Author: Chad

So, what’d I miss?

It’s been over a decade since I’ve written anything here. Every bit of of this site is stale, but credit to the software, it just kept updating without me. I don’t think that a month went by over the past over 10 years where I didn’t try to convince myself that my next project would be to dust this ol’ blog off and make something of it. Here I am, over 10 years later, finally pressing publish.

What happened while I was gone? Well both comics in my last post had their careers blow up, with one still at the top, and the other back on the ground after a nasty fall. On my end there’s been failure, stasis, anxiety, injury, death, and cancer… the usual. It’s not like I don’t have things to write about so I shouldn’t be short of topics.

What’s the goal? Well, I’d like to write all the time. Not just about myself – still not comfortable on that end – but about my opinions, observations, and various ideas that come across my mind. Part of me wants to make this a far reaching site with a wide variety of topics that blends the personal with the professional, but the other part of me is convinced that will just make for an unfocused mess. We’ll see how it shakes down.

I’m less concerned with the looks and formatting this time around (you like my styling default theme?) and more focused on the writing. I still hope to make some style changes as I learn more about what I’ve been away from for the last decade.

Here’s to another decade.

Categories
General Television

Louis C.K. & Bill Burr

I love stand-up comedy. I grew up during the time when stand-up exploded and you could find comedy specials all the time on HBO. Thankfully, I didn’t have uptight, super-restrictive parents, and because of that I was able to listen to the unfiltered routines of guys like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Andrew “Dice” Clay, etc. Looking back at the performances I realize that much of the raunchier material flew right over my head. Even as a kid, the one thing I always understood was that these comics were funny. I’m thankful for getting to watch those shows because all of them gave me an early course on developing a sense of humor.

Despite my enjoyment of stand-up, upon reaching adulthood, I never went to comedy clubs. It was like out of sight, out of mind. Well… it was that, and a more than a little bit of avoiding the drunken atomosphere. Movies filled my stand-up void until two things happened at nearly the same time. The first was my final breaking point of dealing with the sloppiness of the modern moviegoing experience. The second was that an Improv comedy club happened to open near my house. Seeing names like Robert Schimmel, Dave Chappelle, and Jim Norton on the calendar meant that it was time to go to the comedy show.

The first thing I noticed about seeing someone live is how much easier it is for them to make you laugh – even without any alcohol in you. It is almost like you’re rooting for them to be funny, and when they land the first punchline you just let go with laughter. If the comic can get that going you can get a high from it all. I was hoping for that feeling when I noticed that Louis C.K. and Bill Burr would be in town just a week a part from each other. Thankfully, neither comic let me down.

If you don’t know who Louis C.K. is, don’t worry you’ve probably heard one of his jokes. The man is a comedy machine. In fact he’s so full of material that other comics (ahem, Dane Cook) have been caught “borrowing” some of his material. Louis has a long list of writing credits that include: Letterman, Conan, Chris Rock Show, and Saturday Night Live. If you had/have HBO you may have seen him in his own cable sitcom Lucky Louie. Apparently not too many people did as it was sadly canceled after just one season.

His humor is brutal, observational, self-deprecating, and funny to the point where you almost feel guilty for laughing. He has unflinching honest and embarassing stories about being a father raising two little daughters, as well as bits on how jaded we’ve all become with technology. His act is not for the easily offended, or for people that can’t follow humor down a dark path. His overall tone is that of a hopeful, cynic – a man both oddly enjoying what life has brought him, and bracing for what it may have in store. Plus… he’s just damned funny. See for yourself:

About the only place that you’re likely to have seen Bill Burr is on the Dave Chappelle show. If you remember the skit about the racial draft, then you saw Bill as one of the announcers. If you’re still drawing a blank, that’s a shame because Bill Burr is unbelievably funny. I saw him a week to the day after Louis C.K. came to town, and I left the comedy club with my face hurting from laughing. Bill’s comedy is built on his rage and idle thoughts. Watching his act is like talking with a conspiracy-loving friend who is prepped to go off on a rant as soon as a subject hits the air. He lets his mind fly off on hilarious tangential rants that last until he has talked himself out of subject matter. Often times he won’t let a punchline sink in, and instead powers ahead with multiple shots like a boxer going pulling off a three punch combination. Here’s a clip, that while funny, doesn’t do his live act justice:

If you can take anything from this post let it be this – go see some stand-up. Whether it is on Netflix, or on TV, or in person, just go laugh your ass off. If you happen to hit the clubs, take note of how nice the comics tend to be after the shows. Yes, they are nice in the meet and greet because it helps sell DVD’s and CD’s, but they don’t have to be THAT nice. Louis C.K. stopped and thanked every fan that crossed his path, and Bill Burr took time out to actually converse with the people lining up for signed goods. Now get out of here and go watch some comedy.

