...Of The Day

Kid Drawing Of The Day

2009-06-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

Mommy, how are babies made?

My sister is pregnant with her first child. My 6 year old son is fascinated, not so much with where the baby came from, but HOW IT'S GOING TO GET OUT.

We've been vague on the subject so he devised his own theory, which actually isn't that far off. What's awesome is his vision of how it's all going to go down.

This is the card he drew for his Aunt's baby shower, depicting for her exactly what she can expect on the big day.

(click image to enlarge)

Note not just the baby emerging from a gaping hole cut into the mother's stomach, Alien style ("Don't worry, they're going to give you a shot so it won't hurt as much even though it's still going to hurt probably a lot"), but also the entire undigested contents of her stomach tumbling out, Jaws style.

I particularly like the un-melted ice cream cone.

Who knew the miracle of child birth included a buffet?

Bob Wilkins 1932 - 2009

2009-01-08T13:24:00.001-08:00

In the fall of 1977 we were living in Piedmont, CA, a tiny bedroom community next door to Oakland. I was in preschool.

One day, picking me up from school, my Old Man was chatting with one of the other dads who was in a big hurry, "We've got to hustle home in time for Captain Cosmic." His son was practically pulling him out of the room.

"What's Captain Cosmic?", the Old Man asked.

"Oh, Captain Cosmic," (cue full on where-HAVE-you-been inflection) the guy said. "It's this new kid show on channel 2 starring the same guy from Creature Features, Bob Wilkins. But instead of the glasses and cigar, he dresses up like one of the guys from Star Wars and shows these science fiction kids shows. It's on every day at 4 PM, we can't ever miss it."

So that afternoon at 3:59 PM, I tumbled down the stairs into our basement, which was our adapted playroom, complete with television set, record player, Star Wars posters, and crib for my baby sister.

This is what I watched:

Oh, it gets better.

In addition to having in-studio guests like Anthony Daniels (C3P0) and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura from Star Trek), the main content of the show was old Japanese tokusatsu ("special effects") shows from the 60's.

Ultraman was my favorite...

But Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot was right up there...

We even got to send away for official Captain Cosmic decoder cards. Just like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, I remember coming home every day asking if my decoder card had arrived. Finally one day it did:

It was sweet. It wasn't even laminated, but who cared? I wrote my name on the front and it had a unique serial number on the back. Every day there'd be a different code and we'd scribble it down. It was never quite as lame as "Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine", but it was usually something like "May the force be with you."

One day tragedy struck. The card got left in my pants pocket and it went through the wash. My Cosmic Crypto-Code Card was turned into a piece of mush.

The show was big part of my afternoons for at least a couple of years. It finally went off the air in 1979 in 1980.

After fighting Alzheimer's for many years, Bob Wilkins, the man behind the mask, died yesterday at 76.

I'm really sad. I never even met the man. But I guess anyone who's a part of your childhood memories is important. Especially a guy who wears a cape and a helmet and has a robot named 2T2.

The Colonel says, "At ease, Captain."

Best Albums of 2008

2008-12-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

Here we go again.

First off, let me start with a few things.

Thing #1: The era of the ALBUM is OVER.

And good riddance. For those of you not steeped in pointless music history and trivia, the album is a contrived format devised by record companies long ago. 10 songs, 45 minutes long. One per year, by contract.

Music is art. It has to be inspired, written, and recorded. Some artists are prolific and can crank out good music by the truckload. Some artists are not. They might write one or two really good songs a year.

Thing #2: Digital music is the best thing to happen to music in decades.

The music labels tanked. Singles are back. Packaging and record covers have bitten the dust. And most importantly, the musicians and songwriters are, for the first time EVER, in control of their own art.

And that, my friends, is great news for us. $16.99 for an overpriced CD? Fuck that. Ten bucks and it's yours on iTunes (that's like $4 in 1988 dollars). Just want that ONE SONG? Done. A buck. Want three songs from this album and two songs from that album? You got it.

Oh, and the choice. Such choice. No longer is recording music as much a result of where you live or whether or not you're savvy enough to land a record deal. Anybody can record music now. For the price of a canvas, some wood, and some paints, you can put it on wax.

So to speak.

Thing #3: 2008 was the best year for music EVER.

You can take 1967 or 1977 or 1991 and shove them up your nostalgic butt. In 2008 the global musical cup runnethed over. There was so much unbelievably good music this year that I almost didn't even attempt to write this list. There was/is so much to choose from, it's like sifting through a haystack of hundred bills trying to find the crispest ones.

So with that said, here we go...

The Best Albums of 2008

Okay, the era of the album might be over, but a lot of artists are having trouble getting past it. Which is okay. We'll get to the singles next. There are so many talented songwriters out there, there are bound to be a few who love the 10/45 format and have no problem cranking out classic slabs.

Here are the best five...

5. The Charlatans - You Cross My Path
In 2005 the best album of the year was Echo & The Bunnymen's Siberia. This year one of the best was from another British throwback who, even though most people don't know it, aren't throwbacks at all. The Charlatans have been recording and touring all this time. And this is actually one of the best albums they've ever done.

It's got the groove and maturity of 1999's Us And Us Only, but with the hooks and pep of their early Madchester days. Get it, geezer.

4. Lindsey Buckingham - Gift Of Screws
Yes, THAT Lindsey Buckingham. And if you ever wondered who the real talent behind the mid/late 70's incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was, don't call up Mick. It was the American (and I'm not talking about the pudgy witch).

Put Rumours away for a week and crank this up instead. It's the new Fleetwood Mac album you've been waiting for since Tusk. It's modern, it rocks, Lindsey's guitar work is phenomenal, the songs are amazingly produced, and its got one of the best album titles in ages. Oh, and Lindsey's voice is still fantastic.

3. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Overplayed? Maybe. Overhyped? Probably not. Only hip-hop and Britney-pop gets truly overhyped. Do they sound like Graceland-era Paul Simon. Yes. Got a problem with that?

We've been listening to Beatles ripoffs for 40 years now. It's about fucking time someone ripped off Mr. Simon's best album ever and one of the best discs of the entire 1980's. Only this time around, throw in some punk, some ska, and give it a good dose of new school irony that only a generation weened on Green Day could infuse. Not that you need me telling you this. You probably already own it. Good for you.

2. Low Vs. Diamond - Low Vs. Diamond
Rock is back. Pianos are back. And, thank the lord, good voices are back. This is what happens when new wave alt. rock meets real production.

The songs are catchy with sweeping arrangements and fantastically lush fusions of guitars and pianos. Think Brian Ferry meets Steely Dan, with a little Joe Jackson thrown in for drama and edge. Think the Killers...but without that retro desperation. Oh, fuck it. Just get it. And sing along until the people in the cars next to you start taking photos of you, the unapologetic singing retard, with their camera phones.

1. The Grand Archives - The Grand Archives
Before I pontificate, this is what I saw at 12:30 one night, lying in bed, aimlessly flipping channels.

Thank god for TiVo. I actually rewound it, woke my wife up, and made her watch it. She immediately fell back asleep, because she's lame when she's woken up in the middle of the night and forced to watch the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, but I probably watched it three or four more times, wrote the name of the band down on a paperback book and bought the album the next morning.

The album is, simply, majestic. I hadn't heard bearded hipsters sing so beautifully since my Old Man finally stopped playing his CSN albums in the late 70's. Every song is more melodic and entrancing than the last. It's everything I loved about the Shins first album - the atmosphere, the sparse, delicate harmonies - but with better vocals.

And at right around 35 minutes, it's that perfect length that makes you play it again the second it ends.

To plagiarize myself 7 years ago: Buy it, borrow it...fuck, STEAL it if you have to. Get this album.

The Best SONGS of 2008 Coming Next...

Kid Quote Of The Day

2008-12-05T15:30:00.000-08:00

Daddy, are lobsters animals?

Yes.

Daddy, are shrimp animals?

Yes.

Daddy, are beef animals?

Are bees animals?

No, are beef animals?

Beef?

Yes, like a BEEF TACO.

Album Of The Day

2007-10-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

Parthenon Huxley is the best songwriter you've never heard of. And his band, P.Hux, is the best rock band you've never cranked up on your stereo.

P.Hux's first album, "Deluxe" (unfathomably now out of print), was my favorite album of the year in 1995. I even put that in writing, topping my "Best of '95" list for the Daily Aztec at SDSU, beating out great records from Belly, Matthew Sweet, Supergrass, Blur, and Radiohead.

So as not to bog things down with 12 years of interim albums, side projects, and personal tragedy, let's cut to the chase: P.Hux has a new album, "Kiss The Monster", and it's the best album of the year. Again.

How good is it? It's perfect. Perfect pop rock. It's the best of all worlds: instantly hummable melodies and rock candy crunchy guitar riffs, anchored by superb musicianship ("great chops" as my cousin would say), bold production, thoughtful, poetic, human lyrics, and echoes of the Beatles, ELO, and The Move.

Fuck it. Just go to the iTunes store and listen to all the samples. Buy it. Tell your friends. If you live on the East Coast, go see him live.

If Echo and the Bunnymen's 2005 "comeback" album, which went totally ignored, was a sign that the music industry is fucked, P.Hux playing living room shows in Baltimore should have hell freezing over as I write.

If you're even slightly sick of the shit on the radio. If the 50 Cent vs. Kanye West showdown has your eyes rolling back into your head. If you want an amazing record no one else has, that you can show off to your friends when they ask you, "This is really good...who IS it?"

Turn yourself on to P.Hux.

New Word Of The Day

2007-09-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

Griswolds.

It means "black rims" (or "black rimz" for you more urban types). You can view the official definition here.

I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but here in Orange County the latest cheesy bling trend is black rims. They're just like the shiny chrome rims that people have been pimping out their cars with for years, only completely black. It's sort of "macho pimped" and very popular amongst big black truck owners (black trucks, not owners...the owners are usually white).

Anyhow, the fact is that black rims, at first and sometimes second glance, look just like wheels that have had their hubcaps removed or stolen.

I could go on but a picture is worth a thousand words...

Above: some typical black rims.

Above: Griswold family truckster, minus hubcaps.

You can also refer to them as "Cousin Jackies". As you'll recall, after Sparky was told to go "fuck yo mama" whilst driving lost through the hood, he received some directions back to the interstate that instead wound up being a diversion to a cousin, Jackie, who apparently sits all day in a Ford Torino. Meanwhile, their hubcaps got nicked.

Anyhow, my neighborhood is actually covered in Range Rovers, Hummers, Suburbans, and even one horribly disgraced Jaguar, all of whom apparently ventured through the same neighborhood in East St. Louis and got their hubcaps stolen just like the Griswolds.

The fact is, rims are bad enough when adorning the underside of affluent middle-class suburbanites, but these are just hideous because they don't even have the requisite bling characteristic of being SHINY. It's like a whole new category of understated tackiness.

And all I can say is, "Excuse me, holmes?"

Non Endemic Surf Journalism Excerpts Of The Day

2007-08-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

Surf journalism is one of the lowest forms of journalism, or even writing for that matter, on Earth. It ranges from smoke-to-colon-blowing fan mail to shameless corporate marketing disguised as reporting.

(Hey, I may be a corporate shill, but nothing I get paid to write pretends to be anything other than a grammatically incorrect sales pitch.)

Anyhow, one nice slice of irony related to surfing's embarrassingly endemic (i.e. "inbred") culture, is that every once in a while some decent surf writing appears in print. And it's almost always by the pen of a non-surfer, or at least a non-ex-pro surfer, which in surfing's cousin-fucking bro/brah network, is right up there with a bobsled team from Jamaica.

