Joe Greenlight

Something for the Weekend 11/18

'Choons: You have 7 days to grab 'em.  'Cause after that, we're making room for turkey and stuffing.  And pie.

Something New: Rick Rubin does it again.  This time, giving Neil Diamond--yes, that Neil Diamond--the Def American treatment. The result is something that sounds like maybe the best album he's ever done.  Hear 12 Songs from start to finish at his myspace page, here "Delirious Love" right here.

Something Old: Does Lou Rawls need to choke a bitch? I didn't think so.  "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" is right here.  Mmm-hm.

Something Christmassy: Four words: Anita Baker Christmas album.  "Christmas Time Is Here", you know.

Something Scottish: K.T. Tunstall's debut disc Eye to the Telescope was called the album of the year by Chris Evans.  How can I argue with that?  And she's Scottish.   Have a wee listen to "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree".

Something to Eat: This weekend, I will mostly be eating homemade salsa.

Something to Drink: So help me, I'm gonna crack some damn skulls if my bar of choice does not put Bass back on tap.  It's as if they're telling me, "Your kind is not welcome here.  Your 1am routine of dancing on top of the bar will no longer be tolerated.  How old are you now?  Shouldn't you be getting on with your life?  And why do you and Andy always talk soccer?  Do you do that to piss everyone off?  And why do you always wear black or navy blue?  I thought you were taking that job in Toledo.  What happened there?  And do you know every goddamned song ever recorded?  Do you realize how many man-hours are lost at this bar from employees calling your ass up to ID a song that comes over the speakers?  It's like Millionaire was still on TV or something.  And hear it clear...no one, no one likes it when you and Rodney talk politics.  I mean, we can't even keep the fuck up.  And we know Newcastle Brown Ale upsets your stomach.  That's why it's not going anywhere.  So please.  Just leave now.  Oh, that'll be 11-50."

Something to Do: It's gonna be a long weekend. I'll just leave it at that.

Something to Watch: Walk The Line looks excellent.  The usual Adult Swim fare is also up for grabs.  There's a new Harry Potter movie out there.  John McCain's on Letterman tonight.  Hopefully Dave will shut the hell up long enough to let J-Mac do his thing.  Whoever told Dave he should start courting Jon Stewart's Daily Show viewers by getting political should be fired or reassigned.   It all looks forced to me.  (Dave rant over)

Something Obvious: Money can buy you happiness.  The Japanese are never wrong on this kind of stuff.

Something Shocking: Roy Keane, bu-bye from Manchester United.  Terrell Owens has been a saint compared to Keano.  Andy and I will be boring people to death on this subject later tonight.

Something Shocking Part Two: Match.com and Yahoo is t3h fraudz!  Besides, everyone knows the best way to get a date these days is by starting your own socialist revolution/band.  Maybe he can get together with Rhonda.

Something Quotable: "Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times."--St. Augustine

Item, repeat item, italicize

Wide Awake, Not Sleeping: I've long held the position that decaffeinated anything is a buzzkill society would be better off without.  Now there's a big steaming cup of science to back me up. Yes, decaffeinated coffee is officially dodgy. Specifically, most decaf coffee is made from fattier beans than "leaded" coffee, as it were.  When you try to make a healthier version of something, there's always, always a trade-off.  There's just no getting ahead.   Unless you have allergies or violent IBS, may as well enjoy the originals in moderation.  At least that way, the only side-effects you have to worry about are a result of your own excess, which light and healthy versions tend to encourage anyway.  Who hasn't said, "Oh, these are Lite Mini-Muffins, I can eat eleventeen of them!"

On a related note, I've had it with the Splenda.  Makes my green tea taste like sewer.  May look into the Stevia.

Now Al Gore Can Watch Me Steal Music: You've lost the last two presidential elections, and you're the minority party in both houses.   What's a Democratic party gotta do to get votes?  A free toaster with every new account?  A chicken in every pot?  (Pot in every chicken?)  Better than that: cheap interwebs in every home!  I can hear Ohio turning blue-state right now.  Look, regardless of what party you're aligned with, making the federal government your ISP is a bad, bad idea.  Don't believe Nancy "Screeching Weasel" Pelosi when she says universal broadband "will put all Americans, no matter where they live, no more than a keystroke or a mouse click away from the jobs and opportunity broadband both creates and supports".  Um, replace "jobs" and "opportunity" with "p0rn" and "eBay".  While you're at it, just back up a truckload of beer and pizza to my doorstep and I'll collect unemployment while I download "job applications" all day.

Granted, I see where they're going with this.  And it's actually well-intentioned.  More than a few elephants will cross the aisle on this one (paging Mr. Specter).  But like any proposed universal service, it's doomed to fail.  Bill Gates would be all over universal healthcare, but universal internet?  Bush would have to launch a Fallujah-style takeover of Redmond, WA before that happens.  Never mind the hell Sprint, Verizon and SBC/Yahoo would raise.  Trust me, Dems, you don't wanna go there.  Besides, now that Bush is pissing off conservatives as well as liberals, you actually have a chance.