Louis C.K. – Official Web Site

Louis C.K. – YouTube Channel

Bill Burr – Official Web Site

Categories
General

Think Fast & Type Slow

For some reason I was always bothered by people walking around talking into mini-tape recorders. I remember seeing it in movies growing up, and outside of Michael Keaton in Night Shift, I wasn’t a fan of the practice. Maybe it was just envy of watching someone have the ability to take their ideas down whenever they wanted. Perhaps it was the inherent smugness, the feeling they had that their ideas were sooo important that they couldn’t want to get their hands on a pen – oh no! – they had to archive them right now! Yeah, it was definitely the smugness.

Now, on the other hand, I understand it. Perhaps the usefulness of a personal recorder doesn’t fully hit you until you’re thinking about stuff to write. There are two common problems that pop up with me and my creativity that could be remedied, slightly, by recording my ideas.

The first is that I’m a quick thinker, and a slow typist. I’m not horribly slow. In fact, if I free-form and do the stream-of-consciousness thing I can get a nice rhythm going. I’m also pretty good at transcribing. The problem is that my head gets in front of my hands, and before you know it, I phrase have things mixed up. See? Sure, that was a rigged example meant to draw a reaction from you, but you get the idea… hell, you probably suffer from the same thing. I self-edit as I type. It can take me 30 minutes to send a simple e-mail because I have to reread it and fix my half written sentences to nowhere. Now if I recorded my ideas, and played them back, I’d only have to transcribe my ideas. Would you know it… I don’t self-edit when I transcribe. I can go into typist mode where I’m just focusing on the word and not the meaning of the sentence. Sure, this idea wouldn’t cut back on e-mail time, but it could be good for long form ideas, and maybe even blog posts.

The second problem is that I have my best ideas when I’m away from the computer. Something will pop into my head, and even if I have time to grab for a notebook, my hand isn’t fast enough to write the ideas down before they fade into the ether. Maybe you’ve tried it by writing down a dream. If so, did you ever have the feeling that the full details were starting to get more than a little fuzzy due to waiting on your hand, so you just sort of start to artificially fill in the blanks in hopes of remembering exactly what you dreamt of? At that point your own head is lying to you about what you just fantasized about, and it is all your hands fault… just like masturbation.

Now I see that the personal recorder lets you spit out your ideas when you’re the most excited about them. It doesn’t give you the chance to ponder and/or possibly forget what you believe at the time could be your big money idea. What it doesn’t do, however, is make you feel any less douchey about sitting around listening to an excited you spit out ideas like, “OK… a sci-fi story… like Star Trek… but with tits!” with an Einstein-esque zeal as if you’ve just figured out the theory of relativity.

Where does that leave me? On the fence. I know I put up some good arguments that are pro-recording, but I never got around to mentioning how I don’t like hearing my own voice. I always think about how I sound less like a man, and more like some bloated shim with blown out sinuses and a mouthful of cake.

Speaking of cake… why does my shirt smell like Cheez Whiz?

*I’m not editing this post at all just to drive myself insane. (Tough to fight the temptation to scroll up and proof read.)

Categories
General

Back in Business

Oops… look who forgot to post this summer? I could spin wild yarns about being out and about and never having a moment to type. The truth is that I sat right at the computer where I type these posts, and just never bothered to log in and get cracking. Well… there was that pesky Hurricane Ike too.

Destined to join the ranks of the piled high, tattered remains of all the abandoned blogs on the Web, I decided it was time to rescue this sinking ship and change its course. Yes, I will still talk about movies and other types of media, but I can’t let that be my main focus.

Why is that you say? Because I kept slamming my head into movies that I didn’t like. Now I realize that this is my fault, but I felt like that since I had this blog, I should try and review all the recent big releases that I missed. Here’s my review – the vast majority of them sucked… except the Dark Knight.

