Italy is Much More Backward Than Initially Assumed

Gay Street Pride Parade 2

This past 4th of July, we held our second annual Gay Street Pride Parade. Not much to say...the video speaks for itself I guess. I think some of our neighbors were more appreciative this year. Actually, if it wasn't for them, we would have never known our chimney caught fire (we were inside cooking and celebrating). Afterwards we feasted and some of our neighbors gave us deer bologna and hooch.

Happy Birthday!

BBC's Top Gear: Space Shuttle Challenge and Bugatti Veyron Top Speed Test

This is a show on the BBC called Top Gear about cars and it's pretty awesome, even for people that aren't big car guys (like me). Soon you'll be able to catch an American equivalent on the History Channel starring, one of my favorites, Adam Carolla. Hope it will live up to it's British predecessor:

How to Sell Underwear

So I just saw the new Megan Fox Armani Underwear ad (click here for video) and as sexy as it is it just doesn't seem to have that certain something that Kylie Minogue's Agent Provocateur ad had a few years back.

The Adventures of Captain Bored Room

Imagine yourself at this great marketing & merchandising meeting. Word on the street is they're gonna be some BIG changes. "Ohhhhhh"... "Ahhhhhhhhh"... the herd mumbles. This meeting is clouded in mystery and the heads gather, sit down together (behind closed doors) and crumple bottles of water while scrolling their Blackberries. Posterboard is unveiled, efficiencies exploited, technologies justified... "Everyone please welcome to the family, our newest member...."





Claps! Cheers! Hoorah! How 'bout that band, whoa!

Everyone is relieved, excited, some dumb-founded trying to process it, except you, who stands and says,

"Everyone sit the fuck down." You smile on the inside and the slumber party screeches to a halt, awkward at an all time high.

"And keep your tits in your shirt Missy," you jab at the last straggling laugher who happens to be 'high-pitched then snort' laugh lady.

"I asked myself last night to imagine the most ridiculous idea this meeting could be about and it's unfortunate that my wildest dreams won't be coming true..." A grimace at the dashed hopes of being able to comp your strip club outings. You spit on the conference table. No one gasps.

"What you've just explained to me, and more depressingly, convinced yourselves of, flies in the face of the best piece of ass we've mistakenly and quite cleverly cultivated in the lucky life of this near monopoly. Let me make this very clear, and I'll borrow a phrase from Mike Love: don't fuck with the formula." Everyone's bewildered, but not at your Beach Boys reference.

"This tasty piece of ass I'm referring to is our secret handshake, the shake rattle n roll than happens every time someone grabs our cock. And the grin they wield on the inside knowing they're 'in the know.' The notion that we need to change our bottle is absurd..." Your speech begins to fall on hard times, crumbling into the ordinary corporate speak that is so unavoidable. "...that technology should even be relied upon beyond manufacturing plant efficiencies is absurd." You mangle the word efficiencies as if you were chewing a mouthful of orange peels and the accent of your suspicious Asian landlord comes to mind when you shared an efficiency with some friends 10 or 12 summers ago. You regroup in the silence.

"You've just told me that it gets better than glass bottles dispensing liquid? That gravity is not enough? It's a real problem and you've been on the case? I guess the dividends did get you a summer house," you add with a snarl.

"You've just told me there's no more routine to condimenting my consumption. You've just silenced the lambs... shushed them from tapping... ol' 57 gets no more happy ending to his massage. You've just ruined our world..." and you point two fingers from the same hand, an index at the technology guy, and a middle at the culture lady, who happened to be sitting next to each other and are oddly still holding hands in a gesture of now stale jubilee and sexual repression.

You mimic a young boy who's traded cowboys and indians for a prefab red plastic bottle, "Hey mom, look at me, point and squeeze..."

"The bottle is upside down for Chrissake..." yet your rant is off the hinges now and so is any semblance of respect your coworkers pretended to have for you... not entirely for the rant thought, probably for using the word Christ.

"I'm filing this under 'ideas I heard once about useless things that have become plastic for a completely unnecessary reason,'" and you flip your briefcase open flashing the 'BAD ASS CRACKER' applique to three quarters of the table. You pull an imaginary file from it and mimic crumpling a piece of paper. Something catches your eye. You look down, now wishing the imaginary file was real so you could cover the Russian Luger that's reflecting light onto your Tweedy Bird tie.

