of Irish independence.  The Citizen in the earlier episode was all about the Irish language and Gaelic sports.  And now in this Episode there is a lot of talk about Parnell returning.  Was this all included because it is what old men in Dublin talked in Dublin in 1904, or was it something that Joyce had a vested interest in (even while he was living in Paris where he wrote the book).  [I could investigate this, but that seems like an awful lot of work.] (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: LUTHER WRIGHT AND THE WRONGS-instrumentality (2006).

I loved Luther’s Rebuild the Wall, and I kind of thought of him as country, but not really country.  A sort of punky country (his song “Broken Fucking Heart” lead me in that direction, too).

But this album is all instrumentals (hence the title) and it’s very traditional bluegrass/banjo-fueled tracks.   Eleven tracks in all (totaling about 22 minutes).  There’s even a cover of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”  Listening to this I realized that I like banjo music (not as my favorite type mind you, but certainly more than a little).  Steve Martin (an excellent banjoist himself) once said:

“You just can’t sing a depressing song when you’re playing the banjo. You can’t go– [grins, plays and sings] “Oh, murder and death and grief and sorrow!”

And there’s something to be said for that.  With this fun collection of mostly 2 minutes songs, you’ll smile for twenty minutes or so.  (And the playing is top notch, too).

[READ: September 11, 2010] Handle Time

When I wrote about One Night @ the Call Center, several readers said I must read Handle Time, that it was the consummate Call Center novel and that it was much better than One Night.  So I tried to find it.  No libraries in New Jersey carried it.  And although I could get it at Amazon, there was precious little other information about it.  Well, I finally decided to add it to our library collection (so I didn’t have to pay for it) and to read it for myself.

My first surprise came when the first line of the text has the word embarrassed written in a super large font.  The font is so large in fact that it put a pretty sizable space between the lines of text (that’s called leading).  My second surprise came when I saw that littered throughout the text were a whole bunch of large words and crazy fonts and a bunch of clip art pictures that showed what was happening.  (I was especially surprised when one of them turned out to be Mr Burns from The Simpsons!).

So it turns out that there are different fonts throughout the book, some of them large and crazy, others fancy and scripty.  But the long and short of it is that this book is really only about 50 pages long (I mean I read the entire 188 pages in about 2 hours).

Okay, but what about the content.  Well the plot itself is fairly brief.  Chase gets a job at a call center.  She sits through orientation, begins working, gets demoralized and has a panic attack about her job.  That’s pretty much it.  But really what you read the book for is for the side bits, the comments, the snark, the sympathizing with call center workers.

Except that I’ve never worked in a call center and yet I have experienced many of the things in the novel.  So, this book, much loved by call center workers, could be about pretty much any shit job (except for the part about keeping your numbers up (and the part about not actually helping people because it skews your average handle time)).  But bad cafeterias, microwaves, bizarre HR nonsense, stupid powerpoints, they’re part of any corporate job.  And she does a good job in skewering them, they’re just not specific to call centers.   (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: ATTACK ATTACK!-“Stick Stickly” (2010).

I discovered this video (again, considerably later than the controversy for it) because my friend Rich said he didn’t know there was a genre called “crabcore.”  A search for crabcore suggests that it is a goof “genre” named specifically for this band and the goofy way they dance around.

This song starts with very heavy riffing and some growls and screaming and then jumps quickly into an auto-tuned very catchy chorus (they sound like a more polished and poppy version of Alexisonfire).

Then comes the verses which are screamed very loudly and heavily followed by a bridge (?) that is even more cookie monster-vocals like (with a strange cartoon effect thrown at the end of each line of the chorus).  It’s almost like commercial death metal, and I kind of liked it.  They’re pushing boundaries

Then there’s more chugga chugga heavy riffing and the song is reaching the end and then WHAT? the songs shifts gears into a keyboard fueled discoey dance song.  First it’s hi energy and then it slows into a mellow auto-tuned bit that proceeds to the end.

