for fun!

thought i'd make a blingee

RE: american idolz

So last week I put a post up letting people know I'd be sharing the stage with Official American Idol Taylor Hicks. I was nice. I didn't go off on a rant about the insanity and shallowness that IS American Idol, or the fact that a show centered around creating music as a commodity is the antithesis of what MUSIC IS. No. I was nice. I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt ... and I wouldn't even feel compelled to write this post if not for this comment left in the last post ...

For the sake of women of every age in America, plez post the after-effects of your experience with His Hotness. OK?

Well, here's my experience; Taylor Hicks is a joke-ass has-been without a lick of confidence in his being.

But why? Why the hate? Well... not so much hate as disgust. Disgust at seeing a man who does have some base talent letting "The Business" utterly consume him. Allowing the paranoia in to a point of insecurity that results in a decision to NOT ALLOW THE OPENING BAND TO HAVE HORNS.
What?
Yes.
Apparently Taylor Hicks and management had nothing better to occupy their time with then to literally stop our group from playing with all members. Let me explain; We are an nonet, standard rhythm section (2 guitars), singer plus 3 horns. For some reason this fact caused great agitation amongst the Hicks management team prompting the head honcho to shout "Either they play as a 5 piece or they DON'T PLAY AT ALL". So, politics always wins over common sense and the production team got in line and did whatever this LA dickhead asked. Which was not allowing me and the trumpet player on stage as well as making sure the bands' level was much much lower than Hicks (I'm aware this is a common practice in clubs, to boost the overall sound level with each opener so that the headliner is loudest but this was some overtly rude behavior, telling the sound guy what to do, etc).

To me, these are the signs of a bloated tick in his death throws. A sort-of "If I'm going down, I'm taking everyone with me" attitude. I can say unequivocally that this irrational action is the cause of great insecurity by everyone in the Hicks camp. Because as Hicks' popularity wanes, so does their chance of steady employment. They have watched their empire crumble into the hollowed state it is today. Once filling 1000+ halls, Hicks is now lucky to fill a 300+ room which is a fate I surely do not envy. But it is a fate brought on by cheaply attained fame. Surely, the winner of a popularity contest cannot hope to retain the fame and glory of that prize forever. As anyone living in America is aware, the appetite for "new" and "different" (even if it just a topical difference with no real change underneath) by Americans is insatiable. When you're product is less based on art then "what sells" and you're career is determined by record label execs and phone-in votes all I can ask is: What do you expect?

Still, this does not excuse the behavior we encountered. Merely because our band was BIGGER (read: not better) we were reduced in order to ensure that Hicks would shine with all the shimmer of an oil soaked otter on an Alaskan beach. I wish those guys best-of-luck but hope to never have anything to do with them ever again.


oh. and ... YAY FOR NO MORE PRESIDENT CHUMPS-A-LOT! YAY FOR PRESIDENT HOPES-A-LOT!

WOOT!

So Barry Obama is our president, officially. And he screwed up the oath of office! Good thing the oath doesn't matter because he was technically President during that catchy John Williams tune. That tune was actually just a variation on Variations of a Shaker Melody. Not a good time to plagiarize dooder.

folks love injured musicians

The Onion's Decider talked with a bunch of Chicago Reggae peeps including yours truly and MC Zulu ... and seriously, I mentioned the injuries cause HE ASKED ME ... I'm not trying to play the sympathy card ... read all about it.

And remember me mentioning about printing a handful of shirts for the Drastics' first show back? Well here they are ... some obviously better then others, but the whole thing was an experiment ... Only got about 10 left of the initial 20 ...

american idolz

Yeah, that's right. Your favorite Bluntest Editor-in-Chief is gonna be sharing the stage this Saturday night at Martyrs with the Official American Idol Taylor Hicks. Playing horn in the opening band "The Hemispheres" of whom I play with on a regular-ish basis. Anyway, it's come to my attention that this guy might (?) be known for his cover of a Paul Pena tune "Gonna Move". Well, regardless of this connection and how good or bad Mr. Hicks version is (I've never heard it so cannot judge it) the original is one piece of deep hot soul. Seriously, turn yer speakers up and enjoy a whiff of summer in the winter ...



