More Xmas picks

I watched all 81 minutes of this last year, despite a stuttery video feed on the cable channel where I DVR'd it.  Luckily for Foulard readers, it's now available on Netflix--in HD, yet.

More normativity than you can shake a stick at

It's the story of an implausibly quaint small town in Alaska that does Christmas big time every year, until the heaviest Baldwin, Daniel, comes to town and starts cramping their style by invoking a little thing called separation of church and state.  What a cad!  He's a local boy who moved to the big city and has now returned to town to corrupt them with his "cosmopolitan" ways.  Ted McGinley plays the mayor, a solid family man who is weirdly fixated on setting up elaborate holiday displays in the town square, or any place that's city property.  He has a colorless wife, son, and daughter (she's the angel on the poster).  My favorite character is the guy played by "christian comedian" Brad Stine.  I originally thought he would turn out to be Jesus, because of his beard, but instead he's just some doofus brother-in-law to McGinley who does a "hilarious" rant against "the PC police" which was the highlight of the movie for me.   (He also has a concert video called "Tolerate This", which should show you where he's coming from)

Manic for Jesus

SPOILER ALERT:
It turns out that Daniel Baldwin is just causing all this trouble because he doesn't have a family to spend Xmas with.  That's right, he's the grinch.  And then he changes his mind and lets them put up their giant manger scene, or something like that.

Recommended for:
Masochists and people with an irrational paranoia about "the war on Christmas".

Boring Headlines of Our Time

Rolling Stone names Hendrix best guitarist ever

Legendary musician Jimi Hendrix was named the greatest guitar player in history on Nov. 23 by Rolling Stone magazine in a list compiled by a panel of music experts and top guitar players.

I would have voted for "I.Q." from the Bugaloos, myself.

 

Why don't bands ever break up any more?

[Update!  I was preparing this rant last week, but never got around to publishing it--but now, one of the biggies has given up the ghost.  Maybe this will inspire the others to pack it in!]

I remember when I was young and there were a bunch of old geezer bands from the sixties and seventies that kept staying together and touring and putting out horrible new albums, etc--the main offender was the Rolling Stones with their awful eighties records, but then there were lesser bands like the Moody Blues and their godawful "In Your Wildest Dreams" song and (Jefferson) Starship with the singular "We Built This City".

At the time, I never realized that the contemporary hipster bands of the eighties would decide to stay together to milk their aging fan base forever, too.  The appropriate behavior for a group would be to put out one good debut album, and follow it up with 1 to 4 albums of lesser quality and then break up as a way of arresting their decline.

Here are a few of the main offenders:

U2 (together 35 years!  First single released 31 years ago)

Adam Clayton always looked awful, didn't he?

R.E.M. (together 31 years)

The mopey look that influenced countless jangle pop band photos in the 80s

Sonic Youth (still peddling their hipster cred after 30 years)

Hey, it's that guy from Stranger than Paradise!

Did you forget they ever looked like that, after all these years?  What ancient bands do you wish would just stop?

I have but one question:  Why isn't Obama doing something about this?  I am so disappointed in him!

The weird death of Dick Shawn

Best known as 'L.S.D' from The Producers, and the Heat and Snow Misers from The Year Without a Santa Claus, oddball comedian Dick Shawn also went out in a strange way.

From Wikipedia:

On April 17, 1987, while performing on stage at UC San Diego's Mandeville Hall, Shawn began a comedy bit about himself and the audience surviving nuclear war. At one point in the act, Shawn portrayed a politician reciting campaign clichés, including: "If elected, I will not lay down on the job"; later, when he collapsed face down on the stage, the audience thought it was part of the act, unaware that he had actually suffered a massive heart attack.

After some time had gone by, there were catcalls. Finally, someone appeared on stage, kneeled down to examine Shawn, stood up and asked: "Is there a doctor in the house?" Another person came on stage, turned him over and began administering CPR. The audience was told to go home, but almost no one left since it appeared to be part of Shawn's act. When paramedics arrived, bewildered audience members began leaving, still unsure of what they had witnessed. A notice in the following day's San Diego Union newspaper clarified that Shawn had indeed died during the performance. Dick Shawn was only 63.

It's Moko!

Who wants ice cream?