Archive | September, 2005

George Bush Hates Black … Sabbath

19 Sep

Laughed pretty hard at the Emmy awards this evening. Ellen DeGeneres was her usual funny self, Zach Braff’s English accent was hysterical, the montages of comedy show writing staffs were great as always, the Eva Longoria jokes at the start of the show were good, and Jon Stewart … man, that guy just rocks.

And it’s a good thing I laughed as hard as I did because the awards themselves made me wanna scream. I mean, the fact that Terry O’Quinn, ahem, lost for his performance on Lost was just a crime. It also would have been nice had Jeremy Piven won for his performance on Entourage, so the fact that the award went to Brad Garrett of all people was just annoying. I mean, it’s so frustrating when the same people win (or are nominated) year after year. Thank God it was Everybody Loves Raymond‘s last season — and that this is Will & Grace‘s last season.

On the other hand, big ups to J.J. Abrams for his Emmy win, to S. Epatha Merkerson for beating Halle Berry and giving the most memorable acceptance speech of the night, and of course, to Lost for winning Best Drama Series. And I’m so happy that Felicity Huffman won for best lead actress on a comedy; her role on Desperate Housewives might not be the most comedic, but she’s overdue for recognition.

It was also nice to see David Letterman make a rare Emmy appearance. His tribute to Johnny Carson, while serious and maybe a bit too long, was heartfelt and well done. No surprise. Here’s just a short quote from an AP story about the show:

Letterman recalled how Carson was asked once by a Tonight show audience member what had made him a star. “I started out in a gaseous state and then I cooled,” Carson said.
“Johnny Carson’s star never cooled,” Letterman said.

Simple and perfect. And then Jon Stewart’s line soon after — “The way that he feels about Johnny Carson is the way that all of us, the comedians of our era, feel about him” — was not only so great, but also a nice slap in Jay Leno’s face.

I suppose it was also nice to see Desperate Housewives get, I suppose some would say robbed of its Emmy for Best Comedy Series, but did it have to go to Everybody Loves Raymond? I mean, really. Though I guess as long as it wasn’t Will & Grace, I have to be happy.

Finally, no offense to my friends and family members who have or will be pregnant, but has a woman with child ever looked as beautiful as Jennifer Garner did?

Ahhhhh … awards shows. You’ve gotta love ’em. Or at least I do.

Happy Birthday, Brookline!

18 Sep

My (current) hometown celebrated its 300th birthday today with a huge street fair in Coolidge Corner, so Joe, Marie and I went to check it out. Booths stretched from Beacon Street all the way down Harvard to Fuller Street, where Kupel’s is. They were all organized into sections by theme, including “Get Involved” and “Memory Lane,” and tons of people came out to take part in the festivities. There was food, music, community info, fitness demonstrations, and basically, something for everyone. And it seemed that a good time was had by all. (Even Joe, he wanted me to point out, since the picture above might imply otherwise.)

I particularly enjoyed the few minutes I spent inside the Coolidge Corner Theater, where the World Series Trophy was in attendance, accompanied by Red Sox prez Larry Lucchino, who was participating in a panel discussion called “Diverse the Curse.” Good stuff, despite the typical posturing by Lucchino when asked something about how the team is more diverse now but when will the other Fenway employees be more diverse. (He said it was his and the owners’ goal to diversify all parts of the Red Sox organization. Of course.) A young girl stood up to tell Lucchino that she lives right near David Ortiz, and he responded “Thanks for all you’ve done to improve his playing lately.” That got a few laughs. If only my camera had cooperated so I could have taken a better picture of the trophy.

Anyway, after we’d made a loop around to see all the booths, Joe, Marie, and I headed over to Newton to get some ice cream at Cabot’s. (mmmmm … Cabot’s) Two frappes and a hot fudge sundae with Oreo ice cream, mellowcreme fudge, marshmallow, and whipped cream later (they had the frappes, I had the sundae), we were all full and ready to head home.

