Happy birthday to my sister Eileen!
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I am Jack’s Imaginary Tiger Friend
This metaphilm essay puts forth an interesting premise:
In the film Fight Club, the real name of the protagonist (Ed Norton’s character) is never revealed. Many believe the reason behind this anonymity is to give “Jack” more of an everyman quality. Do not be deceived. “Jack” is really Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
It’s true. Norton portrays the grown-up version of Calvin, while Brad Pitt plays his imaginary pal, Hobbes, reincarnated as Tyler Durden.
And Helena Bonham-Carter plays Marla, the grown-up version of Suzie Derkins:
All bad girls were sweet girls once. Trust me on this one.
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Some More Stats
Since November 10, 2001, when I started The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, I:
- Used 2 blogging platforms (I started with Blogger, and now use Blogware, which is produced by the firm for which I work, Tucows)
- Have 43 photo albums with a total of 1328 photos
- Got 1025 trackbacks
- Received 3909 comments (not including those I deleted or those on the commenting system from when I used Blogger)
- Posted 3739 articles (not counting this one)
That last number surprised me; if you asked me to estimate the
number of blog articles I’d published, I would have put it at around
2000 posts, not almost 4000.
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Drivin’ Music
In January 1992, my friend Henry and I decided that we’d do something different for our drive back to Crazy Go Nuts University. We would listen to only one song: Ministry’s then-new single, Jesus Built My Hotrod [Windows media sample / RealPlayer sample].
If you’re not familiar with the number, it’s a giant thrash-rock
wall-of-guitar noisefest fronted by the distorted vocals of guest
singer Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers. I think we managed to
listen to it for about an hour (or 10 plays) before we decided “okay,
enough”.
Here’s a man who took on an even bigger challenge: he managed to drive from Iowa City to Chicago to visit his girlfriend, and he chose to listen to only one song — ABBA’s Dancing Queen. Eeee-yow.
I met Scott Watkins in 1999 at the Queen Street West cafe Tequila
Bookworm, where we were not just regulars, but friends with the staff
(in my case, very special friends with one of the staff. albeit disastrously).
A couple of years later, he invited me to play accordion to accompany
his improv troupe on days when the regular musical director couldn’t
make it. I performed at a handful of shows and had a blast doing it. I
got to perform and still have the best seat in the house at the same
time, and it’s always great to see Scott perform (you should see his
“Beat Poetry of Ricardo Montalban” routine).
Scott recently contacted me and asked if I’d do some music for his upcoming show, Peril From Beyond Space:
The synopsis:
The year is 1947. The forces of democracy have triumphed. Millions of
Americans are raising families, buying refrigerators, and wearing
nearly identical suits. Now that fascism has been eradicated, Mr. and
Mrs. Average Homeowner can look forward to a bright new era of peace
and prosperity. Or can they? Little do they realize that a malevolent
alien race has targeted the planet earth – a race of demon monsters
that threatens every single person in the entire world…a Peril – from
Beyond Space!
Peril From Beyond Space is a
“comedy sci-fi cliffhanger in four parts” taking place for the next
four Fridays at 10 p.m.: March 11, 18, 25 and April 1 at the Bad Dog Theatre, 138 Danforth Avenue
(at Broadview). Four different musical/comedy acts will open each show,
with Yours Truly opening for the March 11th opening show! Tickets are
$8 at the door. I should be entertaining, and Scott and Company should
be even more so.
I suppose that means I should go work on my routine.
Some prankster has edited an image on the web site (look at the customer service rep in the lower right-hand corner) for Neato, the disc labelling company:
Thanks to drauh for the link!
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You’ve Got to Watch "Scent of a Robot"
Check out this excellent video for an excellent hip-hop number: Pete Miser’s Scent of a Robot,
in which the narrator acciedentally discovers that he’s not human, but
a prototype robot soon to be mass-produced. I love it when hip-hop and
science fiction collide; one gets tired of “ghetto this”, “drive-by
that” and “bling bling”.
The rap is clever and expertly delivered by Pete, who navigates the territory that lies between Del tha Funkee Homosapien and MC Paul Barman.
I’ve got to give mad props to whoever did the backing track for tossing
in a nice synth-accordion descending line; I’d call it the best
one-chord jam since Beck’s Loser. The video itself is a nice gene-splice of computer animation and live-action video.
When I first stumbled across the video, I watched it about half a dozen times. I’m hooked! Check the video to find out why.