Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Favre- For ME TO POOP on Version '2010




I also say another amazing day was when Brett Lorenzo Favre squealed like a sissie girl, cried every last tear-drop out to the country, and retired from the Green Bay Packers, March 5, 2008. I quote the great narcissistic one, "I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired, I can't do it anymore. I know it shouldn't feel unsuccessful, but the only way to come back and make that be the right decision would be to come back and win a Super Bowl. And honestly, the odds of that, they're tough. Those are big shoes for me to fill, and I guess it was a challenge I wasn't up for. "
THREE YEARS LATER THE BEAT GOES ON WITH NO CHANGE IN SIGHT!
This guy is so full of shit he makes wanna puke. Blah, blah, blah, lets talk about how great of a quarterback he is, but when it comes down to it he's just a media whore. He's in it for his own self satisfaction and bling. Seriously, if he can put together another one in a million season like last year great, but it's not going to happen, not on those creaky wooden legs and ankles. In fact he's starting to make guys like T.O. and OchoCinco look good, at least they have an honest plan to their albeit goofy-ass world. Point is, the guy is the Pre-Madonna of Pre-Madonna's of the NFL and can do no wrong because whatever he touches turns to cash money period. In the mean time, people forget he's only been to two Super Bowls and won only one. Wait a minute, you mean he's only been to one more Super Bowl than the great Dan Marino? He's two Super Bowls behind Jim Kelly? He's four Super Bowls behind Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw? Two Super Bowl wins behind Tom Brady? Wtf? I could go on and on. Just because the guy can duct-tape himself together every Sunday and put on a good show doesn't give him the right to be a pompous jag and then act all down to earth about it. O this "Larger than life BULLSHIT?" Give me a break, this guy wouldn't give you two seconds of the time of day today unless you gave him a couple hundred benjamins. People are in love with this sad character called "Favre" and its incredibly sad how brutally ignorant people are not to see through his garbage.

Friday, February 12, 2010

FUN WITH AUDIO






I know this isn't a sports site, but I just can't contain myself. This radio call by Paul Allen from the Vikings radio network just never gets old. IN FACT, I don't think I've laughed this hard since watching re-runs of MXC late one night after too many yager-bombs, I wonder what Guy LeDouche and Kenny Blankenship are up to nowadays. We're sorry Brent that you joined the Viqueens, made great drama this year in HD on the big stage, and in the end, made most Packers fans smile with your last pass to the other team.









Friday, January 15, 2010

The Clusterfuck That The Tonight Show has Become.


I've been ever so closely* monitoring the complete disaster that is transpiring over at NBC regarding Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and The Tonight Show. It has gone from interesting, to amusing, to now pretty fucking hostile. Now, I'm not really a late night show watcher. If I'm watching TV after 11:00 it's probably one of 3 things: Sportscenter, Pac-10/Gonzaga basketball, or Skinemax. I don't tune in for the Tonight Show or the Late Show with a great deal of frequency anymore. The only show of that genre that I have ever watched was Late Night with Conan O'Brien. I find Conan absolutely hilarious, so it's entirely possible that I'm a little bit biased here. But it really seems to me like NBC totally fucked this up.


Once upon a time Leno was number one in the 11:35 (Eastern) slot, Conan dominated his time slot and all was well. NBC had all the late night ratings it could ask for. But Leno was getting a little older, Conan was starting to feel like doing something beyond Late Night, so they concoct this deal: In 5 years Jay will retire and Conan will take over the Tonight Show. Deal? Deal.


Well before you know it 5 years has gone by, Jay and the Tonight Show are still #1, and Conan is ready to take over the headlining gig. Then I don't know what the hell happened. I don't know if Jay got Favre-itis and decided " actually, I'm not really ready to retire" or if NBC just thought they could pull a fast one on the viewers and save some coin in the process. But they decide to save the money they would've spent on more primetime programming, and just put the still popular Leno in the pre-news time slot. Genius! Right? Actually, no. I don't know if I was the only one who foresaw this ending in disaster, but as soon as that idea came out I couldn't help but think that it was doomed. "But the Leno Show will be different," they said. Really? It's a talk show with guests and goofy hijinks. The people that want to watch guests and goofy hijinks are not going to watch both Leno and The Tonight Show. It seemed obvious that the people that watched the Tonight Show because they loved Leno were going to watch the new Leno show and the ones that watched because it's the Tonight Show were going to watch Conan. Congratulations NBC, you successfully halved your audience! (I won't even get into the obvious slight to Conan that after finally moving up to the Tonight Show, he still has to follow Leno.)


So here we are a little over 6 months later, and both Conan's and Leno's ratings suck. NBC is blaming this on everything but the obvious. Leno has poor lead in programming. Conan is just not capturing the audience. If Johnny Carson had gotten his own show right before Leno's Tonight Show, how do you think Leno would've done? No one is pointing the finger at the brain trust that came up with this debacle of a plan. Now they want to move the Tonight Show out of the spot it's held for like 40 years and move Leno back after the local news. Conan says screw this, and I can't say I blame him. He said through a spokesperson "It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor [Leno], I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule." Not only has he not gotten those things, but NBC seems to have intentionally deprived him of them both. Conan is right, moving the Tonight Show back would do some serious damage to one of the greatest franchises in broadcasting history. I don't blame him one bit if he doesn't want anything to do with, and tells NBC to sit and spin.



