MANTEO, NC – The hunt for Andy Griffith is on. Sniff the air. There’s a touch of Mayberry amongst the salt.
We’ve arrived on this small island next to the Outerbanks to see the man who changed the world. We’re not stalking him. It would be so easy to camp out in front of his gated driveway. But that’s just wrong and would make us look like tourists. Instead, we crouch near the Ritz cracker aisle in the Piggly Wiggly. You know Andy loves his Ritz. There’s no way he can avoid us. Softly I whistle the theme to Matlock. He’ll be here soon.
After a week of opening to closing shopping, a store employee tells me that Andy hasn’t been around in a while. He’s in Waitress and is getting back into the acting game. We buy a box of Ritz Crackers and leave it by his mailbox as an offering to the icon. He’ll be hungry when he returns from Hollywood.
BUTCHIE, COME HOME!
How could they cancel John From Cincinnati? It was on the verge of making sense. During our time on the sand, my posse kept quoting John while on the waves. “I’ve got my eye on you!” “I don’t know, Butchie.” “Get back in the game, Mitch Yost.” “Did you dump out this morning?” Who knew this show was so damn catchy? And now after 10 episodes, it’s gone. But for those of us who wondered what would happen if Dylan took on Zack with Charlie Moore as the ref, we almost had it.
I’m still not sure if I liked John, but I’ll miss trying to figure out if I like it.
Well at least there’s a new season of Weeds on Showtime. And let’s not forget Californication. I think the show has a story about David Duchovny as writer. There was just so much boob action on the screen. There were more exposed breasts in that 30 minutes than the last 2 seasons of The L Word. Duchovny has returned to his Red Shoe Diaries roots.
CHECK OUT TIME
The nice part about the beach was a chance to check out Bravo. Amazing how in one weekend, you can see the last 2 months of original programming on the channel. Except when they run marathons of Major League. There new two hyped reality shows seem way too staged for their own good.
Welcome to the Parker is about a swanky and funky hotel in Palm Springs. The place used to be Gene Autry’s house and an original Holiday Inn. The first few episodes are a bit too unrealistic. They producers seem to be creating a cheaper version of Hotel without having to book character actors.
They line up four different plots that pay off at the end of the hour. It’s too cute. There was one episode dealing with a mysterious guy who keeps ordering loads of ice from room service. The guy hides under blankets as the room service guy fills the tub with ice. This goes on periodically through the show. It ends with the guy giving a $100 tip, but he never really appears on camera. It seems like they reenacted a story the room service guy told the producers. It’s easy to figure out that the guest had plastic surgery and was using the ice to recover.
Another thing had the manager of the hotel having a ping pong game with the hotel’s designer over letting dogs stay in the rooms. What are the odds that would have happened without the cameras?
Flipping Out follows a psychotic guy who flips houses. I swear this guy was the basis of the neighbor in Disturbia. He’s OCD and all about his pets. He also has a lot of spiritual weirdness going on. He has mystics purify his homes. The dramatics in his crew seem normal since he only hires drama queens. He has an assistant and then has two assistants who do the stuff the assistant refuses to do like clean turds from the litter box. I’d be more excited if he had to get Tanya Memme to help him sell a house.
Bravo seems to promise so much, but the channel just clunks on way too many days. On a Friday all they have scheduled is The Exorcist, Exorcist II, some promotional thing about Flash Gordon, Basic Instinct, Carlito’s Way and The Untouchables. That’s not a TV channel. That’s leftovers in Tupperware. I don’t need AMC Jr on my digital box. I’m not calling my cable company until Bravo brings it every day.
BRAIN DEAD
Andrew Keen, the author of The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture really needs to write a follow up book called The Lengths of Poles that Fit Nicely Up My Ass. What makes him so great? Because he was able to able to sucker a publisher into buying his rant? Does anyone really want to read 228 pages? That’s a lot of time that could be spent downloading fresh internet porn from the amateur naked model at ellinude.com. She’s hotter than those whore painted, knife and silicone creations at Vivid Video. Can you really masturbate to the latest version of Jenna Jameson? She looks like what Joan Rivers imagines herself as.