If you’re interested, here are a couple of other pictures from the Brookline 300th festivities.

L is for Lame

17 Sep

Well, the good news is I’m not too old.

Ventured over to the Hynes Convention Center today for College Fest. It’s well-documented that I am a sucker for free stuff, and there’s usually plenty of it at College Fest, but this year I was there doing research for a magazine I work on for college students. I wanted to see what the students were into, what companies were promoting, what music was hot, etc.

So what did I learn? Nothing concrete, but based solely on the anecdotal evidence, companies just aren’t trying as hard these days to reach the college audience — or at least they’re not doing it at events like this one. Back in the day, when I was still a student, and even as recently as five years ago when I used to go to College Fest as part of the marketing efforts for my previous employer, the event stretched out over two halls at the Hynes, with the place bursting at the seems with companies and students. This year, only one smaller hall with fewer companies than ever.

I got to the Hynes around 1pm, and after going up and down the aisles twice, I left about 45 minutes later. Sure, the doors had just opened up at 12, but back in my day the kids were lined up to get in soon after it opened, and hung around to meet celebrities and get autographs (Jon Stewart was there one year, cast members of The Real World usually were in attendance, etc.) and of course, pick up all the free schwag. This year, the biggest line was to get an autograph from a Playboy model, and even that didn’t have people lined up around the corner.

I guess nowadays college students are more effectively reached on the Internet, and they know it. Or maybe they’re just too smart — or too lazy — to go somewhere to get marketed to, and more companies are targeting the students in other ways. In short, I thought this year’s College Fest was lame.

But back to my original, or at least my second statement, the one about the free stuff. I found it remarkably easy to clean up this year, despite being 31 years old and looking nothing like a college student. A grad student? Maybe. (At least that’s what I was telling people when they asked.) Regardless, I took home a bag full of stuff. For example:

* 9 t-shirts (3, maybe 4, that I could wear in public)
* 5 CDs of music
* 3 magazines (including the one I work on)
* 2 guides to Boston
* 1 guide to South Beach, Miami
* 2 plastic cups
* 1 pint glass
* 1 sports bottle
* 1 wiffle ball
* 1 block of post-it notes
* 1 mouse pad
* 1 copy of today’s Boston Globe
… but only 1 magnet.
I also won some Play-Dough, but I gave that back.

Still, I was struck by how lame College Fest had become. I expected to be there for at least a couple of hours, to learn some valuable stuff, and come home with two bags bursting with stuff, just like I used to. I mean, despite all that, I still had room for a bit more. Oh well. I guess times have changed.

I Can’t Make This Up

16 Sep

Just read that a guy named Suresh Joachim, who lives in Toronto but hails from Sri Lanka, has broken the Guinness World Record for most consecutive hours watching television. How many did he watch? Try 69 hours and 48 minutes, all of which he did with the TV tuned to ABC in New York. He finished up Friday morning at around 7 a.m. According to Guinness, the rules allow for a 5-minute break every hour and a 15-minute break every 8 hours. The viewer must otherwise be constantly looking at the screen. The previous record was 50 hours and 7 minutes.

Now, considering it’s still rerun season, he couldn’t have watched much that was interesting or new (not including the news programs and talk shows), and I guess he had to watch W’s thrilling press conference — maybe that’s when he took one of his 15-minute breaks. And considering he did this largely on a Thursday, that means he missed out on watching a brand new episode of The O.C., which I thought was pretty good. I mean, it’s back (generally) to how things were first season when Summer was catty and funny (mmm … I likes me some Summer), and it’s not overly serious like last year was.

But anyway, back to Suresh.

According to the guy’s web site, sureshjoachim.org, Suresh has some kind of fetish for breaking Guinness World Records. Apparently, he spent 100 hours bowling not too long ago. He also broke the record for the longest duration balancing on one foot (76 hours, 40 minutes).

And why does he do it? To raise awareness of suffering children. That’s right. His couch potato-ing was all for the children.

