Well, I missed the first Saturday of my 52 weeks of songs. Nice way to start things off, eh?
At least I have a tune in mind. Now if I can just think of some more words.
What rhymes with “torpid”?
OK, OK, so today for the first time ever I didn’t snicker derisively at the weather dude when he started in about wind chill. “Wind chill? Puh-leeze? Man, I’m from Maine. It ain’t wind chill until it gets down below 20, dontcha know?”
The wind chill at 6:30 AM was 19. And it’s getting colder for another hour or so.
This is a horrible two days of winter. I don’t know how we’ll survive…
I’m not going to be so high-and-mighty as to say that I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. It’s just natural. We see the coming year as a clean slate, and we look back on all the crap we didn’t (or did) do last year and decide to clean up our act. I’m going back on my diet. I’m going to be a better chairman of the Education Committee at church. I’m going to clean up the back bedroom. Blah. Blah. Blah. These are all things I should have been doing all along, but here’s a chance to change my lazywicked ways. I’m not saying that I’ll do any better in 2008 that I did in 2007, but why not give it a try?
The new year is also a good time to start new projects. One thing that I’d like to give a go is something similar to the Thing A Week that Jonathan Coulton did where he wrote, recorded and published a song each week for a year. Mine’s totally different, because A) I’m going to post mine on Saturday night instead of Friday and B) I’m not Jonathan Coulton.
I’m already in the hole for this year, as the first Saturday is only a couple of days away, and I have’nt written a thing. (HINT: Song subject suggestions are always welcome.)
So, will I accomplish all my goals? Will 2008 turn out to be a banner year?
What am I? Psychic?
Ah, yes, another New Year’s Eve and another night of sitting in a darkened movie theater gorging ourselves on popcorn while the world outside slips into another year. This is one of our coolest traditions.
This year’s movie was Sweeney Todd, and it was great. However, if you don’t like your musicals mixed with buckets of blood, then stay away from this one. It’s not for the kiddies.
I knew about the musical from the 70’s with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, the deranged pie maker, but I didn’t know that the history of Todd goes back over 160 years to a supposedly true account of a serial killer in London. The story showed up in a story called “The String of Pearls: A Romance” and was made into the play “Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” the next year. It was made into a movie in 1936. You can watch the whole thing at the Internet Archive.
The story was changed in the 70’s. Originally, Sweeney Todd was simply a villain like Jack the Ripper or the Phantom of the Opera. Christopher Bond wrote a 1973 play titled “Sweeney Todd” that gave Todd a motive other than pure greed. In this version, he is a wrongfully imprisoned barber named Benjamin Barker who returns under the name Sweeney Todd after fifteen years to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment has raped his young wife and caused her to committ suicide. He swears revenge, but when his plans face obstacles, he begins to slash the throats of his customers and deliver them to Mrs. Lovett to put in her pies.
Johnny Depp is wonderful. He’s not the world’s greatest singer, but he does a fine job, and he projects the twisted, dark soul of the vengeful Todd with such clarity that you almost root for him. You definitely hurt alongside him for a bit. Meanwhile, Helena Bonham Carter (again no Broadway superstar) gives Mrs. Lovett just the right combination of insanity and longing that you feel for her, too. Mostly.
The rest of the cast is great, as well. Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin is his usual oily self. Timothy Spall as the judge’s henchman, Beadle Bamford, is his usual toadying self. And Sacha Baron Cohen does a fantastic turn as the competing barber, Adolfo Pirelli.
It’s not for everyone, but all-in-all, I think this was one of the best movies I saw in 2007.
As we wrap up 2007, it’s Funny 25 time, which means it’s also time to update my Dr. Demento’s Top 100 (or so) Demented Hits.
This year besides the usual addition of the top two songs from the countdown to the all-time 100, two other songs gained enough points to get added to the list. Jonathan Coulton’s “Re: Your Brains” made its second appearance in the Funny 25 in two years and jumps to number 70 on the Top 100. And Weird Al was all over this year’s countdown. His “White & Nerdy” comes in at #50 on the all-time greatest list.
The other song gaining ground was “The Night Santa Went Crazy” by Weird Al. It moved up from #29 to #27, passing “Shaving Cream” by Doctor Demento and “Kick Ass USA” by Milo Tremley.