Keen is completely off base when he says that you’re better off getting advice about music from record store clerks instead of your online musical pals. Is he serious? After the death of John Swain, the owner of the Record Hole; I have yet to encounter a single record store clerk that has any taste. Most modern record store clerks don’t seem to give a crap about talking to customers. They sit behind the counter, eating pizza and playing music to scare the squares out of the store. These guys have taken customer service lessons from Jack Black. Ask them a question? Why bother? You think the girl behind the counter has a clue about Herman’s Hermits? She’s there because the manager wants to scrogg her. Way to pick experts, Keen-o.
This guy doesn’t seem to know that things sucked before the internet took over. The internet didn’t bring us Hootie and the Blowfish or Yakov Smirnov. I bet if we investigate history, we’ll find a handwritten essay from a monk declaring that Gutenberg’s printing press will ruin society.
Andrew Keen is a professional – a professional killjoy. This man comes from the same country that gave us Simon Cowell. Haven’t we had enough of the English? Isn’t time we renew our 1776 action and dump them into Boston Harbor one more time? Remember that it was a bunch of amateurs who took up arms and defeated the mighty professional British army. We don’t need to listen to these people. If they knew that much, we’d still be eating crumpets and think that toothpaste is overrated. Do you want to live in a society that worships Camilla Parker Bowles as their next semi-Queen? His culture has given us Peter and Jordan. I still haven’t a clue why this duo has a reality show. Benny Hill died for England’s sins. How dare Andrew Keen do a superiority dance around us.
Maybe Keen will want to read my book The Cult of the English: How Today’s Brits are Sucking the Fun Out of Our Culture. This is not to be confused with my upcoming tome The Lethal Price of Nostalgia: How Today’s Living in the Past Has Destroyed Dreams of Tomorrow. Colbert, schedule me now before I actually start writing it.
GLICK NICK….
Why has Fox hitched its Business Channel’s fate on Alexis Glick? For the past year she’s been hailed as their stealth weapon whenever there’s been news about the launch. The former CNBC gal is supposed to destroy her old bosses. She’s the Eric Lindros of Wall Street reporters according to the hype.
When she substituted for Neil Cavuto on FoxNews, Glick sucked the life out of the show. She is not Fox News Material. She not nearly as striking as most of the Foxy News Women. She doesn’t sizzle. If Fox is the Red Bull of newscasters, she’s a really weak lemon-flavored water. She’s easy on the eye, but doesn’t draw you in. She does not command attention when she speaks. There’s no character to her voice. Listen to the other Foxy Newscasters. She doesn’t rank. According to unnamed sources, her voice isn’t easily heard by old people (a major viewing block for Fox). She’s doesn’t measure up against Rebecca Gomez and Jane Skinner.
During her time on Cavuto’s show, she nearly disappeared during the panel discussions. Guests talked with barely an interruption from the host. That’s a Fox no-no. And Glick committed a Cardinal sin when she allowed a guest to promote Bank of America stock as a hot buy. Doesn’t she understand that Cavuto has spent six months pumping up the torch and pitchfox crowd to lynch Bank of America? It’s not like last year when he called off his attacks on AARP after they started advertising on his show. It’d be like her going on John Gibson’s Big Picture and allowing guests to promote eliminating Christmas as a school vacation day without mocking them. Read the memos, Glick. Get with the Fox Program!
What’s really uncomfortable is when she botched a guest’s last name. She channeled Mary Tyler Moore’s breakdown voice when she begged forgiveness. Who wants a fear of that happening during a breaking quarterly report. She might as well do a Lucy “waahhhh” to make us cringe even more.
It’s easy to see that Fox is going to have a Katie Couric situation when the new business channel hits the satellites. She’s not an on-camera all star. Glick is the perfect fill in hostess on The Today Show since she isn’t threatening to a regular host’s job.