Anyhow, today's bit of outsider art comes from Cintra Wilson, a regular Salon columnist, and via Matt Warshaw's very decent collection of surfing called, "Zero Break." In 1999 Wilson attended the Lacanau Pro in France (and the Pipe Masters in 2000) and wrote up what are still the funniest, most dead-on descriptions of pro surfers anyone will ever have the pleasure of reading.

If you will...

Ken Bradshaw & Layne Beachley
"Bradshaw seems to have built Layne Beachley, his much younger girlfriend, out of the refuse of his own frustrated ambitions. He coaches the living shit out of her. She is his creature; they walk around the beach smug and tan like the Tom & Nicole of the watersports set, and he shapes her surfboards with obnoxiously classified measurements and she publicly gushes over him whenever she wins anything and its all kind of grimy."

Andy Irons
"Andy has a knack for showing up on videos half drunk and talking in an especially depraved-sounding Hawaiian patois -- a nearly unintelligible melange of surfer dude-isms and mangled English -- and coming off like a real parking lot alky with a big foam head. But on the positive side, he's a really exciting surfer with the kind of brute animal energy that makes your blood pay attention. You can find Andy on the last page of the latest issue of Surfer, charging the tube holding a can of Bintang Pilsner, with his eyes rolling half up into his head, looking red, bloated and poisoned like fat Elvis."

Megan Abubo
"Megan Abubo had a quietly bratty manner and big Walkman earmuffs on her head, and dressed way down in shapeless casuals like a sullen teenage raver, looking like she needed to be grounded or spanked or something."

Brock Little
"Brock Little looked like a piece of animated driftwood. He'd been absolutely chiseled by the teeth of the ocean, physically and spiritually -- he had the look of somebody who's died six or seven times already and is now a project of voodoo scientists, running on some whole other ghost chemical. All the blood in his body has been removed and replaced with concentrated adrenaline and a clear, high-octane bionic fluid made from denatured testosterone and the distilled essences of his dead friends, which makes him beautiful and creepy to look upon."

Pro Surfers
"A vast majority of surfers are built like sea turtles -- short as hell. Most of the women are barely over 5 feet; many of the men are barely over 5-5 with wide torsos and really short legs and arms with wide hands like flippers, and long, rubbery spines that seem to have too many vertebrae, like the Ingres Odalisque. Extremely low center of gravity. The Brazilian pros are practically Oompa Loompas - they weigh little more than the chicks, and it does nothing but magical things for their wave ability."

"There are the odd bullheaded tantrum-throwers like Hawaiian tiki monster Sunny Garcia, who had a couple of colorful shit-fits and poked some guy in the chest while we were there, but for the most part, all the petty parts of surfers' brains seem blasted away by the overpowering waters and they have the weird, gentle majesty of giraffes or monks."

You can read the Lacanau Pro article here and the Pipe Masters article here. You will laugh until you spew Primo beer from your nose.

Surf jounalists, hear me now and believe me later (thank you Hans, thank you Franz): your writing is girlie-man shit and not one of you has ever written a thing that wasn't corporate co-opted cheerleading crap. You write for trade magazines that aren't even as even-handed as trade magazines.

You are also a bunch of pansies. Before you even finish reading this you should pull your free Hurley boardshorts up your ass as hard as you can - a well-deserved wedgie which would have hurt a lot more back when you were stuffed in nylon Katins.

Cintra, you rule. Daniel Duane? You rule, too. Weisbecker? Rules.

The rest of you? Get back to work. Isn't your "wetsuit guide" almost due?

Faux Simpsons Scene Of The Day

2007-03-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Homer stumbles home from Moe's, wasted. After a heated but hilarious argument with Marge, she screams at him, spurring one of his elaborate fantasies.

MARGE: Homer, you're not only going to Hell but you're going to drive there DRUNK!"
HOMER (STARTS IMAGINING): Hmmmm....

We see Satan. His face is aghast. He screams.

SATAN: You idiot! We just had these installed!

Homer has crashed into the gates of Hell, his car is angled up on a pile of rubble that was once the side of a decorative gate. The driver's door opens up and empty beer cans come tumbling out.

HOMER (SLURRING): Whoa, man, that came out of nowhere...

Satan suddenly sees one of the Hounds of Hell pinned under the car's wheel. The dog is yelping.

SATAN: Oh my goodness, REMUS!
HOMER: Wait, shut up man, I love this part...

The car is still running and Homer suddenly cranks up the stereo, blasting "Too Much Time On My Hands" by STYX, singing along at the top of his lungs, getting all the words wrong, while Satan, looking flustered and weepy, tries to free Remus from under the car.

Cut back to Homer and Marge in the bedroom.

Quote Of The Day

2007-03-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

"It's no longer a dog-eat-dog world. It's more like dog-doesn't-return-other-dog's-email."
- Woody Allen (sort of)

Disgusting Kid Story Of The Day

2007-01-22T16:48:00.000-08:00

So I walk by the bathroom this afternoon and I hear my son start crying. I run in and there he is, sitting on the toilet, in tears.

"What's wrong?" I ask him, my mind instantly playing out a series of Rube Goldberg-esque paranoid parenting fantasies ....ranging from "he's constipated" to "he's shitting blood and has leukemia".

"It fell in," he sobs.

"What fell in?"

"IT FELL IN!" he repeats, only louder and snottier.

Slightly relieved, but now baffled and almost afraid to look, I peer between his pale, skinny little chicken legs and into the bowl.

There, in the bowl is a steaming, mostly submerged pile of poo. And there, partially embedded in the poo, is my wife's Tiffany watch.

I look at my son. He's still just crying and pointing...and pooping. Another nugget lands on the pile as we continue staring into the bowl together.

I'm stunned...but kind of not stunned. After all, I have two kids.