What the hell?  I’m all for a band pushing the boundaries of genres, but holy cow.  And just to add one more gimmick, they’re a Christian band as well (although you’d never know from the lyrics, whatever the hell he’s singing about).  This is no “Jesus is My Friend,” let me tell you.

So yea, I don’t really know what to make of it. The video makes me laugh with their all black outfits and synchronized everything–and that may be why they have replaced it with a new video which is much more boring.  I assume they’re just anther trendy band that will disappear soon enough (there’s a lot of snarky fun at their expense at this definition of “crabcore“).

I don’t have a clue what the title is supposed to mean, nor half of their other titles on the album: “Fumbles O’Brian” “Renob, Nevada.”  I listened to some samples of the other songs and they seem far more dancey/discoey than death metal, so I’m not really sure what’s up with the rest of the record.

But whatever.  In the meantime, enjoy the silly video

[READ: July–September 10, 2010] K Blows Top

I heard about this book through a great interview on NPR in June of 2009.  It sounded like a really funny book and I was seriously considering reading it.  Of course, then I forgot about it.

About 8 months later, the library received a huge donation of books, and this was right on top, just begging me to read it.  So, I saved it for myself and decided it was about time to crack it open.  Several months after that I finally opened it and was totally hooked.

I didn’t know much about Khrushchev before reading this.  I knew vaguely about “the shoe” incident, but that was it.  In fact, the whole beginning of the cold war era was a bit of a mystery to me.  Since I lived through Reagan, I never felt compelled to find out what had caused the 80s.

But I’m super glad that I read this.  The book follows Khrushchev’s visits to the United States when he was premiere of  the Soviet Union. Carlson combed through tons of newspaper reports about his visit here (ostensibly to visit with Eisenhower, but more just to enjoy himself in the American heartland), and pulls together a fascinating story from a number of sources.

But more than just an interesting look at history, this book is very funny. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: STUYVESANT-Jihad Me at Hello (2010).

Stuyvesant (one of the hardest band names to spell) is an amalgam of the defunct New Jersey bands Footstone and Friends, Romans, Countrymen.  And so, as you might expect if you know these other bands, they play noisy rock with a healthy dose of pop.

The opener, “Bi-Polar Bears” is a great example of their punky pop (complete with an unexpected horn section).  The second track, “Tape Hiss” sounds like Footstone (Ralphie’s voice is very distinct here) although the “do-do-do” harmonies are something new to the sound.

There’s more surprise from a major break in “Ode to Bish” which features a “waka jawacka” guitar and a horn solo.  “Liars Poker” also features some cool bass vocal harmonies (something of a rare treat in rock music).

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the slow opening of “Broken Red Wing.”  I was pleasantly surprised that after the slow opening, it did not jump quickly into a song that sounded like the rest on the disc.  Guitars kick in but they are not the same crunchy style.  The track shows an unexpected diversity on the disc.

While I have enjoyed both the Footstone and FRC releases, I think this conflation of the two makes for the best overall package.  It’s a great EP, and I’m looking forward to the full length.  This EP is available for free.  That’s right, for free.  So even if you hate it, you can still download it for free.  In any format, and then you can burn it to a CD, in the format that music is meant to be enjoyed.

[READ: September 8, 2010] “The Landlord”

Wells Tower is another 20 Under 40.  I’ve enjoyed the few short stories(although I haven’t read his collection yet) and the non-fiction he’s written for Outside magazine.

This story feels like an excerpt from a longer piece because there are a lot of different characters who seem like there’s more to them.

The main character is the landlord, Mr Pruitt.  He owns a lot of properties, but in the current market he has had to sell a number of them.  And, of course, his tenants are paying him less and less frequently.  As the story opens we meet one of those tenants, Armando Colón, who is three months overdue.  Armando has a solution to his problem which he presents to Mr Pruitt.  When Armando leaves, Mr Pruitt’s worker, Todd Toole mocks him for letting people fuck him over. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: BELLE & SEBASTIAN-“Write About Love” (2010).

This single was released on the bands website on September 7th.  The first 20,000 visitors were able to get a free download.  By the time I’d heard about it (3PM) it was long gone.  But the streaming version is still there.