And is it creepy that Cavuto seems to promote Glick like his Captain of Industry buddies pimp their trophy wives? Gentlemen, wag your tongues!
NEWSIE TO WATCH
Michelle Kosinski on MSNBC is a reporter to watch in the field. Even though her breaking news interrupted my regular programming, I was impressed instead of cranky. She better be fast tracked on the food chain.
MESSAGE TO JOHN GIBSON
How dare John Gibson mock Jon Stewart’s emotions after 9/11. It’s disgusting to see the host of Fox’s Big Story be such a dick. But he does work for an organization that attempted to trademark “9/11.” If he was eaten by a shark, I’d feel bad that the shark had ingested a cancer causing agent.
We don’t mock Gibson’s defense of Christmas even though there are plenty of whispers on the internet that he belongs to a major Satanic cult.
During the same show, John Gibson claimed that America needs another 9/11 to set things right. Why does John Gibson want another 3,000 Americans to die? So he can have a hot topic on his TV? Gibson needs to volunteer himself and his family to be among the victims of his desired catastrophe. Maybe they should just take his family on a bicycle tour of Iraq.
HOT NEW SURGERY
According to my sources at a major Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s office, this fall’s hot new procedure is a “Taint Lift.” About 30 patients a week are requesting them. “The ladies want to feel a tightness between the holes,” my unnamed source confided.
SCALP ME
According to Stubhub, the hottest college football ticket this year is DeVry vs. University of Phoenix.
PROJEKT REVOLTION
They call this music?
I made a deal with the devil by agreeing to do sound for a Myspace/Live Nation “live” broadcast of Linkin Park’s Projekt Revolution tour. Why did I think working for Fox and Clear Channel’s bitch project would be a good thing? First off, this deal was screwed. I only got the job because the Myspace weasels didn’t want to pay for a real sound guy. They merely wanted a PA who would hold the boom microphone and maybe twist a knob. They wanted PAs for the shoot, but they didn’t want to pay them. While I am the Creepy PA, I’m also a PA that likes to earn a few bucks for working a gig.
I’ll do a charity show if asked. But Fox’s News Corp and Clear Channel are not poverty cases. Although both of those companies have done their best to impoverish our culture.
My job during the shoot was to follow Myspace Superstar Metal Sanaz as she mingled with concert goers. She has over half a million friends on Myspace. I currently have 50. But my friends include the gals from HBO’s Cathouse, Bob Saget, George Takei and the ghost of Charles Nelson Reilly. Plus there’s that Tom guy. I’ve got quality friends.
Sanaz has hung out with Tom. This means Tom isn’t that good of a friend to me. I’m hurt that Tom doesn’t give a crap about me as a friend. He’s the one who put himself on my page as a friend. Lying bastard.
How did Sanaz have half a million friends? She has a street team. A street team? I don’t have a street team. And I’m thinking this is a good thing since I’d hate for them to decide to work I-95. Nothing would be worse than my team of streeters getting run over by the Bimbo Bakery truck. Who needs a street team for the information super highway? I’d fear seeing my cyber-street team chief appearing on TV. “Talk? What can you possibly talk about with a 14 year old girl at this hour?” Hansen would ask. “This week’s amazing Party Favors column, Chris!”
For those curious, Sanaz was full of energy as she did comic bits around the concert area that were supposed to be inserted into the “live” broadcast. She wore a very nice corset that got a lot of folks asking to hug her. And she didn’t mind hugging – especially the dozens of fans that were her Myspace friends. The corset proved to be a problem since it was over 100 degrees in the parking lot that had been set up with the second stage. Every so often she’d get soaked in the shower tent. We also took plenty of breaks. Luckily one of those breaks was during Placebo’s set.
This was the only band on the bill that I wanted to see. I’m not a big fan, but they were in Velvet Goldmine. The plus side of this gig was my “working” band pass. Those puppies are gold at a venue. Instead of just standing in the back of the venue, I marched into the pit. All the Live Nation ticket nazi flunkees had to step aside when I pointed at the magic pass. It was like giving them the middle finger as I stormed their checkpoints.
