Month: October 2007

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Giving The Animation Show the “411”

I’ve been really busy with another E411 the last few weeks and forgot to post this, but The Animation Show continues to be completely awesome and gave me an interview on their site!

Tim Heiderich informs on “Emergency 411”!

So if you want to know more about the boundless genius who thought of animating monochromatic stick figures, check it out! They’re actually really good questions (and if not for me, read the rest of the interviews to find out how the pros do it). And while we’re at it, the cartoon that was inspired by the worst opening act in music’s history:

There’s more on the Emergency 411 MySpace my YouTube page.

Evidently John Cooper Clarke

ControlBetter late than never I discover John Cooper Clarke. I went to see the new Joy Division movie Control at the Nuart theater in Santa Monica with some friends this weekend. Now I have a fairly self-evident shallow taste in music, and had originally written off singer/songwriter Ian Curtis as a morose, proto-emo spaz, but if I was trapped in a loveless marriage, had a kid, and was fighting grand mal seizures while trying to get my band going at age 23, yeah, I might not be able to hold it together, either.

Anyway, that’s enough of a pity party for a man who achieved more than I ever will by his early 20s.

In addition to hearing more Joy Division than I ever had in one sitting (“…you mean there’s more besides ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’?”), I also got to hear the dry monotone of a Manc poet barreling through a poem about “Chicken Town.”

Continue reading “Evidently John Cooper Clarke”

Can I get two tens for a five?

I love an obvious scam. I know it’s coming, but I’m willing to let it go as far as it can just for the experience of it, only to back off before any money changes hands. I guess I’m a bit of a con tease.

I was heading to The Cat & Fiddle on Sunset Blvd. when a scraggly man asked me if I had change for a $10. I didn’t have any singles, but I did have two fives. That’s cool, he said. Why he would need two fives was beyond me, but a stranger asking for money raised enough red flags that anything else suspicious is just icing on the cake.

“Man, it’s so hard to get change in this town!” he said, stretching to reveal he’s going commando under his uncomfortably low-riding camo shorts.

I pull two fives from my wallet, clumsily letting a third fall to the ground, just to see what’ll happen. Alas, he tries nothing. I hold my fives out and grab his ersatz ten.

“Oh… I accidentally washed it.” he grinned from behind cracked teeth.

His ten looked about as convincing as this:

Wake up, Sheeple!

There it was on matte ink-jet paper, JPEG artifacts and all. “No.” I said, “You printed this out.”

And then I handed it back to him.

Didn’t tear it in half, didn’t crumple it up, didn’t just take this shady ten spot from his counterfeiting ass, just handed it back to him. Sorry, and good luck with the next mark!

I’m such a rube.

The Top 10 Rap Songs White People Love

I’m not going to front. As anyone who’s read the Music section of my MySpace page can attest, these rap songs are my hip-hop bread and butter. White bread, that is.

The Top 10 Rap Songs White People Love

Given that, it will surprise exactly no one that I performed “It Takes Two” at karaoke a few nights ago, or that I wrote some quote-unquote erotic fanfic about “Bust A Move” on Weak Nights.

As spot-on as some of these selections (and honorable mentions) are, I would gladly trade “Whoomp (There It Is)” — a song I knew barely qualified as music even when I was in high school — and “Hip Hop Hooray” for Neneh Cherry and her Buffalo Stance. Where is the love, white rap enthusiasts?

And I would love to listen to “Hey Ya”, but it’s just a little too …you know.