Roo The Day: Congratulations to Australia, who after years of soccer misery, have finally qualified for a World Cup, beating Uruguay last night on penalty kicks.  The Socceroos have been Cub-like in their World Cup qualifying failure, although to be fair, they've had to battle Argentina more often than not to get out of their group, itself a geographical hodgepodge.  The last time Oz was in a World Cup was 1974, also in Germany.  They will be a sentimental favorite of many, and besides, anytime Australia's invited to a world party, you know, you just know it's gonna rock.  Even though it's not his brand of footy, I wonder what Reg Reagan thinks of all this.

Bad Monkey!  Bad!: Paris Hilton has a bad monkey.  Oh, Paris.  What the hell are we going to do with you?  It's bad enough that you've mastered your one single solitary facial expression, now you've gone all Ross Geller on us.  Why can't you do it?  Why can't you set your monkey free?  Plus, you're always, always giving into it.  Tell me, Paris, do you love your monkey, or do you love me?   Actually, don't answer that.  I've seen your work.

And in other rich beeotch news, Paris and her Greek shipping heir boyfriend had a pillow fight.  His last name, upon a glance, kinda looks like "Nachos", but it's not.  (Hmmm...Greek nachos...with feta cheese?)

Speaking Of Ross' Ex: Rachel Green named GQ's Man of the Year, flabby man-boobs and all.  I'm...I'm all confused now.

Good Monkey: The Blow Monkeys "Digging Your Scene".  Mon-kay.

The worldwide leader in slow

Four-Letter Turtles: Let's go back in time.  Earlier this year, when the Four Letter Network removed Kit Hoover and Thea Andrews from Cold Pizza, I launched a boycott campaign on this here blog and in turn sent a complaint to the Four-Letter.  This was February?  March?  It seems like ancient history.  JUST NOW, whichever monkey is in charge of emptying the comments fishbowl at the Four-Letter, has gotten around to responding to my rant:

Thank you for contacting Cold Pizza...the morning show with everything! We appreciate your feedback and will get back to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to browse our web site at http://www.coldpizza.tv for the latest show information. Related links to story segments will be available in the Archive area.

Thanks again for watching Cold Pizza on ESPN2!

That automated PR spew took eight fucking months to deliver.  Thanks a million, Bristol bastards.  For the record, I couldn't tell you what Cold Pizza looks like now.  For all I know, Cold Pizza is now hosted by a goat, two chickens and Stuart Scott's lazy eye.  ESPN Hollywood, while it does feature the lovely Thea Andrews, is ET-light for sure.  Whither Kit?

It's Just Like Watching a Dynasty: Robert Kraft, the greatest owner in professional sports, is set to buy into Liverpool FC, champions of Europe?  My two favorite football teams owned by the same guy?  Mr. Kraft running the Reds...can you imagine?  Is there a Premiership version of Bill Belichick out there somewhere?  The mind spins.

Help Me FEMA, You're My Only Hope: Random thoughts while I wait for a tornado to level my workplace:

--Does anyone find it surreal that terrorists are targeting KFC restaurants in Pakistan?

--How cool is it to be sued by a country?  Ask Sasha Cohen, aka Ali G, aka faux-Kazakhstani buffoon Borat.

--Indians versus Jews.  Excellent.  No nukes, but there might be a few long bombs.  My money's on the historically oppressed team.

--The penalty for knocking over 23-thousand dominoes?  The death.

--You've heard the Ying Yang Twins (dirty nasties from tha ATL), now get a load of the Bing Bong Brothers.  On second, thought, "load" is a poor choice of words here.

--I've heard of drinking your Thanksgiving dinner, but this is out of hand.

Before I Descend Into the Storm Shelter: Grab some free music.   Rip Rig and Panic "You're My Kind of Climate", a great big brassy down-and-dirty batch of chaos.  (Young Ones fans will remember this one.  And yes, that is Neneh Cherry on vocals.)

Let the rain fall, I don't care

This Doesn't Suck: AOL.com is launching its own suite of broadband networks that will feature, among other things, on-demand reruns of some 100 classic TV shows, like Welcome Back Kotter, Chico and the Man, Growing Pains and F-Troop.  Other networks will be devoted to interactive games, action shows (like Kung-Fu), "Heroes and Horrors" and a channel called "Dramarama", which sadly will have nothing to do with the band of the same name, but should.   This is long overdue.  How long has it taken the interwebs to figure out that the computer monitor has replaced TV as the new boob tube?  Sure, there's piracy and security concerns, but it's just like the music biz.  They sat on this idea so long that it created "on-demand demand" (I call it ODD), which, in turn, forced people into filesharing.  Had a major studio launched this just as broadband was starting to proliferate (free or otherwise), filesharing of shows would be a tenth of what it is now.  Classic "if you can't beat them, join them" business philosophy.