I found a lot of these songs and artists on a site called “The Funny Music Project” (aka, The FUMP). It’s a miracle of modern science. Check it out.
#25 Do I Creep You Out – “Weird Al” Yankovic
#24 Dead Puppies – Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizzario Band
#23 That Calls For A Wilhelm Scream – Possible Oscar
#22 Monster Mash – Bobby (Boris) Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers
#21 The Night Santa Went Crazy – “Weird Al” Yankovic
#20 Dementia Revolution – the great Luke Ski & MC Lars
#19 Canadian Idiot – “Weird Al” Yankovic
#18 Liquor And Whores – Bubbles & The Shit Rockers
#17 Sheep – Seamonkey
#16 Every Time You Stifle A Sneeze – Lemon Demon
#15 Get A New Daddy – The Whitest Kids U’ Know
#14 Transforming Transformers – Whimsical Will
#13 It’s Business Time – Flight Of The Conchords
#12 Holding Out For Hiro – the great Luke Ski (featuring Carrie Dahlby)
#11 Re: Your Brains – Jonathan Coulton
#10 Clinton Got A Blowjob – Eric Schwartz
#9 You’ve Got Hogwarts – Robert Lund
#8 Knife Fight – Lemon Demon (featuring Marty Allen)
#7 Re: Your Song About My Client Delilah – Robert Lund
#6 White & Nerdy – “Weird Al” Yankovic
#5 Anorexiac – Seamonkey (featuring Devo Spice)
#4 Pillagers – Sudden Death
#3 99 Words For Boobs – Robert Lund
#2 Getting Old Sucks – Sudden Death
#1 Cellular Degeneration – Sudden Death
Happy New Year!
Still in the midst of Christmas cheer, but pretty much everyone else has passed out. Mrs. R has been baking most of the day, and the other two are just wiped from our typical holiday excesses (sleeping off the salt ‘n’ sugar high of last night’s convenience store run). Whiny pooped out a couple of hours ago, and Pepperkat is zonked in front of “A Christmas Story.” I’ll be rousing them in a little while so we can head down to my brother’s place for dinner.
We didn’t get up extremely early, since the little kids are little no more. However, by 7:30 or so we had the Christmas music in the CD changer (except for the Rasputina CD someone forgot to pull out) and were sipping on coffee and opening gifts.
I know you’re dying to find out what us fashionable folk got for prezzies, so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.
I got 4 new harmonicas, a copy of the Robert Plant/Alison Krause CD “Raising Sand”, a copy of David Halberstam’s book on the Vietnam War “The Best and the Brightest” (I loved the latest one on Korea, “The Coldest Winter”), and Medieval II: Total War.
Mrs. R got Simpsons “Hit and Run”, and CD’s by the B-52’s, Etta James and Michael Buble. Whiny got a couple of games for his DS, and Pepperkat got the hardest game in the world to find: a copy of Guitar Hero III for the Wii.
To top it all off, we cranked up the credit cards to 11 and got tickets for the lot of us to see “Spamalot” in March.
So, what did Santa bring you?
There isn’t much of a chance in hell that I’d vote for any of the Republican candidates, but I really, really, really don’t want Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic nomination. It’s bad enough that she’s about the worst politician at pandering I’ve ever seen (“I don’t feel no ways tired…”), but she has a tendency to jump on conservative bandwagons (my God, is that the understatement of the year or what?).
For example, while the other Democratic candidates would let the video game industry self-regulate, Hillary wants the government to step in with her Family Entertainment Protection Act. This, naturally, has her sharing a joystick with Joe Lieberman–whose whiny little face would make a great target for a first-person shooter…at least for me.
Please, remember to vote in the primary, not just the election.
Vote Obama. Vote Edwards. Vote Richardson. Just don’t vote Hillary!
Here’s a remixed version of the old Johnny Cash song we recorded a few weeks ago. We changed the lead vocal to David (who does a way better job of it than I did) and added some bass and percussion.
When the hell is this movie going to be released??? I want it NOW!
This is the main reason I wish we had a time machine, so that we could jump forward to next June then back here for Christmas…it’s BATMAN!