"Was Mommy's watch on the counter?" I ask him.

"Yes," he sobs and grunts at the same time.

"Were you playing with it while you were going potty?"

"Yes."

Sob. Grunt.

"Did you drop it in the toilet?"

I'm not sure why I'm asking questions...maybe trying to sound parental and not throw-up or just trying to delay the inevitable retrieval of the watch.

"Yes."

"You didn't eat Mommy's watch, did you?"

"No."

"It just fell in, right?"

"Yes."

Sob. Grunt. This one lands on the watch. Whew...it rolls off to the side. Splash.

"Did you drop it in on purpose?"

"No"

Sob.

"Was it an accident?"

"Yes."

Sob.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Grunt.

Finally, and to my own surprise, I realize the true intentions of my conversational delay.

My wife walks in to the bathroom, phone cradled to her ear, "...hang on one sec....", reaches into the toilet, grabs the watch, washes it off in the sink, sets it back on the counter, and walks out.

I look back at my son, who's still stifling sobs but no longer grunting. I'm not sure what to say now.

"Are you done?"

"Yes."

I walk out and pass my wife in the hall.

"He's done."

Spinal Tap Cameo Of The Day

2006-11-14T22:53:00.000-08:00

"C'mon, don't talk back...mime is money!"

Trying to pick a favorite Spinal Tap cameo is like trying to pick a favorite Beatles song. They're all great.

This isn't my favorite cameo, but it's by far the least well known (you bar movie trivia types, gather round)...

Okay, everyone knows the sassy mime with the kinky fro is Billy Crystal. But do you know who the blonde guy is? That's Dana Carvey.

"I DID the dead bird..."

Spinal Tap Quote Of The Day

2006-11-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

"This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry."

That's nitpicking, innit?

Oh, and BTW, that quote is straight from the old noodle. No IMDB quotes for The Colonel (at least when it comes to Spinal Tap).

Not only that, but The Colonel saw Spinal Tap in the THEATER when it came out. That's right. The Colonel's old man was cool as shit and took the Little Colonel to see a double feature of This Is Spinal Tap and Rock And Roll High School at the Varsity Theater on University Ave. in Palo Alto way back in the day.

Same place we saw Stop Making Sense and, yes, a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show back when they did midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Kind of a strange thing to take a kid to, but The Colonel is stoked he went. A little bit of cultural history that, alas, is no more.

But hey, enough of my yakkin'. Whaddya say? Let's boogie!

Quote Of The Day

2006-11-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

That line didn't mean anything to me when I read Walden in college. I guess I got it, but I didn't get it.

Maybe I'm feeling a little dark today. Actually I'm feeling a lot dark today. I think these are dark times we're living in. The other day I felt a twinge of optimism but it's gone already.

Most of the people I know have had a rough decade. I think it has just been a rough decade. Then again I'm not sure. This has been my first decade as a bonafide adult. Maybe this is just adult life. Death, divorce, fear, illness, war, pessimism...maybe this is all just par for the course.

Not quite sure how I got from 24 Hour Party People yesterday to Thoreau today (although, in a nice tie-in, Tony Wilson would have approved in a big way).

I do think it's interesting how we were all looking at the year 2000 with so much trepidation. What would happen? Would planes drop from the sky? Maybe the apocalypse? Something else?

And then Jan 1st, 2000 rolled around and everything was fine. It stayed fine for about four months. It was better than fine...it was like the roaring 90's never ended. Then the stock market crashed. And it kept crashing for a year and a half until 9/11. Then it crashed even more. Although no one really noticed after that.

Now we're in the 6th year of this decade, and while planes never fell out of the sky...well, I guess they kind of did...I have no doubt that the new millennium turned out worse than anyone could have possibly imagined.

It's weird though. I mean, we've had a housing boom...a lot of people did well in that. Most of my friends got married and had kids. The sun still rises every day. The Giants went to the World Series (and then, 6 outs from winning it all, collapsed).

There's just something under the surface. Something ain't right. And, honest to God, I don't know if it's the times or just a new found understanding of reality. The reality that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Thanks, Henry. (Depressing asshole.)

Movie Of The Day

2006-11-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

This Is Spinal Tap is THE great rock movie because it's not only hilarious but it feels legit. It feels so real that a lot of people actually thought Spinal Tap was a real band when it came out.

24 Hour Party People doesn't quite compare to Spinal Tap in that it's a docu-drama (movie geek speak for a fictional drama based on real events - think All The Presidents Men).

But whatever 24 Hour Party People lacks in original content it more than makes up for in filmmaking, acting, and some of the best music ever laid down on celluloid.

Which makes it the SECOND BEST rock film ever made (and hands down the best film of the year in 2002).

Seen through the eyes of Tony Wilson, regional television "journalist" for Grenada Television out of Manchester, 24 Hour Party People is actually about the lives and music of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, legendary producer Martin Hannett, and Happy Mondays frontman and fucking lunatic, Shaun Ryder.

It starts out in 1976 with the Sex Pistols' fist gig in Manchester (so perfectly re-created by blending actual footage of the gig with actors and sets, you'll stare in disbelief), and from there surges through the most exciting moments in British music right up to and through the Madchester scene of the late 80's and early 90's.

To try and describe the film beyond that is almost impossible. Sometimes we're watching Tony Wilson (played BRILLIANTLY by Steve Coogan) and his merry band of new wave cronies like a fly on the wall. Other times Tony is addressing us, the audience, like he's hosting his own autobiographical documentary. At other times still, he's addressing us as Steve Coogan and making self-referential comments to Tony Wilson in the 3rd person.

Confused? Don't worry. The movie flows and bumps and grinds like the best dance club you've ever been to. One reviewer called it a "joyous romp." And it is, set almost continuously to fantastic music - from Joy Division to the Happy Mondays.