But there would be no finger for Placebo. They gave a great 35 minute set. Shame it was in broad daylight. They need a bit of darkness around them. Contrary to your mother’s fears, the pit itself was extra calm. You’ll be bashed around more in a ecstasy people puddle. The kids around me didn’t quite know what to make of the band. Too many of them were there for Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance. One moppet wore a “My Chemical Romance saved my life” t-shirt. Really? I don’t think a band has ever saved my life. There was the time Dana Kletter of the blackgirls made sure a roadie from Hole didn’t kick my ass during an afterparty.
Placebo seemed to be the only band that day that didn’t just suck. The second stage bands were just noise. Being the king of the noise guitar from my feedback antics in the BeatlesS, I feel bad debasing this new music. But not once did I say, “I need to get this record.” I didn’t even think about illegally downloading their songs. They were just horrible. The final band on the stage was Mindless Self Indulgence. They reminded me way too much of Oingo Boingo if Danny Elfman didn’t try to be too smart for the room. The lead singer reminded me of a character from Zippy the Pinhead. The constant barrage of bad noise wore on me as I kept trying to work sound on Sanaz. It felt like a nightmare as I kept adjusting knobs while keeping my boom out of the shot.
At the end of the day, it turned out that standing in the humid heat listening to all that crappy racket was a complete waste of time.
While things sounded OK while recording them in the field, when they downloaded the video onto the computer, the audio tracks were muck. Turns out that when you are near a speaker pile that’s blasting out crap, you can’t really mix it out. It also doesn’t help that instead of ordering a shotgun microphone which allows isolation to the person speaking near the boom, they had merely ordered a cardioid mic. This means that no matter where I placed my boom, I was screwed. The sound stage would leak onto the track. The director was furious that somehow this elevated space monkey didn’t twist enough knobs to get pure monkey chow. It also didn’t help that people kept screaming near the microphone. I had the level set for Sanaz’s speaking voice, but the roar blew out the levels. It is hard to hold a boom with two hands and mix sound with my third hand. Live sound under such conditions is a two person job and one of them really does need to be a fully paid sound guy with experience mixing at concerts.
The disgusted director gave me the look as if I was somehow supposed to cringe and beg for mercy. He acted as if I somehow give a crap about my career as a sound guy. My only thought as I looked into his fuming eyes was, “You went cheap and you paid for it.” He didn’t want a real sound guy. They were paying me about a third what a real sound guy cost for a day’s rental. And they got a third of the quality.
Unlike my normal response which is to immediately shout back “Listen, you cheap ass bastard – you didn’t ask for a real sound guy. Go F’ yourself, lil Michael Bay!” But I was nice and just handed my sound equipment over to another PA. It’s not like this dork would understand that he set himself up to fail. If sound mattered that much, they would have put it in the budget instead of thinking they could work around it.
If we were recording on a silent soundstage, I probably would feel like shit for what ended up as audiotracks. But what the hell do you do when you’re stuck on a concert field with a boom microphone. And a body microphone would have been a waste since half the time Sanaz was going into the shower tent to cool off.
After 12 hours in the hell hole called Projekt Revolution, I went home. The director will probably declare that I left in shame, but I split from a sham.
I hope production sound engineers understand what I did for them that day. You know what the Revolution of that Projekt was? Reminding a cheapskate producer/director that if you want a real sound guy, you better be willing to pay for a sound guy and not think you can fake it. Cheapass Tom, you are no longer my real friend at Myspace.
DO THE STRAND
Upon returning home, Netflix has delivered Roxy Music Live at the Apollo from their 2003 tour. Musically, this was a hot bath and a full body massage to my ears. Smooth and soulful music came from the speakers. Bryan Ferry didn’t go on about mothers and fathers fucking to the audience. The man has class. And if you’re listening to a Roxy Music record, odds are good that you’ll be getting laid.
