SHO-RYU-KEN!

Street Fighter II and salsa dancing together at last. If you've ever played this game as a kid (or adult), you may find the below video entertaining. At least, I do. Click on the picture.

SMiLE

I recently purchased Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, the DVD which includes David Leaf's documentary, Beautiful Dreamer as well as a very nicely executed live performance of the entire SMiLE album. I have to admit; at first, I was a little frightened to insert disc 2 of the DVD set (containing the performance) for fear of seeing one of my songwriting heroes struggle to sing some the material which has haunted him for so many years. For those who may not know the long history of SMiLE, it would be impossible to tell it here. Essentially, it was an album Brian Wilson was writing, producing, arranging and recording for his band, The Beach Boys, in 1966/1967 while they were touring England without him (a standard practice for the band - Brian hated touring). Upon their return, having heard the newly recorded material and the words by Brian's lyricist, Van Dyke Parks, certain members of the band rejected SMiLE it for its "avant-guard" nature and total departure from the Beach Boys formula. Brian, an intensely sensitive and fragile human being, fell under a destructive spell of self doubt and scrapped the SMiLE project and much of the recorded material was lost.

Little was heard from Brian for the next 30 years.

In 2003, he decided to revisit the music and face his demons head-on and perform the album live in front of audiences. After a very successful tour and very strong vocal performances, Brian Wilson went back into Sunset Sound in Hollywood, CA with his touring band and recorded SMiLE.

For me, this album along with Pet Sounds (1966) represents some of the very best pop music ever written. And knowing the tumultuous history of their creator makes listening to them that much more poignant and meaningful. Forget what you think you know about the Beach Boys and their songs. Nowhere on these records is there any mention of surfing or cars. In fact, I can't really think a single standard love song on SMiLE except for "Good Vibrations."

Actually, SMiLE has one song called "Surf's Up," and it's probably my favorite part of the record for its demonstration of Brian's unearthly grasp for chord changes, melody and harmony. But as you'll see, its words are a far cry from "Surfin' Safari."

Van Dyke Parks' lyrics:

A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along, oh
To a handsome man and baton

A blind class aristocracy
Back through the opera glass you see
The pit and the pendulum drawn

Columnated ruins domino

Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping?

Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn

The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumperter swan

Columnated ruins domino

Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?

Dove nested towers the hour was
Strike the street quicksilver moon
Carriage across the fog
Two-Step to lamp lights cellar tune
The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne

The glass was raised, the fired rose
The fullness of the wine, the dim last toasting

While at port adieu or die
A choke of grief heart hardened I
Beyond belief a broken man too tough to cry

Surf's Up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave

I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children's song

A child is the father of the man

A children's song
Have you listened as they played
Their song is love
And the children know the way

That's why the child is the father to the man

New Religion

Thanks to everyone for telling me the name of my blog was misspelled all this time. I only noticed it today. The part of my brain that knows how to spell and the part of my brain that knows how to type have never met. Unless, of course, no one even noticed it. If so, then never mind.

These are slightly amusing. It may be an old internet invention that everyone already knew about, but it's new to me.

Actually, as I type this, I've grown bored with it. On to something new.
Sorry and thank you.

Spectator Sport?

Really, now. I don't see how any person can derive pleasure, or even mild bemusement from watching other people play cards on television. It doesn't matter if it's "Texas Hold 'Em," "Colorado Squeeze 'Em" or even "New Hampshire Honey-Glaze 'Em." To me, it's all just creepy looking guys with sunglasses sitting around a table. What am I missing? I understand the rules. I've played poker before. Heck, I think I even had fun.

Oh, that's right, I was actually playing.

I've even had some serious green at stake. I came close to losing something like $4.50 one time, so I understand the drama and the tension surrounding the game. But when I'm asked to care rather or not "Mississippi" Melvin has two aces in his hand on ESPN2's Amateur Poker Night LIVE or whatever it's called, that's where my attention begins to wane. When everyone waits with bated breath to see if Charlie "Big Thumbs" DuMont is going "all in," my mind turns to other matters such as "I wonder if you can still make decent toast with stale bread?" Either that or I'm just trying to get a good look at those thumbs.