And here's some more of the funk side ... JB doing an certified funky version of Bobby Hebb's masterpiece "Sunny". (1:38 = AWESOME) Of course, this is quite a departure of the original sentiment of the song ... written 2 days after the JFK assassination and 1 day after Hebb's older brother was knifed to death ...



and what the hell ... here's Marvin Gaye's version not released until recently ... from the Motown years fosho!

Nightmare on My Street

So i am just chillin at home tonight when i hear a loud BANG and while i am wondering "WTF was that?", my roommate Scott knocks on my bedroom door and says "Hey man, did you hear that? A car just crashed into our building!"







The End.

the greatest 3 minutes of your life

or
Health Club ads in Russia are OUT!
or
Pirate themed health clubs just never caught on
or
Russia should never have appointed a naval commander "Head of Health and Human Services"

this is your internet

lookin' ball show :: volume 13

sobering images
spooky image
interesting image
political image
racist image (from Spain's "Parade of the 3 Wise Men")
obligatory obama image
cute girl with records image
burkina faso health clinic image

cause lube ain't cheap

Check out this hilariously awful article from NY Daily News. Almost every paragraph (and I use the word "paragraph" very loosely here) ends with "according to TMZ". I'm wondering if the "writer" didn't want the credit or just had a journalism prof that beat the use of citations into his headbrain.

In addition, I will apologize for my lack of posting ... I actually had a 2 week holiday from work and spent most of that time NOT looking at computers. Instead I did a bunch of art-projecty stuff like making crazy colored tshirts for the first Drastics show in 6 months. I wanna get photos up 'cause I made about 8 different color schemes on 4 different colored shirts. WILD! Then I ended up playing keys for Deals Gone Bad on New Years Eve but they asked me 2 days before the date so I had to cram-learn near 2 hours of music on an instrument I haven't touched in 6 months. Then I drank half a bottle of Makers Mark.

Also, MST3k fans should be familiar with "Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell" which as Crow groans at the top of the movie "ohhh no ... this must be a sequel to something". Indeed it is! DATWFH is actually the third movie in a series of 4 awful low-budget Argentinian sword & sandal films following on the success of Conan. I wish I had a point .........

Porkin'!

Everything should taste like bacon
(Courtesy of P-Boss)

Saw this on the back of a truck driving down Grand.

GUPTA GUPTA GUPTA!!!!

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta was approached by the White House to be the next surgeon general. Why is this a big deal?

So I can bring back this. I thought that was a funny post. (Note the part where I criticize CNN for burying an article warning of a recession. I'm awesome!) Anyway, the Gupta Squad might be running America's cigarette warning agency or something.

Ooh - I get to use the "Gupta" tag again!

PBS Explosion!

A secret, never before seen, unaired episode of Chicago's favorite restaurant review television show "Check Please!" will be broadcasting January 16th featuring your very own President-elect BARACK OBAMA!!!!!

What OJ should've done

My first impulse was to run up on you and do a Rambo, whip out the jammy and flat blast both of you . . . but I chilled (It gets pretty good at 2:20, though some of the dance moves with the guys in tuxes are eerily similar to the dancing old guy at the Jackson stop)

(Provided by P-Boss)

Catch the Wave

Hey, the eighties were a pretty weird time to be alive, right? What with the kids and their mall hair and their color-changing shirts and their angry hip hop music?

But the decade provide us with at least one thing that was undeniably awesome: Max Headroom



Here in the States, we mostly know Max from coke commercials and a short-lived (but kind of cool) TV series, but he had been a celebrity character in the UK for a few years before as a host to a music channel. But let me be honest, if you have no idea who Max Headroom was, you should probably stop reading now cause its about to get weirder.

On November 22, 1987, during WGN's News At Nine, the station's broadcast signal was interrupted and replaced with an image of a dude in a Max Headroom mask. No audio, just the image. The station switched their studio link and everything was back to normal.



But not for long. Later that night, the PBS channel WTTW was broadcasting an episode of Doctor Who when Headroom gave it another shot. This time the hijack included audio and lasted for about 90 seconds before it was cut off. I would try to describe it but words cannot do justice to the level of weirdness going on here



The man responsible for the hijacking was never caught.

This was the last broadcast television intrusion in American history.