Maybe Tomorrow, Maybe Someday

Know how you hear about something once--and then you're always hearing about it?

This show The Flight of the Conchords was recommended to me only last Friday. Since then? No less than ten recommendations, articles, reviews, raves, insights, gossip, banter, quotes.

From what I can tell from this latest Universe-is-speaking-to-you instance, the comedy is committed and subtle. And about struggling musicians. Who are Kiwis (from New Zealand).

And hell, throw in cheesy Seventies technology and props (soft-focus lens and giant white cigarette microphones), and I'm ever-lovingly yours.

I can't break down and get cable. I just...can't.

Please iTunes. Show me some love. Show me some Bret and Jemaine.

One Baby To Another Says, I'm Lucky To Have Met You

Today in F**k, That Was A Long Time Ago, Wasn't It? I Mean, I Can Remember 1991 Fairly Distinctly And Never Did I Think I'd Read A Who's-Who's Item In The Chicago Tribune About The Baby On The Cover Of Nevermind, Much Less Also Find His Photo On A German Gossip Website...

...Or That I Would Even Be Trawling Websites During the Workday When, Gee, In 1991, I Was Working At An Amiga 2000 In The Memorial Library Basement Computer Lab On A Paper About The Influence Of Madame De Pompadour, Mistress To French King Louis XV, On 18th-Century Fashion.

Hm, that kid hasn't changed much since the photo seventeen years ago (and he's a bit opportunistic about the experience now).

F**k, that was a long time ago...

Jump Back! What's That Sound?

Van Halen announced it is reforming (ha! pun!) for a new tour this fall, with original lead singer David Lee Roth back in the saddle. Or chaps. Assless, graffitti-painted chaps.

Anyway, the lineup is not quite that original, since bassist Michael Anthony--he of the Jack Daniels bass guitar--has gotten the heave-ho.

I don't care about the infighting. I don't care about the undeniable and veritable tidal wave of bad perms that will come out of hiding during this tour.

I just care that the reunion prompted me to find this video and re-watch it (even though I saw it no less than 1,433,709 times during the summer of 1984), and realize I had forgotten all about those canvas, flat-topped painter's caps with the protective neck panels. Damn.

But There's No Stoppin' A Duck And His Beat

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere

It's Called Gratitude (And That's Right) - Vol. 2

Because of Beach time.

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

A Smalle Ode

O septegenarian lady at the gym today,
Why dost thou walk around naked--
Nay, also moisturize your legs
By hoisting one (certainly a most amazing feat)
On to the vanity counter?

Drink Scotch Whisky All Night Long

...And die behind the wheel.

Steely Dan moment. It's the weekend, people.

You Can All Just Kiss Off Into The Air

The routers, LANs, POPs, and T1s of the interweb are aflame these days with the rage of thousands of post-punk, pre-Beck music lovers. Two-kids-and-a-Subaru-Forester-in-Wauwatosa, WI thirtysomethings can agree with still-but-unadmittedly-clinging-to-hipsterhood-in-Ukrainian Village (or Buckhead, or Somerville, or Bay View, or, ugh, Brooklyn):

It sucks that Wendy's is using "Blister In The Sun" in a new commercial campaign to peddle its chili and baked potatoes. Complete with a smug, disaffected Gen X-sounding voiceover.

There's really nothing else to be said. Except that maybe the real estate market bottomed out in Connecticut just when Gordon was ditching the two-car, four-bedroom Colonial for a one-car, five-bedroom with a mud-room and sunken koi pond A-Frame, and when a man's gotta mortgage to pay, he's gotta mortgage to pay.

So, instead, let's remember our wee friend when he was fuzzy-headed and fey and frustrating and the sight of a man playing his drum kit standing up was cool, not two inches of eyeliner and a pierced something-or-other.




This clip, incidentally, is from 1984, exactly when I first heard the name "The Violent Femmes" (in homeroom in the Chem lab and I thought they were an all-female punk band, thereby presaging the Riot Grrrl movement by at least nine years) and the same year that the Wendy's "Where's the Beef" ad was rolled out and Clara Peller ruled cathode ray tubes across the nation.

Which all to say, I feel old.

Pull It On We Got A Tight Fit

Dude. I know how crappy this feels, it was totally this way last week when I was in Banana Republic trying to find a pair of overdyed boot-cut jeans...