No, those aren't the "Hey, check me out! I'm a total dipshit who's never eaten a vegetable in his entire life" glasses. Those are really his eyes. You actually begin to turn into a vicious reptile when you make a living out of gambling.



Interestingly, this guy has acquired the perfect "poker face" by training himself to never experience joy, happiness or contentment. He wore that same face at the birth of each of his children. He lives alone, now.



This guy doesn't do very well in the American competitive poker circuit. For years now, he has been lobbying the Poker Commission to implement "Kung Fu Poker," a game he has mastered. Sadly, he has thus far lobbied unsuccessfully.

Also...

Here's another anti-Yankee gem by Mike Nelson:

Yankee's Failure Complete!

The New York Yankees baseball franchise, now widely known as "baseball's laughingstock" has suffered further humiliation as their bitter, hated rival, the Boston Red Sox, secured the the title of World Champions on Wednesday night. The win further enhanced the Yankee image as a collection of trillionaire hot-dogging losers. Derek Jeter, whose lackluster performance dragged his failing team down to bitter defeat, put his team's failure in the proper context: "It's impossible to state in human terms how evil we are," he admitted. "If we lost our next seven trillion games straight it still wouldn't make up for the continuous string of foulness we've inflicted on an innocent human race." Asked if they might not have wanted to give us a heads up on their whole "destroy all good on the planet" project, Jeter stated,"We put Don Zimmer out there to warn you people, but you just wouldn't listen!"

"I'm a light-hitting, overrated failure with a pumpkin-like head," Jeter added.

Contact the Yankees for more information on their staggering failure.

Update! Yankees still not in Series! Failure stands!

The New York Yankees, who recently broke centuries' old records by losing miserably in the ALCS to their hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, are as of today, 26 October, 2004, still failures. Their status remains unchanged.

Many Yankee fans were surprised that their characteristic thuggish behavior, including Herculean alcohol consumption and rampant battery throwing, did not lead to another hollow Yankee's victory. "I drank as much as I could and it didn't seem to help," said one dazed fan. "I mean, how many obscenities can one man scream out in a single season. I can only do so much."

"I threw a ball at an umpire's head in an attempt to injure or kill him, yet still the Yankees lost. Life is so unfair," said another.

"We deserve to win every single year," said Lisa Bontrier, a P.R. rep from J.R. Stockwile and Associates. "People from places other than Manhattan don't even have electricity, so they can't even see the games. Can't they just put on some bib overalls, play with their squirrels and let us win every game?"

Despite the disappointment of many fans, the Yankee losers could do little to change things. Hot-dogging failure Derek Jeter, for instance, is as much a loser today as he was immediately upon losing terribly in game 7.

Again, Yankees are still losers.

Damn Yankees

Damn Yankees (with Ted Nugent)

The Cubs' loss today is particularly infuriating due to the fact that it came against that wealthy group of shameless future Hall of Famers from the east.

That gluttonously assembled dream team of men who were lured by nothing more than the call of greed and the smell of money.

The team who's fans' only goal in life is to throw D-cell batteries at opposing players and umpires who, however correctly, make calls against their home team of spineless, Satan worshiping, intemperant worms.

Worms led by their trio of ringleaders. You know - the most comically overstuffed hog of sports contract history, Alex Rodriguez; Jason "Steroid Vacuum" Giambi (as his teammates affectionatley call him); and "Mr. Gay Bar," Derek Jeter.

I advise that we reflect back to the ALCS of last falI. As such, I also offer this passage written after the Yankees' embarrassing loss to the Boston Red Sox last year by Michael J. Nelson, former head writer and host of MST3k.


They lost.