Anyway, I realized how hard it is to continually write about things you dislike, especially when you’re not getting paid to do so. Had I been pulling in a check to watch I Am Legend, perhaps I would have never stopped posting. Let me check my funds… uh huh, see, nobody is paying me to watch this shit, so why should I waste my time.

What should you expect now? I don’t know yet. I still want to post music. I’m still going to offer reviews and suggestions on the things I come across. Will I make some political posts? Perhaps. Posts about my comfortable, yet increasingly banal existence? Maybe. This thing needs text to survive, and I need to write. Not for you, but for me. I need to write to remind myself I can get better at it. I can think quite well at the moment. My problem area is getting my fingers to put it to the page in a reasonable amount of time.

Now that I’ve posted something, I can reward myself with some NHL 09.

Categories
DVD Movies

The Mist

Movie PosterI respect Stephen King. The sheer amount of words that he has let loose from his keyboard over the span of his career is mind-boggling. As someone who stumbles their way through blog posts, I am amazed at his ability to both birth and raise a story, and at the regularity at which he does it. The stories get gobbled up by Hollywood almost as fast as he can write, and the list of adaptations of his work has over 100 items on it. The quality of these adaptations varies greatly. The Mist is helmed by Frank Darabont, the man responsible for two of King’s less-horrific films, The Green Mile and more impressively, The Shawshank Redemption. Having Darabont on board should have been a recipe for success, but The Mist is an adaptation that would have been better left on the page.

As you can gather from the title the movie is about an ominous mist that engulfs a small town. A group of townsfolk out shopping seek shelter inside a small grocery store, and while it isn’t as nice as hiding in a mall, it at least it offers some similar supplies. Are there strange bugs and monsters hidden in the mist? And what will the people do when they’re trapped together with a shrinking hope for survival?

OK, if you have been clicking my links in that previous paragraph you may have already grasped my biggest issue with the movie. It is completely and totally unoriginal. The only thing I will give it points for are some of the creature designs. Everything else is like a checklist of plot points, movie scenes, and characters that have been rehashed time and again. Hero dad trying to protect his kid – check. Angry black man that is bound to become yet another horror movie casualty – check. Crazy person that shows us that the real monsters are the humans cracking under pressure – check. Wimpy, timid character that reveals a stronger personality at an opportune time – check. Characters that inexplicably act mind-bogglingly irrational at the most puzzling times – check. It goes on and on and on. One sequence in the film meant to up the tension and panic of the viewer just left me thinking to myself, “didn’t I see this exact same shit in Aliens?!”

Ah ha, but could this be a case of the movies I’ve seen through the years copying a story that had never been translated onto film? After all, The Mist was first published in 1980. Well, with the exception of the Aliens reference, all the films/stories I linked to came out before, or in the case of The Fog, during 1980. Swing and a miss.

Which brings us to the big talking point of the film – the ending. Darabont is obviously a big enough fan of King’s to know that the endings of his stories are where he seems to struggle the most, and so he decided to write a new ending for the film himself. The ending is supposed to be shocking, make your jaw drop, and get you talking after the credits roll. I suppose it could do that, especially if you’re someone that hasn’t had a chance to watch any classic episodes of The Twilight Zone. Yes, it is a harsh and sudden ending, but only until you stop and think about it. The movie nerd side of me has technical problems with it that take away some of its impact, but I will spare you the details. The logical side of me says, “Well… what exactly was supposed to happen to these people trapped in a mist with weird monsters?” Lastly, the guy that heard an interview with Darabont where he dissed Kubrick’s version of The Shining, and referred to it as cold and mean, is wondering how in the hell his comments jibe with the ending of this movie?

While I understand everything The Mist set out to do, it just didn’t grab me at all. If you haven’t seen some of the movies I’ve linked, or you’re a huge King fan that will geek out to any and all Dark Tower references, then this is worth watching. For anyone else with an itch for watching some bad weather/claustrophobic horror, I think you’d be better served hitting up a double feature of John Carpenter’s The Fog and The Thing.

The Mist @ IMDB

Stephen King @ IMDB (look at it and imagine how nice it must be to sleep on piles of money)