You pull out your pager. "Oh, wait, Dr. Cynicism just paged me. Got some good news and ideas he says... this very well could lead to a TV special, one of them 'How Things Are Made' docs on Discovery. Have someone in Media take care of that. Hey, maybe we could get a shout out at the next Global Warming Summit... put us in the commission report for damaging some eco system... any press is good press, eh?" Your dramatic mockery falls hardly on deaf ears. You've slipped on ice, but it's no sidewalk that's bruised you, it's other people's time. You lean on the table with your left arm.

"I can't wait to tell the press their suspicions of Corporate Imagination are correct... I'll tell them we're producing a Broadway piece culled from an email chain with the Subject line... Fwd: [Re: Corporate Perspective and Outlook of It's Core and Widening Consumer]. It'll be called "The Exploitation of Idiocy"... Act One, Humans and Robotic Movement.'" And you use two fingers to outline this as if it were a plaque.

You pause. The near-sited gaze you've transfixed is disrupted by the realization that most everyone's look of shock has changed to a very distinct disgust, and some pity. You remove the Luger from your briefcase and slam it shut in one motion.

You mimic in a whiny baby voice, "It's always been an issue to get the best ketchup bottle." And continue as you exit..."We believe this is probably the biggest idea in ketchup since the invention of the bottle." You can't help but laugh in the middle of this one, "And this is the highest research testing we've ever gotten."

For an even more outlandish take on this ridiculous, see HERE.

Pray for Wayne, He Going to Jail!

“When I ask him if he’s an addict, he says, 'I'm a very successful addict. And a very smart one. And a very charismatic one. And one that just won four Grammys, and one that sold a million records in a week. One that still appears on everybody's songs, one that still sounds better than any rapper rapping. One that has four kids and is the greatest father ever to the kids.' He laughs. 'What am I addicted to, being great?'"
-Weezy F. Baby

And next years half time show will be...?

So I just watched The Who's halftime show and after a string of good acts (The Boss, Prince, McCartney, The Stones, etc) I for the first time in many years feel quite let down. So I'm sitting here trying to hypothesize about who could they have do it next year. Now, as much as I'd love for them to go young, well that's not going to happen (unless they pranced out Taylor Swift or someone like that that was deemed 'acceptable' enough for suburban America). So, just wondering if anyone had any ideas or suggestions for an act next year.

Now next year's Super Bowl is going to be in Texas...so I'm thinking country music would be a likely choice, and as much as I'd like to suggest King George why I think he'd be deemed as not crossover enough. So the only name that keeps coming to my mind is Garth Brooks. Now I'm admittedly quite biased as I love some Garth, but logistically and realistically he's the only name that I can come up with. So if you all have any suggestions I'd love to hear...

Plot: Destruction, Phase I

"Many nights have dwindled by..." as I've sat, sometimes by my lonesome, sometimes with nonlistening ears, and every once in a while with understanding ones, debating the merits and trying to understand...why. Though I guess it is rather obvious and I'm just unwilling to participate. Since basically the Strokes, though this movement has deeper and more complex roots, indie rock and pop has drifted into the mainstream. [I say this because yes, independent music has existed and been formalized for longer than 9 years, but, the term reared it's head more commercially as of late. I'm not even sure it's applicable anymore.] They've even got a few blogs.

Many people indulge in the now and celebrate it's existence and our fortune for "being here". I've always been suspicious, though I feel it's because my roots and taste are of a different complexity. The integrity is being debated, and by NPR nonetheless:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2010/01/26

Stewart V O'Reilly

Man oh man, Political TV has really been on point as of late. This is a completely engaging conversation with both men holding their own. I'm actually looking forward to part II to air tomorrow night.

Sampling Bob

Republican Talking Points: Anti-Bank Reform

From Gawker: GOP pollster, Frank Lutz, released anti-bank reform talking points. This is the Grade D red meat Fox and Friends will be chewing on in the coming weeks.

My Grammy Recap or i just watched and now I want to shoot myself in the face

So this will be my brief attempt to recap and criticize the 2010 Grammy's, which as most years was mostly a sham. Quick disclaimer, I'm perfectly okay with the AMA's being a sham because they are voted on by the public, but seeing as the Grammy's are ran by supposed 'music experts' it's quite disdainful.