Update: The Yankees lost.

In case you're just catching up, the Yankees lost.

The Yankees did not win!

Repeat: If your information held that the Yankees won game 7 of the ALCS series, YOUR INFORMATION IS WRONG! They lost. Horribly and embarrassingly to — let's see, the Boston Red Stockings, is what I have here.

Again, the Yankees, who defeated the Minnesota Twins in four games in the 2004 ALDS, have lost.

Early reports that the Yankees won game seven of the ALCS seem to have been exaggerated, as late and highly credible reports from the game show that, clearly, the Red Sox, formerly the Pilgrims, actually won the disputed game.

Should you desire to see frame after lovely, delightful, heavenly frame of Derek Jeter losing game 7 of the ALCS, tune in to your local affiliate to see Mr. Jeter crushed, broken, and destroyed by the Boston Team.

Should your taste run in the direction of seeing Mariano Rivera failing to show up for a characteristic save in game 7 of the ALCS because by that time New York's ass was good and well kicked, well then, game 7 of the ALCS is your man.

If, rather, you delight in seeing games in which Derek Lowe makes Hideki Matsui look like,well, according to early reports, like "crap," well, then again, game 7 of the ALCS is the game for you.

Joe Torre, manager of the $400 trillion dollar Yankees had this to say about their heartbreaking loss: "Finally, justice was done upon this earth. We lost because we deserved to lose because we are evil. I only hope we never return."

Again, despite early reports that they did in fact win, the Yankees, I am sorry to say, lost.
Lost horribly

Their shame?
Oh, it was on display for everyone to see.

Again, the Yankees, who were favored by every media outlet on earth to win everything this country had to offer yet again failed to do so and lost horribly and embarrassingly in front of hundreds of millions of people.

In case you're just tuning in, again, the Yankees lost. Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mussina, Sheffield, Posada, Olerud, Lofton, Rivera, and, in case I neglected to mention him, Derek Jeter, failed, miserably, horribly and embarrassingly in front of their vaunted hometown, battery-throwing crowd, to win, despite the largest payroll in the history of the sport.

Yankees, um, something like 3, Boston, 10 or so.

Yankees lose.

Boston, their bitter, hated rivals, win.

Contact the Yankees for more information.

The nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, tiny demons playing evil games in your sinuses so you can rest medicine.

Today, I have the head cold to end all head colds. No longer is it the simple sore throat I had the nerve to complain about yesterday. I now feel like my head is a balloon being pumped full of a viscous green fluid that...well, never mind. Suffice to say I feel like Nathan Lane from this old NyQuil commercial from the early 90's I came across while watching one of my old MST3k tapes. Click on the picture.



I also found one of these commercials for the Encyclopedia Britannica (or as Britannica spells it, Encyclopædia Britannica) on the very same VHS tape. I remember these well. I know I wanted to slap this kid so hard in the face as to leave red finger-shaped welts on his cheek. Actually, that might just be my current state of mind talking. Still, click on this picture - if you dare.


Britannica Boy

See, this new millennium’s not looking so bad after all.

Jonathan Richman Show

Jonathan Richman

Hey, we went and saw Jonathan Richman and his drummer Tommy Larkins last night at the Continental Club near downtown Houston. Big "ups" to my boy, Santucci, for alerting me of the upcoming show. Well, the formerly upcoming show, as it is now a past show. But when he alerted me a couple weeks ago, it was, indeed, upcoming. So, yeah. Mad props, Tucc. (tōōch) n.

The performance was cool as was the venue. It's a retro-style night club with a little well-lit stage in the main bar room, and a secondary bar / billiards room in the back. The sound was so-so, but it's nearby, and it beats driving to Austin to see a show, which is where they usually play.

Jonathan and Tommy were as polite and approachable as ever, and we had the chance to chat with them a bit after the show. I'll provide a link to his label, Vapor Records, as well as a link to download the title track from his last record, Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love.