I can’t make this stuff up, people.

No Bones About It

15 Sep

Saw Corpse Bride tonight.

If you’re a fan of Tim Burton’s macabre style and you liked Nightmare Before Christmas (tho, in full disclosure, I never saw it), then this movie’s right up your alley.

The animation — stop-motion, as opposed to CGI — is cool, the songs are fun, voice work is good, and it’s real short, too (about 80 minutes).

In particular, I really liked how the land of the living was a dull, drab black and white, but the land of the dead was full of color and (ahem) life.

I give the film a B+.

Outside the auditorium, there were these little two-sided, newsletter-style booklets. One side had “Land of the Dead” and the other said “Land of the Living.”

Essentially, one half was about — well, you can probably figure it out.

But what was particularly funny was that in the “Living” section, there was an obituary for the “recently departed” and in the “Dead” section, there was an announcement of the “recently arrived.”

And in the middle of the two sections were the lyrics to the “Corpse Bride” song that is the showstopping number of the movie. Good stuff.

Anyway, Corpse Bride opens next week (Sept. 23). Go see it.

I Love the Internet

12 Sep


On Saturday night, I posted something about how great the U2/Mary J. Blige duet of “One” was at the “Shelter from the Storm” Hurricane Katrina telethon. Maybe you’ve heard something about the performance from someone else in the past two days; apparently, more than 23 million people watched it. Mary J. Blige totally revitalized that song, with the same kind of powerful, emotional performance she gave at the Grammy Awards in 2004 when she sang “No More Drama.” In this case, saying it was a “typical” performance is a compliment.

Anyway, it took less than two days for my posting to be picked up at a blog-watching site and for someone I don’t even know to send me a link to an MP3 of the performance. Amazing how the Internet works sometimes.

If you’ve got the bandwidth, I strongly suggest downloading this track. It’s free. Just follow the link, scroll down to the very bottom, and click on the “free” button. Then scroll down to the bottom again, wait for the countdown clock in the next-to-last paragraph to expire, and click on the Download link. And if you go to this guy’s site, you’ll find other downloads from Friday’s telethon, including Neil Young’s “When God Made Me” and Foo Fighters’ “Born on the Bayou,” plus the “When the Saints Go Marching In” finale from last week’s show.

In related news, have also found an MP3 of Kelly Clarkson performing the Ray LaMontagne song “Shelter,” at the MTV/VH1/CMT telethon Saturday night. Want to hear? Just click on the link at this fan site, under the heading for “React Now: Music & Relief.”

Ah yes, the Internet is a wonderful thing.

Adventures in Shopping

11 Sep

Few things are as embarrassing as … selecting a cucumber on a crowded Sunday at Shaw’s. (Actually, no matter when you try to select a cucumber, it’s embarrassing.)

Few things are as annoying as … going through the due diligence of selecting a good piece of cake for dessert (i.e.: biggest one they’ve got, plenty of icing, nothing stuck to the sides of the container — hold your comments, please) and having the cashier tip it upside down to scan the bar code, in the process getting icing on the top of the container, even if it’s just a little bit.
Second place: the fact that the shortest line is always the slowest.

But, having all the students back in town does make grocery shopping a more pleasant experience. At least aesthetically.

Music from Tragedy

11 Sep

If there’s one good thing that comes from major disasters and tragedies, it’s the response from the people in the entertainment community. In the 2 weeks since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, just like they did in the weeks that followed 9/11 and the tidal wave in Southeast Asia last December, singers and actors have come together to take part in various telethons and relief concerts, such as the one I stayed home to watch tonight that’s being simulcast on MTV, VH1 and CMT.

Last week, there was one on NBC that featured artists, like Harry Connick Jr. and Wynton Marsalis, who were from New Orleans. Last night’s show, simulcast on all the major broadcast networks, had a more diverse lineup, one that included Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, U2, Neil Young and Kanye West, among others. Tonight on the MTV show, it’s folks like Paul McCartney, John Mayer, Kelly Clarkson, Green Day, Coldplay, Hank Williams Jr., Alicia Keys and … well, it’s a four-hour-plus show (the others were just an hour long). Kanye West and Alicia Keys and Sheryl Crow and Neil Young and U2, they all pulled double duty these past two nights.