Don't know those bands? Doesn't matter. The film is AMAZING. It has so much energy and is so fun to watch, and is SO GODDAMN FUNNY, that you can't even watch it once. Like Spinal Tap, it requires repeated viewings.

And I haven't even mentioned how many classic quotes there are.

I've got one word for you - "Icarus". If you know what I mean, great. If you don't, that's fine too. It doesn't matter.

But you should probably read more.

Viral Film Of The Day

2006-11-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

Who wants another glass of pink champagne, man?

I had never heard the term "Yacht Rock" before I saw these short films, but the second I did, I got it. Of course, YACHT ROCK. Duh. It was right there in front of our ears...already named but yet un-named, ya dig?

Never mind.

If you ever sang along to Christopher Cross' "Sailing" or bobbed your head to the Doobie's "What a Fool Believes", you need to see the funniest short films I've seen online, or anywhere, in a long time.

Low budge, terrible costumes, bad acting, and so fucking clever you just might quit your job and set sail for, like, smoother waters and, like, a change in latitudes.

And if you don't like Yacht Rock? Well, that's what a fool believes, man. That's what a fool believes.

Halloween Nostalgia Of The Day

2006-10-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

Careful, Philippe...that's a web spun by a very rare Prop Spider.

When I was 9, Halloween was on a Sunday, which was pretty cool because you basically had all day to celebrate (on top of a Friday school parade and party).

And even though most parents bended the school night rules regardless of what day Halloween fell on, they pretty much threw them out altogether on Sunday.

Which meant that when I got back from trick or treating that year, most of the parents in my neighborhood were still kicking it outside, drinking wine, and making the most of our yearly block party.

My Old Man, not ready to call it a night, suggested that we go inside and find a scary movie to watch.

The next thing I knew we were sitting on the couch, him with a Bud (those old torpedo shaped bottles), me with one of my Mom's TABs (disgusting, but hey, I took what I could get in those soda-free days), and my bag of candy in between us, watching Vincent Price in the 1958 B&W original, The Fly.

It was campy, a bit creepy, not really scary, and the perfect movie to watch with your Old Man on Halloween night.

Every year I think back to that night and I smile.

Halloween Nostalgia Of The Day

2006-10-30T23:57:00.000-08:00

San Diego college boys confuse KISS with firefighters, Halloween '94

College was a low point for me when it came to Halloween. The holiday I had loved as a kid was now a bit more confusing, consisting more of beer and sexy maids (or sexy devils, or sexy baseball players, or sexy -insert any occupation you can think of here-) than ghouls and creepy graveyards.

Not that I had a problem with beer and sorority chicks with extra cleavage. But for me anyway, Halloween had always been a day of mystery and horror. And, well, at San Diego State there's always beer and cleavage, so for me it mostly just meant the loss of my favorite holiday.

One year I even decided to sell out and pander to my not-so-clever classmates, and dressed up like a kook - pink dolphin shorts, UGG boots (this was 1992 and sheepskin was in between eras), visor on backwards, etc. - and used electrical tape to create the Greek letters of a rival fraternity on a white sweatshirt. At my frat party that night, I was a star. Thing is, I knew that heckling a fraternity was about the lamest idea for a costume ever and, after almost getting beat up on the way home after getting in a dorm elevator with about 5 members of that aforementioned rival fraternity who didn't think my costume was funny, I decided I was going to boycott Halloween until I grew up and had kids of my own.

That is, until the summer of 1994 when I discovered the band, KISS. Okay, I didn't discover them. But I didn't really re-discover them either (like when you pull out your old Van Halen albums and go, "Damn, I forgot how good this shit is!" and listen to Women And Children First nonstop for a week).

See, KISS had pretty much jumped the shark by 1980, when I was only 7. After that they were pretty much a joke without an audience. So while I vaguely remembered them from the 70's, the memories were mostly visual...and kind of vague. White and black Kabuki makeup, blood, fire...the kind of stuff that freaks out a 5-year old and gets burned in his brain.

Which is why in the fall of 1993, after seeing Dazed and Confused in the theater for the 2nd time, I suddenly started having all these KISS flashbacks - the commercials, the comic books, the posters, the album covers at the record stores. And if you know anything about The Colonel, I dove in head first. It started off with a greatest hits tape I bought used at Music Trader, but then almost immediately mushroomed into vinyl albums, CDs, books, video tapes and posters. I was obsessed.

And just like some jock in 1978 with Rock And Roll Over hidden under his mattress, I had to hide it. In short because nothing was less cool than classic rock in 1994, and even amongst classic rock fans in 1994, nothing could have been less cool than KISS, the lamest of the lame. So I pushed my Pearl Jam and Green Day CDs to the front, and hid Love Gun in the back.

But then I had an idea. What if my roommates and I were KISS for Halloween? No one else would be doing it (I don't think anyone had dressed up like KISS for Halloween probably since before they took off the makeup live on MTV in 1983). It was a great group costume. And we could take credit for resurrecting an old school 70's band - a skillful argument on my part as the 70's revival was in full swing.

It worked. My roommates bought in and I went shopping. Without going into all the production details, it started with a trip to the SDSU Theater Department which made extra cash by renting out props for Halloween (I still have my receipt which reads, "4 punk outfits") and ended with a trip to Home Depot where I bought an 8-foot long 4x6 which I had the dude cut into 8 1-foot long blocks. See the picture above and try to spot the lumber.

2 weeks later we strolled into Winston's, a one-of-a-kind reggae bar a block from our house in Ocean Beach (Sllloooooowwww B, as our Mission and Pacific Beach brethren called it) for an October 30th test run. And what happened? The band STOPPED PLAYING. That's right, they fucking stopped in mid-song. The lead singer then said, "Um, holy shit, I think KISS just walked into the bar."

Talk about instant celebrities. People flocked around us, buying us drinks, and asking who we were under the makeup. I (Gene, of course...c'mon, it was my idea so I got first pick) even stuck out my tongue a few times and the place went crazy.