Rupert Murdoch Said So: Unless I'm misreading this, I think this means Fox is encouraging viewers to share their programs.  Sure, they prefer videotape, but legally, I don't think it matters how you share, say, last night's episode of Family Guy...the network gives you its blessing.  I wonder how long we'll see this up on the website.   Apparently Arrested Development wasn't shared enough. 

Chandler's Dad Is Not Drunk: This gives you a pretty good sense of how messed up Hollywood's priorities are: Kathleen Turner let people think she was an alcoholic rather than reveal she was suffering from arthritis.  Says Kath, "They always hire drunks, all the time. But they wouldn't hire someone with a disease they didn't understand."  Turner said once people started noticing her dropping things (due to the swollen hands), the rumor got started that she was a lush.  With puffy, swollen hands, apparently.  In a way, I can relate to this.  I would much rather people think I was an alcoholic than let on that I really really like Taco Bell and burritos as big as my head.

Oh My: For people who like to move with their music, there's this handy iPod accessory.  Other than some crude jokes about the size of my playlist, I got nothin'.

Monday Downloadable Thing: Jack's Mannequin is the side-project of Something Corporate frontman Andrew McMahon.  As mannequins go, this one's pretty full of life.  From Everything in Transit, book a "Holiday From Real".  It's as if these are the songs that Andrew wants to do with SoCo, but they're too personal.  This is what solo projects are for, I suppose.

Something for the Weekend 11/11

'Choons: Grab them while you can, because a week from now, they'll be set ablaze by les jeunesses de banlieu.

Something New: I can't stop a-ravin' about the Cardigans' latest, Super Extra Gravity.  For fans who found themselves bewildered by their last album, the shockingly stripped down Long Gone Before Daylight, this new collection marks a return to form.  If all you know of the Cardigans is Gran Turismo, there's enough here for you as well.  Try on "Godspell" for size, and note the quality and comfort.  Looks good on you, doesn't it?

Something Old: Keeping with the theme of vocalists called "Nina", I thought this would be a good weekend to drop some Nina Simone on ya.  Bust some damn rocks to "Work Song".  And be quick about it.  These rocks/spreadsheets don't bust themselves, ya know.

Something Covered: Herbie Hancock, master of some sort of 88-keyed-thing, released a duets album, Possibilities, back in August.  I'm way late on this soul train.  After stumbling upon a John Mayer duet called "Stitched Up", I turned a co-worker on to it.  He rushed out and bought it before I could steal buy it, and thus, I burned it.  On the same disc, rather voyeuristically, is the presence of Carlos Santana, who only wishes his previous duet cerveza-coasters were as rich (his fascination with Michelle Branch a tad unfortunate).  The cover in question is "When Love Comes To Town", well-done by relative musical moppets Jonny Lang and Joss Stone, both, though their voices would tell otherwise, Caucasian. 

Something Else Covered, Junior Varsity Division: Canadian lovely-noise-maker "Leslie" Feist puts the Bee Gees to shame with her coverage of "Inside and Out".  If I were Maurice Gibb, I'd have died too, 'cause this is just that good.

Something to Eat: This weekend, I will mostly be eating dessert.

Something to Drink: I'll be spending much of the weekend outside and/or cold.  So hot tea it is.

Something to Watch: I'll be forced to sleep through tonight's Friday Night Fix window, so I'll have to catch Boondocks and Squidbillies the old fashioned way.  That copy of Hustle and Flow Keef "discovered" also calls my name this weekend.  And that name is "Leroy".

Something to Salute: Make sure you thank a veteran today (11/11).  Regardless of your stance on current military affairs, the ability to snark freely about it is a direct result of their sacrifices.  There's a reason we celebrate Veterans Day instead of "Sensible Foreign Policy" Day.

Something Funny: Oh, dear.  It's the Silverman girl what's gone and done a movie, then.  Sound career move: wrecking Jimmy Kimmel's home.

Something To Aspire To: All married couples should be like Patriots coach Bill Belichick's:
“Bill's parents, Steve and Jeanette, were welcoming. Visiting them was like watching a TV routine they'd been perfecting over 50 years." –David Halberstam, in his new book about the Super Bowl winning coach-savant, The Education of a Coach.

Something to Remember: The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, you know.  Happy anniversary, Fitz!

Something to Test Drive: Flock.  Flock rocks.  Even in buggy-ass beta mode.

Something Quotable: "If it's wet, keep it dry. If it's dry, keep it wet. If it's not supposed to be there, cut it off."--Dr. Gregory House.  Note: Not a real doctor.