Anyway, my point here is not to applaud the celebs for taking part. It’s to say how great the music has been. Of course, you knew Harry Connick’s cover of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” even despite his tired and scratchy voice, would be awesome. That’s because it’s times like these that separate the true artists from, well, the Britney Spears of the world. Maybe it’s the minimalist performance style that in many of these cases leaves only the singer and a piano or a guitar. Maybe it’s the heartfelt emotion in the performances. Or maybe it’s just song selection. Whatever it is, there’s no denying that, for example, the U2/Mary J. Blige collaboration on “One” last night was simply music at its finest. It was one of the best performances of that song I’d ever heard and it blew me away. Mary J. Blige gave me chills. Randy Newman’s “Louisiana” (I think that’s what it was called), Sheryl Crow’s “The Water Is Wide” and Rod Stewart’s “People Get Ready” were also memorable.

Alicia Keys began the MTV/VH1/CMT show tonight with a moving rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd followed with an upbeat — but respectful — “Sweet Home Alabama.” John Mayer (with his blues trio) contributed a new song, “Gravity,” that was written in the last couple of weeks in response to Katrina. Live (on tape) from Milwaukee, the Rolling Stones sang “Waiting on a Friend.” Kelly Clarkson performed a song called “Shelter,” and she did a really nice job with it. And that was just the first half hour or so.

After the 9/11 telethon, the performances in the George Clooney-led telethon were released on CD and all proceeds went to victims’ families and other related causes. I’m hoping that after the past two weeks’ telethons, a similar charity CD is released with “the best” of these shows (there was also one last night on BET that I did not watch). Or that recordings will show up on iTunes. If not, well, if you missed the U2/Mary J. Blige duet, you missed something truly special.

Have You Seen This Movie?

9 Sep

I got a lot of email about my posting last weekend about Junebug. The majority read like this: “You’ve seen 29 movies? What are the others? Which ones should I see?” So in an attempt to answer those questions, here’s my 2005 list so far, in order of when I saw the films, with the grades I’d give them. (Note that I saw Wedding Crashers twice, thus the “x2.”)

1. ELEKTRA (B-)
2. THE WEDDING DATE (C)
3. HITCH (B)
4. THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (B-)
5. SIN CITY (B)
6. FEVER PITCH (B/B+)
7. THE INTERPRETER (B-)
8. CINDERELLA MAN (A-)
9. CRASH (B+/A-)
10. MADAGASCAR (C)
11. THE LONGEST YARD (solid B)
12. STAR WARS: EPISODE 3: REVENGE OF THE SITH (C-)
13. BATMAN BEGINS (A-)
14. BEWITCHED (D)
15. MR. & MRS. SMITH (B/B+)
16. WAR OF THE WORLDS (B)
17. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (B+)
18. WEDDING CRASHERS (B+) (x2)
19. BAD NEWS BEARS (C+)
20. MUST LOVE DOGS (C)
21. HUSTLE AND FLOW (B)
22. MURDERBALL (A)
23. DUKES OF HAZARD (C-)
24. RED EYE (D+)
25. BROKEN FLOWERS (B+)
26. THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN (B+)
27. THE ARISTOCRATS (B)
28. MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (B+)
29. JUNEBUG (C)

My Bad

9 Sep

If you read the posting yesterday about the Boston Herald reporter who went with me to California in June — well, not with me, but she was on the same press trip — you may have been put off by how mean spirited it was. I suppose I let my critical side get the better of me. Well, after hearing some feedback from a couple of readers, I’ve tweaked the entry and reposted. If you missed the original version, you didn’t miss much. And the general jist of what I had written is still there.

I’ll try to keep things more positive in the future.

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