After that it was two days of parties, culminating in a costume contest at Club Tremors in PB (which might even still be there), where we got 3rd place in front of like...I dunno, the place was packed and there was a line around the corner. And the only reason we got 3rd was because some guy showed up in, like, the actual prop from Predator with crazy crab jaws and all, and some dumb chick showed up with a black dress on and pigtails and walked around all night without smiling. So when Wednesday Adams stood on stage next to us while we preened and mugged and air guitared, she gave everyone her best poker face, didn't move a muscle, and well, how the hell can you compete with that?

But the amazing part of it all was the reactions we got from people. We had cops running up to us telling us how much they loved KISS when they were teenagers and how this brought back great memories. Chicks screamed for the tongue. Dudes grabbed their buddies and pointed and flashed us devil horns. Crossing Garnet St. in our 6+ inch boots, we practically caused an accident.

And then, lo and behold, what happened? Garth Brooks, the Gin Blossoms, and a dozen popular rockers released a tribute album. Weezer wrote a song. KISS reunited on MTV Unplugged, re-donned the makeup for the '96 GRAMMY Awards (appearing on stage with Tupac!) they re-formed, and they've been massive ever since.

I'm still awaiting a royalty check. Or at least a "thanks for sparking the re-interest and resurrecting our career" check.

Anyhow, Happy Halloween.

TV Show Of The Day

2006-10-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, it's just Jack from Big Wednesday

The Greatest American Hero was one of those shows that was incredibly popular, that I loved, and yet never really watched.

The problem was that it aired at 9 PM on Fridays, directly opposite Knight Rider. And as much as I loved the theme song, there was no contest.

So now it's just one of those old, forgotten early 80's shows that I think back to fondly, but can't actually recall any of the episodes. Kind of like The Fall Guy (which also had a kick ass theme song).

Speaking of theme songs, my son's new favorite song is "da moon and nordic city"...better known as Arthur's Theme by Christopher Cross.

A chip off the old block I guess, with the same guilty taste for schmaltz.

Movie Of The Day

2006-10-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

In 1999, Hollywood finally got it right. And they never did it again.

The biggest cliche in Hollywood is that every waiter and bus boy is actually an aspiring actor or director. Which is why most films do a pretty good job of showing what it's like to work in a restaurant or to be a courier or to schlep stuffed mushrooms for a catering company.

But pretty much to a man, no filmmaker (past, present, or aspiring) has ever worked in the corporate world. It just doesn't happen.

Which is why almost every film ever made that takes place in a corporate setting is total crap. From Wall Street to Match Point, and every Albert Brooks and Chevy Chase Vacation picture in between, they get it wrong every time.

The other day I caught the first 30 minutes of this instantly forgettable Jennifer Aniston movie where, in 1997, she travels to San Francisco to track down this guy she thinks is her father (Kevin Costner). He's a dot com guru and is speaking at some convention. Everyone is dressed in suits. They carry briefcases and stand around shaking hands and drinking scotch.

My first thought was, "Wow, I'm glad we have a 2nd TV upstairs." But my second thought was, "This is so off base that it's obvious these filmmakers have never been to Northern California, never been to a convention, and never met anyone that actually works for a Silicon Valley company."

But that's par for the course. I mean, if movies were your only source for insight into the corporate world, you'd think that everyone walks around in 3-piece suits, carries briefcases circa 1955, eats at Spago for lunch everyday, has a corner office with a view of the Hudson River, has a secretary who "holds calls", and spends their afternoons in large board rooms pointing at graphs with sticks.

Which is why Office Space was so fucking awesome. The first completely realistic look at REAL corporate America.

When it came out, I WAS Peter Gibbons. I worked for a company called Accrue Software, which might as well have been called Initech. I had the same commute, worked with all the same people, had the same cube, got the same shocks on every doorknob, went to the same awkward birthday "parties" with the same bad sheet cake from Safeway...hell, we even had the same motivational catchphrases and banners up on the walls - "What have you done for Accrue today?"

Office Space nailed every aspect of cube life, right down to the joyless lunches at bad chain restaurants. It was so perfect I actually didn't like it the first time I saw it. Ever heard the guys from Aerosmith or Judas Priest say they hated Spinal Tap the first time they saw because it was too close for comfort? Same deal.

Over the years though, especially once I got OUT of that lifeless cube farm, I came to not only appreciate Office Space but fucking LOVE it.

Sure, a few films have come close. The Big Kahuna with Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito was an underrated film that really captured the quiet desperation of the sales side of the corporate world. But it was far from dead-on, and illustrated its point in an exaggerated made-for-the-stage Glengarry Glen Ross kind of way. Old School had some good moments ("Let me have your drink tickets"). She's Having A Baby had one classic scene in which Kevin Bacon gets a reality check from his boss, played by the always spot-on Dennis Dugan.

But that's about it. Office Space stands alone as the one painfully accurate slice of life in corporate America.

PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean!?

Forgotten Single Of The Day

2006-10-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

"Heatseeker" from AC/DC's completely forgotten 1988 release, Blow Up Your Video.

Holy shit I forgot how much that song rocks. I finally got my stereo hooked up in my office and tried to pull something totally random out of my CD collection. Found that, put it on, and cranked it up until the windows were rattling.

You can't tell, but I'm holding up devil horns right now.

All hail.

Vinyl Of The Day

2006-10-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is Bad Religion's very first record, a 6 song self-titled EP from 1981.

Self-produced, self-recorded, and self-distributed, this is not just the Holy Grail of Bad Religion vinyl, it's also the very first release from Epitaph Records (courtesy of a loan from Brett Gurewitz's father), making it a hugely important slice of vinyl across all of Punk-dom.

I found it at some record store and paid, I think, around 10 bucks for it. Even at the time (mid-90's) that was quite a deal for a bit of punk history that I've never seen before or since.