Why aren’t Roxy Music in the Rock Hall of fame? Why aren’t we in a world where we can be sick of hearing Roxy Music?
NO JACK FOR EDDIE
The big talk from the venue employees was the upcoming Van Halen reunion tour.
Do not call it a Van Halen reunion. What’s going on tour this summer is a reunion of Eddie, Alex and David Lee Roth. But how dare they consider it a Van Halen reunion by replacing Michael Anthony with Eddie’s teenage son. Contrary to Eddie’s ego, Michael Anthony was the heartbeat of the band.
Back when Van Halen mattered, we would make fun of Michael Anthony. He was the odd man out on the stage. He kept his shirt on during the videos. He was husky with a beard. He wore the jumpsuits that made it look like he was an elevated roadie. We figured his way of picking up groupies was by saying, “You know, I’m in the band, too. Did you see me on stage? No. I wasn’t the guy who said, ‘Check one. Check one.'” He was the Rodney Dangerfield of hard rock.
Part of this blame was that Michael Anthony came along during a time when bass worship went to Geddy Lee of Rush, John Entwistle of The Who, Chris Squire of Yes and Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy. Being kept on the fringe of the stage by his three bandmates, Michael Anthony looked like the lesser talent . We thought he was replaceable like a drummer in Spinal Tap. We were so wrong about him.
Over the years, Michael Anthony’s stock has grown. The man did serious work on those records. Like Entwistle, his bass was the rhythm guitar that allowed Eddie to go nuts. His background vocals made sure Diamond Dave didn’t sound like a complete screech. Plus we discovered he was the only person on that stage that wasn’t a complete prick. He was the guy who would have pounded down shots of Jack with us after the show. And he wouldn’t turn into a mean and bitter drunk. And as the sun rose and we crawled to a cab, we would have said, “We just partied with Michael Anthony” without it sounding like a consolation prize.
And so at this time, Party Favors would like to apologize to Michael Anthony for thinking he was the weakest link in Van Halen. We now know that there’s no such thing as a true Van Halen reunion without him and his Jack Daniels bass. Even though the band is playing a few dates in the area, we’re not going. We’re not tempted. David Lee Roth’s painful vocals from his tour with Sammy remind us that he just doesn’t have it anymore. Diamond Dave makes Tom Waits sound like an opera star. And who knows what Eddie will do without a buffer of booze and pills to insulate himself from Dave. We’re not paying $100 to see a trainwreck. Amtrak provides those for free.
Michael Anthony, if you knock on my door, I’ll break out a bottle of Jack. Cause you’re worth it.
SACK LUNCH
While watching No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmer went to a place in Queens that served all the nasty bits of animals. They seemed delighted in their meal. How come you never hear a host of a freak eating show say, “These are great Mountain Oysters. Shame my wife isn’t here so she can tell me if they taste as good as my balls.”
Would that get you kicked off the Food Channel?
FINK NEWS
Why all the reporting of news organizations reaction to various political news? Do I care that the Seattle Times cheered Karl Rove splitting the White House? Then Joe Scarborough outs his own MSNBC colleges for supposedly booing during the president’s State of the Union address He said, “there were actually people in the newsroom that were booing the president actually from the beginning to the end.” Really? I doubt people at Yankee stadium can boo that hard for that long. Did they rotate they booing, Joe? We’re they foghorn booing? Was there a raspberry? Did anyone throw a beer at the screen? Did Joe stand at attention the entire time with his hand over his heart?
I heard a high placed reporter at the Party Favors farted when it was announced that the deputy undersecretary for the creation of committees that need secretaries had formed a subcommittee into creating a new brainstorming session title. Disgusting!
Just remember all you folks at MSNBC that Joe Scarborough is a fink and will rat you out to get an inch of ink. And isn’t it bad taste for a newspaper reporter to applaud a guy who is entering unemployment? What are the odds that the Times staff won’t get slashed in the near future and be in the cheese line behind Karl?
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