Lady Gaga and Elton John's duet: First off may I just say, am I the only one who thinks she's WAY overrated? I mean sure she's out there and different and has a decent voice, but there's no there there. And bringing out another gay icon, putting soot on your face, and dressing like a super heroine with flashy sideboob while playing piano doesn't make you any better, it just proves that you're trying way too hard.

Colbert and the iPad: They really should have made him the host as it would've given some sort of entertainment value to the whole show. Also, what an attractive daughter he has.

Green Day from Dookie to RockOpera: What a fall from grace...these guys are so painfully self important, it's like a punk version of Bono except without all the talent.

Leonard Cohen's Lifetime Achievement: Continuing the trend of Hallelujah suddenly being super cool and overplayed, Cohen got his lifetime achievement award.

Taylor Swift and the Takeover: Taylor Swift took over the Grammy's, which actually seems pretty fitting. Good voice, good self written songs, plays the guitar, young pretty face, easy to see why she's become so big.

Beyonce: Still not a fan but I can appreciate talent. However her coming out with the SWAT team while she does her best fake "I'm tough and marching" schtick is so passe' by this point.

Pink and the Cirque de Soleil: Watching Pink suspend her self from a wet blanket hanging from the ceiling and play chandelier while singing made me miss the days where she just showed up drunk and sang songs while standing on the ground.

Black Eyed Future: No real thoughts on the Black Eyed Peas "welcome to the future" performance except to say that "I Gotta Feeling" is one catchy ass beat. Terrible lyrics, but an ear worm of a tune.

Lady Antebellium: FINALLY some real music here. Lady Antebellium's "I Need You Now" is seriously the best thing I've heard on country radio in years, find it and listen to it! And they're performing the song by *gasp* standing there and playing instruments and singing. I can imagine someone showing up to Grammy practice and a producer says something like "I have this outlandish idea where we have Transformers behind you or suspend you from the ceiling or dress you up like a fucking idiot while you do your song", and then someone like this says "I have a crazy idea, how about we just stand there and play our song" *silence* then the producer says "I don't know, that's pretty out there".

Colbert Christmas Wins: Colbert's Christmas album wins for best comedy album and Colbert gives the quote of the night..."This is a Christmas album so obviously I should think Jesus Christ for having such a great birthday".

KOL Wins: Real music wins! Real music wins! Kings of Leon's 'Use Somebody' won for Record of the Year, I didn't see that one coming. Kudos to good music.

MJ Returns (sort of): They play Michael Jackson's post-death release 'The Earth Song' while Usher, Hudson, Underwood, Dion, and Smokey sing along. Two things I take from this...Michael Jackson even in his about to die stages could outsing every single person at the Grammy's, and secondly, Jennifer Hudson is the best female singer in the world, period. And for anyone who hasn't seen 'This is It' I highly recommend watching it...Oh, and Lionel Richie spotting! But no Blanket.

The Jov: Bon Jovi does Living on a Prayer which makes me long for Guitar Hero. Good tune though, but I am partial to vocoders (long live Roger Troutman!)

Bocelli and Blige: Could've passed on the Mary J but hearing Andre Bocelli belt out 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' was an absolute treat.

Lady Gaga goes Lady Liberty: Quick shot to the crowd and Lady Gaga is dressed like the Statue of Liberty. Guess her birds next look from the MTV awards is so 2009 now so she had to switch it up.

Dave Matthews: Dave with horns and strings and an amazing performance. I wish the Grammy's had more of this stuff. Although I must admit, when I see him perform now I think he's autistic...I just can't get his role from that episode of House out of my mind. I keep waiting for him to bang his fingers on the piano till they break so Hugh Laurie can come save the day.

Beck on Paul: Jeff Beck comes out and plays his Les Paul in honor of the fallen Les Paul. Pretty much speaks for its self.

Tarantino intros Lil Wayne: What a couple! Good performance as well. And I know Eminim and some kid named Drake are on stage as well, but Weezy is eating them alive. I even think his shirt says "listen to lil wayne", how cool.

And Album of the Year goes to: Taylor Swift for 'Fearless'. Expected and deserved in the context of the nominees. I mean sure I would've given it to The Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavillion", Springsteen's "Working on a Dream", Wilco's "Wilco (the album)", Morrissey's "Years of Refusal", or The Flaming Lips "Embryonic" but beggers can't be choosers right?

All in all...another Grammy's come, another Grammy's gone, and as always one thing is consistent....massive disapointment!