But it gets better.

The label is actually a misprint. Well, not really a misprint really, it's actually the wrong label altogether...on both sides. It's for some band called Suffer!, which is a fantastic coincidence since Bad Religion's best album, released 7 years later, was called "Suffer". The fine print is actually in German, which leads me to believe that either Suffer! was some German punk band who had a record being pressed in the same factory, or that this is actually a German bootleg which got mixed up with another printing.

Either way, it's a great little DIY fuck-up.

Add in clear red vinyl and the fact that it still plays beautifully, and this is by far the coolest record in my collection. I don't have a clue how much it might be worth since I've never seen another one, much less one with a misprinted label.

Greg Graffin and the boys have come a long way. And since I'm feeling nostalgic, here's an interview I did with BR bassist and founding member, Jay Bentley, just a few weeks before I graduated from SDSU.

Image Of The Day

2006-10-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

"Write It, Ride It" Harley Giveaway, Yahoo! Headquarters, Sunnyvale, 2004

Juxtaposition is a word that art critics like to throw around. It basically means "things that are close together", although it's usually used in the context of opposites or things that are seemingly contradictory.

"Ah yes, the artist here is using the juxtaposition of light and dark to show the dual sides of human nature...further illustrated here by these two naked women holding an apple."

Anyhow, I love this picture because it's me (in flip-flops) flanked by three of the richest men on the planet. David Filo and Jerry Yang on the left (Jerry is the...never mind), Terry Semel on the right, and a pikey worker bee in the middle. It's a great juxtaposition of the powerful (Terry flies home to Bel Air every week in his private jet) and the not-so-powerful (the Colonel has a 3 year old Elektra cruiser bike with rusted surf racks).

It gets even funnier when you realize what's going on - they're presenting me with the cheapest Harley Davidson motorcycle that Harley makes, adorned with a homemade Yahoo! sticker. It had been sitting in the lobby for 3 months, whipping the entire hive into a frenzy and encouraging them to write an essay on why Yahoo! is so freakin' awesome. The cleverest worker bee would be presented the keys during a special assembly in front of the entire company.

So here's the clever Colonel, getting those coveted keys to that coveted black Harley, as 3 billionaires smile in their faded jeans, utterly thrilled that six thousand measley bucks worth of American made steel, chrome and leather, has just exhilarated 3,000 employees and reinforced a corporate loyalty steeped in gold stars and purple t-shirts.

For the record, I was laid off six monts later along with my entire department.

Vroom-vroom!

Gross Trick Of The Day

2006-10-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

When I was in 1st grade there was this kid in my class named Charlie. He was the kid who would do just about anything if you dared him and provided him with an audience. In most cases that involved eating things.

However, he did have one non-food related trick, and that was his ability to turn his eyelids inside out. I'm not sure why, but they looked orange on the inside.

Disgusting.

Forgotten Singles Of The Day

2006-10-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

We're going with a "children of legendary rock stars" motif here, and I've got two doosies for you.

Julian Lennon's "Too Late For Goodbyes" (1984) and Jason Bonham's "Wait For You" (1989).

Lennon's was by far the bigger hit, cracking the Top 10 while I think Bonham's peaked around #38 or #39, but they were both played endlessly on rock radio. It was like every disc jockey in the country was sitting around moping, begrudgingly spinning new music, killing time until 5 PM every day when they could Get The Led Out, when they were miraculously handed a lost single by Zep and the Beatles and suddenly every other song got pushed back a few rotations.

I actually remember sitting in my room one evening, trying to find something on the radio, and scrolling through KSJO (92.3), KOME ("Don't touch that dial, there's KOME on it!"), KRQR (the ROCKER) and KFOG (Fogheads, unite) and ALL FOUR of them were playing Jason Bonham's sour, tuneless tribute song. Clearly it was the closest thing Weird Old Uncle Frank had to a new Zep tune, so he and the rest of the Bay Area DJs played it endlessly, for MONTHS.

I think our brains just blew a few fuses when it heard something that sounded kind of like a new Zep tune. And the fact that it was by Bonham's pudgy kid, well, I guess it's no one's fault. Or maybe we can just blame Dennis Erectus?

Same story goes for poor unloved first child, Julian, who sounded almost exactly like his old man. And the fact that he also wrote a song that sounded exactly like the kind of watered down MOR his dad might have written were he still alive in 1984, well, it too made every Beatles-jonesing DJ go mental as well.

We had no choice but to like it - "He sounds just like his dad, man!" - but it's still Lennon lite, and was probably closer to the stuff John and Yoko were scribbling out in the Dakota, circa 1979, whilst preferred younger sibling Sean ran amuck, diaperless, hucking his tea and toast out the windows.

Anyhow, stay tuned. I'm expecting Francis Bean to hit #1 any day now.

Misused Word Of The Day

2006-10-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

Irony

I think I actually get to blame Alanis Morissette for this one.

You see, back before little miss Canadian sunshine hit the bigtime with her little tune about irony (which actually wasn't, which actually is ironic), I never heard the words "irony" or "ironic" outside of the classroom.

I even remember my high school English teacher announcing one morning that he was going to teach us about irony and that 75% of us were not going to understand or retain the concept.

So it's not like I don't appreciate that it can be a tough nut to crack.

But one day it's the sole domain of lit. classes and Cliff's Notes, and today, thanks to creepy Alanis and heaps of media coverage proclaiming my generation to be the first American generation to embrace irony (just look at the now dead trucker hat craze), the word is everywhere.

Not 10 minutes ago I caught a bit of Desperate Housewives. The creepy redhead chick walked into a motel and announced that her 17 year old daughter was in one of the rooms. The guy looked at the registrar and said, "Oh yeah, she's in room 17. How's that for irony?"

Um, no. How's that for a coincidence?