This song continues in that “groovy” vibe that they’ve been indulging in with the last few listens.  It’s far afield from their earlier, more mellow/acoustic sound, and it features some loud organ and solid guitar lines.  Although I really like the early B&S, I’m also quite fond of this later, louder material, and I think it makes for a well-rounded band.

The song is a duet with Carey Mulligan (who I don’t know, but she was in An Education which I haven’t seen).  B&S have always found great melodies for their songs, and this one is no exception. Even with this more rocking sound, they still haven’t lost their sense of songcraft.

I can’t seem to embed the song, so here’s a link: http://www.belleandsebastian.com/newsstory.php?id=515.

[READ: September 7, 2010] Pinky & Stinky

This is the third book that Sarah received for her birthday.  I’m not sure why I put off looking at it until now, but it was worth the wait.

This is a fanciful graphic novel about two pigs who are sent into space.  I’ve always thought that Kochalka’s drawings were simple/sloppy.  But this book shows them to be not at all sloppy, and perhaps deceptively simple.  Because even though the main characters are cute pigs with very few lines, and (once they get to the moon) the moon men are basically hands, the drawings are consistent and are all quite good (hands are definitely not easy to draw).

But on to the plot…. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-LivePhish 11.14.95 University of Central Florida Arena, Orlando FL (1995).

I have a number of these LivePhish discs.  They are universally solid releases (all from soundboards, I believe, which, have they really been recording all of their shows since like forever?).  And it’s fun to hear Phish totally jam out on a few of their more meandering songs.

One of the most interesting aspects of the series is that they almost always throw in a cover song (on Halloween, they cover an entire album by another band).

I haven’t really mentioned any of these releases because there’s usually not much to say about them: you either like Phish live or you don’t.  But this one is notable for being particularly odd.

They do an a cappella song in the first set–typically if they do an a capella track it is as an encore or the intro of the second set, but this one is right there in the beginning.

The end of the set also had the only instance (of the shows that I have) where Trey explains the audience chess match.  Many of the recordings open up set two with an audience chess move.  In this case, Trey explains that they have been playing chess with the audience at each show.  Phish is white, the audience is black and anyone who wants to just has to go to the Greenpeace booth to play a move…I have no idea how they would choose who gets to play the final decision.

There’s some other odd things in the show. “The Divided Sky” features one of the prettiest solos that Trey plays.  In this show there is a very long pause between the end of the first half of the solo and the beginning of the second.  The crowd cheers quite a bit during the pause, but we the listeners, have no idea what happened.

And then there is the extra long rendition of “Stash.”  It’s broken into three sections.  The first one features a fun audience response guitar solo.  And in this instance, he plays it in a much more staccato style.  The middle one features a bizarre percussion type solo.  And the third features a rendition of “Dog Faced Boy” which is not sung to the appropriate music, rather, the keyboards just play simple, unrelated chords while Trey sings.

Set two ends with a wonderful rendition of “You Enjoy Myself” that ends in their bizarro screaming and grunting.  You’ll get funny looks listening to that loudly.

So this set is a good one, and it stands out as unique among the others for being so darn bizarre.

[READ: June 27, 2010] The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To

I’m always bummed to read a prepub after it gets published.  Sigh.

Sarah told me that I’d love this book and she was correct.  It’s about a misfit high school boy who draws pictures and draws them really well.  Despite this talent, he is not lauded by the cool kids in his class (the kid who draws licensed characters holding joints is lauded by the cool kids).

He’s also kind of defensive about his drawing, because he gets tired of people asking him what he’s drawing.  Especially when they think that he’s just doodling.  But then one day Eric Lederer asks him what he’s drawing.  He and Eric have never talked.  In fact, he doesn’t think anyone talks to Eric.  Eric’s THAT kind of weird.

And what our narrator realizes is especially weird about Eric is that he is standing really really still: “No one stands this awkwardly sure of themselves except characters in my drawings staring straight ahead with their arms at their sides” (8).  And with that awesome detail I fell in love with the book. (more…)

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