*May be exaggeration

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Concert Review: Weezer

The last time I had seen Weezer in concert I was less than pleased. It was a show at the Marcus Amphitheater where they were co-headlining with The Pixies. Weezer went on last, played about a 45 minute, uninspiring set, and left those of us in the crowd wondering what the hell just happened. I believe I read somewhere that they thought they were opening that night and it got switched or something (still a weak excuse for a co-headlining gig, but whatever). However, last Thursday night at The Eagles Ballroom made up for any ill will I felt towards a band that has shaped my life about as much as any band has.

The show started with Motion City Soundtrack taking the stage. We came in (the we is Reid, Mrs. Reid, and myself… Girlfriend of VJJ was supposed to be in attendance but was under the weather) just as they were finishing up their first song. Reid and I had previously seen about two songs of a MCS show at a Warped Tour, so we were excited to see what an entire set looked like. They were very good. The only complaint I have is I wish they would have played longer. They blew through a 30 minute (or so) set and left me wanting more. They played two songs off of their upcoming album due out in January. After hearing those two songs, I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album. Jack’s Mannequin then took the stage for decent, but uninspiring set. I had heard about two songs by Jack’s Mannequin before and really didn’t know what to expect. They weren’t bad and they weren’t great. Reid and I didn’t have the distaste for them that Mrs. Reid had, but we didn’t thoroughly enjoy them either. After about 45 minutes (or so) they left the stage and the energy in the room began to grow. Everyone was excited to see what Weezer would do tonight. We would not be disappointed.

As we always do, we played the “Call your opener” game. I wanted to say Pork and Beans (which they used to open their encore) but I went with My Name is Jonas. I believe that Mrs. Reid called the new single while Reid called for… I can’t remember what he called for, but none of us were correct. Weezer came out and played an instrumental opening and then kicked into Hash Pipe. An interesting choice but it really got the crowd moving. I exchanged a couple texts with a friend about the choice and we both agreed that we didn’t see it coming, but that they were playing the crap out of it. This had to be a sign of good things to come.

It was around this time that I leaned over to Reid and said, “Is that the drummer playing guitar on stage left?” After looking that way for the better part of the second song we both agreed it was. Holy crap! What’s going on? It appears as if this move was made in order to free Rivers up to really rock out and be the front man he was meant to be. Rivers still picked up the guitar from time to time, but Pat Wilson only played the drums for a handful of songs in the middle of the set. Don’t doubt his ability either. He can flat out play the guitar. I will also say that the gentleman on the drums, Josh Freese, rocked the hell out of that kit. He has played with The Vandals, Devo, and a Perfect Circle. The guy is good.

Back to the music. The set that Weezer played was damn near perfect. Reid made the comment after the show that he really couldn’t have hand picked a better set. That is hard to disagree with. They played all of the hits and pretty much every song you could possibly want to hear. One of my favorite moments was when they played The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived. This is such a great song and it really seemed like Rivers was channeling his inner Freddy Mercury. It was such a great example of every over the top, flamboyant, extravagant rock act ever. They also broke into a shortened cover of Song 2 by Blur. It was an interesting choice, but entertaining none the less. They also played Kids by MGMT. Once they started, we figured they would play a little bit and then go into another song of theirs. Well, not only did they play the whole thing, Rivers also threw on a blonde wig and sang some Lady Gaga for us. His rendition of Poker Face was pretty spot on, and damn funny.

They closed their set with Buddy Holly. They played Island in the Sun as part of their Encore and kicked big beach balls around. We got to hear Dope Nose, Beverly Hills, and Undone (The Sweater Song). The biggest surprise of the night (besides odd covers) was when they played Surf Wax America off of the Blue Album. It was also interesting when they played Why Bother off of Pinkerton. I’m glad they did because it was fun to hear those songs, but Why Bother was the only song they played off of Pinkerton.

I can’t complain about this concert at all since I classified it as probably the best “rock” concert I had ever seen. It was a blast and Weezer erased any doubts I had after the last time I had seen them. I will definitely see them the next time they are in town. I am now almost a thousand words into this review and I could easily write a thousand more, but I will spare you from that. Just know that if you missed this show, don’t miss Weezer (or Motion City Soundtrack for what it’s worth) next time they are in town. Or just go out for a beer with me and we can talk about it for hours at Caffrey’s while listening to Say It Ain’t So.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Is This Thing Working?

I don't know if this blog has been declared legally dead, but I'm going to post this anyway, since I'm kind of burned out on sports talk and I don't have anything to talk about on that other site:

I just downloaded the Them Crooked Vultures debut disc. TCV is what the kids used to call a "supergroup," in the mold of The Traveling Wilburys, Blind Faith, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and (my personal favorite) the Damn Yankees. (I'll listen to anything that involves the Nuge. I'm a sucker that way).

ANYWAY, Them Crooked Vultures features Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on guitar and vocals, Dave Grohl (of projects innumerable and universally awesome) on drums, and fucking John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on bass. Upon learning this information, my brain almost exploded. Let's see: two of my favorite hard rock acts of recent vintage, plus the bass player from (in my humble opinion) the best hard rock band ever. Fuck and yes. Where do I sign up?

I'm halfway through the disc, and, as you'd expect with a band fronted by Josh Homme, FCV sounds quite a bit like Queens of the Stone Age -- it's got that distinctive Queens guitar sound, plus Homme's (sometimes monotonous) vocals. Grohl is kicking the proverbial shit out of the drums, which is always a treat, and -- I may have forgotten to mention this -- JOHN PAUL FUCKING JONES is playing the bass guitar. I don't know if it's good or not, and I'll defer to SVJJ on that one, but, FUCK, MAN -- it's John Paul Jones!

So far, we're off to a good start. Who's in for the tour?