What's wrong with poor coincidence? Why is everyone giving it the cold shoulder? Not hip sounding enough? Not dripping with intelligence?

Like it or not, it's the right word 95% of the time.

A quick high school English refresher course:

Irony (noun): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.

Coincidence (noun): the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.

Your daughter is 17 and also happens to be staying in room number 17? That's a coincidence. You and your boss both skip work and bump into each other surfing? Coincidence. You and your roommate both date girls named Betty Lou Manischevitz? Co-inky-dink.

Fly in your Chardonnay? Shitty Chardonnay. Rain on your wedding day? Shitty luck.

Your job is to counsel people who are afraid of flying and you die in a plane crash? THAT'S ironic. The world's best athlete dies of a heart attack? Irony. You call the fat guy "Slim"? Congratulations, you're being ironic.

One is about synchronicity (that would be a coincidence) and one is about the opposite of what's expected (irony).

Here endeth the lesson. Pass it on.

Image Of The Day

2006-10-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

Bruce McCandless Jr., Februrary 1984

This guy is actually my cousin (well, my mom's cousin...which makes him my 2nd cousin).

This picture was a big deal at the time because he was the very first astronaut to walk in space, untethered to the ship. That chair thing he's sitting in is called an MMU, a Manned Maneuvering Unit.

The day after it was taken it was on the front page of every newspaper in the world. I brought a copy of the San Jose Mercury with me to Palo Verde Elementary School the next morning and got to be a bit of a celebrity for a day (or, for you cynical Hollywood types, a 5th grade star fucker).

A few weeks later, a signed glossy of this same picture arrived in the mail with my name and his signature on it. I guess he sent one to every kid in the extended family. It stayed on my wall until I finally replaced it in 7th grade with some chick in a bikini.

Sorry, Bruce.

Viral Film Of The Day

2006-10-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

TiVo is Aliens!!!

Who knew?

Personally I'm a big fan of the BOD feature (Beer On Demand). Fingers crossed they're including it on the next release.

Soundtrack Of The Day

2006-10-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

In December of 1980 I was 7.

It had been six months since The Empire Strikes Back had come out. And while maybe we weren't frothing at the mouth quite like we were at the end of 1977 (screaming at our parents for Star War toys, who screamed at underprepared licensee, Kenner, who in turn shipped out empty cardboard boxes for Christmas, promising they'd have action figures in stores by spring), we were still jonesing for anything on celluloid resembling space ships or laser battles.

Enter Flash Gordon, a fantastically campy homage to old timey comic books done in full 70's technicolor disco excess, and the only thing resembling an action packed science fiction romp for the holiday movie season. The problem was, no one (except for hipsters in the Castro) really got it. So instead of adults flocking to the theaters to witness this fantastically kitschy space opera, they rolled their eyes and dropped the kids off instead.

So there I was, in 2nd grade, seeing Flash Gordon for the 2nd time at a 2nd birthday party in as many weeks. And even though we didn't get it, the ambiguous sexuality and miles of skin tight latex going in one pupil and out the other, we did know one thing: the soundtrack fucking ROCKED.

Composed entirely by Brian May and performed by Queen, the Flash Gordon soundtrack is hands down the weirdest entry in their catalog. Packing every groove with tacky albeit atmospheric synth arrangements, with the silliest dialogue in history left IN ("Flash I LOVE you, but we only have 24 hours to save the Earth!"), it was actually released as a full length Queen album. And while I'll be the first to say that most of it resembled the music from my favorite (and still woefully underrated) video game, Vanguard, Queen also managed to rip out some of the most blistering rock they'd ever recorded.

The scene where the Hawkmen (i.e. fat, hairy Brian Blessed stuffed into black latex lederhosen and hanging by a wire) dive bomb War Rocket Ajax (a plastic toy on a string with a sparkler sticking out the rear) is hands down the cheesiest battle in movie history. But set to Brian May's absolutely smoking guitar work on "Battle Theme", it had us going completely fucking apeshit in the theater, literally leaping out of our seats to cheer Flash on as "Biro's been hit, I'm going in after him!"

And even now, 26 years later, I still get goosebumps when I hear "Football Fight", remembering Flash ("Quarterback, New York Jets!") kicking the shit out of Ming the Merciless' henchman with his own brand of intergalactic Kill the Pill.

If you're a Queen fan, you need to own at least the aforementioned tracks, not to mention the title track and the absolutely killer, "Hero" (essentially "Battle Theme" with lyrics). If you're around my age, saw Flash Gordon in the theater and have even the slightest recall of telling your friends at school how "this robot guy falls on these spikes and his EYEBALL POPS OUT!" during Monday recess, then you need to get the whole album.

Flash, you've saved your Earth. Have a nice day.

Single Of The Day

2006-10-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

"Knights of Cydonia" by Muse.

I went to the Surfer Magazine Surfer Poll awards a few weeks ago. In general I was fairly disgusted with the whole affair, especially given the fact that it's an awards show voted on by the READERS of the magazine, and yet not a single pro surfer or industry rep made a single reference to anyone outside of the Bro/Brah Network.

However, there was one bright spot and that was the opening montage featuring clips from all the year's best surf movies, set to...duh..."Knights of Cydonia" by Muse.

It's a rip-roaring anthemic tune with more melodrama than a Survivor/Rush co-written Rocky theme song circa 1984, and it's fucking great.

Download it, transfer it, burn it, crank it up. And watch out for cops.

Quote Of The Day

2006-10-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

"You can't have a lollipop until you finish your cookie."

Yes, my wife actually said that to our son yesterday. We didn't even realize how pathetic it was until after she said it. Then we laughed for about 20 minutes straight.

It is AMAZING the things that start to come out of your mouth after you have kids. My friend Todd shared this one with me today. Also true...and spoken without a hint of irony.

"We don't cut our friends."

Parenthood. Join us if you dare.