Former Monkee Micky Dolenz was the guest on Jim Kerr’s morning show. Just thought I’d mention that. And congratulations, Jim Kerr, I no longer hold a grudge against you for that ridiculous “Strange News” story from a couple months ago. Especially since this morning I also heard you and Maria make fun of a similar “study”…something about how married men’s lives suck more because they’re married. Y’know, the same old crap a bunch of quacks have been trying to feed us for years. Thank you for totally not even pretending to take such a “finding” seriously. And thank you also for having someone as awesome as Micky freakin’ Dolenz on your show.
“Oh, yeah, I got that blog thing I gotta do…” September 13, 2011
…is the thought that occurred to me at approximately 9:35 p.m. today, while watching Doogie Howser, M.D.. Luckily, this thought just happened to pop into my head during a random musical sequence in the show, so I thought that’d be what I’d post about today. Having recently become a fan of Neil Patrick Harris, I was aware that he is not only a talented actor, but also quite the song-and-dance man. But I had no idea he’d been breaking into random song on television for this long:
That is all I’ve got for today, and hopefully I’ll be descending into sleepy-land myself within a few hours, ’cause I got work in the morning.
I’ve had a very busy day… September 8, 2011
…and was not able to post any earlier than right now, and I’m going to work kind of early tomorrow, so…
…I really don’t have the time or energy right now to put much effort into today’s post. But here, have some Muppets! I’ll have some more stuff to post about tomorrow.
If MTV does something relevant to my tastes, and I’m not around to hear it, does it make a proverb? September 7, 2011
So…the VMAs were last week. I didn’t watch it, ’cause I find music awards to be a bit of a disappointment (well, ever since my ill-fated attempt to get a thrill out of the Grammys in 2009), and anyway, the list of musical guests was less than spectacular (Lady Gaga alone was not reason to sit through something that actually paid host to Chris Brown, especially since the last few Gaga hits failed to get more than a lukewarm reaction from me). And in the aftermath of this year’s VMAs, the most highly publicized moments that the press reported repeatedly in excruciating detail as if it were actually something monumental, merely served as evidence that I hadn’t missed anything. Blah-blah-blah-Gaga-in-drag (somewhat interesting, but not especially remarkable or surprising), blah-blah-blah-Beyoncé’s-harboring-a-uterine-parasite-precious-little-bundle-of-genetically-unique-cells (like that’s nothing any of our mothers have ever done), etc. So of course, it wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that a relative of mine, who evidently had sat through the show, casually mentioned to me that Brian May made a surprise appearance during Lady Gaga’s performance.
I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t catch that…BRIAN goddamn MAY appeared at this year’s VMAs. Of all the “outrageous” things that went on at the VMAs this year that were worth publicizing, and somehow some popstar brat who’s never been born (no offense to Beyoncé, it’s just that the media needs to quit making pregnancy seem like some new phenomenon) got more attention than freakin’ Brian May. Whose band was instrumental in popularizing (though not inventing, counter to popular belief) the music video format which made stations like MTV possible. Who had such an influence on Lady Gaga that she took her freakin’ stage name from one of Queen’s songs. So yeah, Brian May is KIND OF A BIG DEAL, even to MTV watchers and Lady Gaga fans, whether they’ve heard of them or not (though it boggles the mind that a Lady Gaga fan would not at least be aware of Queen, considering her namesake is no secret. And as for MTV’s current audience…geez, kids these days). But it’s the post-VMAs press that flabbergasts me. I mean, you’d think nothing truly impressing happened this year the way they went on about a would-be drag king and a flippin’ fetus.
But then, to put everything into perspective, most of Lady Gaga’s backup dancers that night had probably never shared the stage with such an outrageous singer. Brian, on the other hand…
Oh, so here’s the video of Lady Gaga (as her male alter-ego Jo Calderone) and Brian May’s performance at the VMAs. And if you ask me, “You and I” is a massive improvement over the suspiciously Madonna-esque “Born This Way” and the relatively forgettable “Judas.” This video also confirms something I’ve been suspicious of for a long time: Dave Grohl is a geek just like the rest of us.
So I’ve decided to make this week a themed week, ‘Cause why not? September 6, 2011
And this week’s theme is Queen (yipes. Try saying that five times fast). For various reasons, the most obvious being that yesterday was Freddie Mercury’s birthday, but also because this year marks a number of other important anniversaries regarding Queen, including the 40th anniversary of the band’s genesis, and the 20th anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s death (*sob*). And also because I’ve been meaning to geek about Queen on this blog for the last month or so, as I’ve recently become über obsessed with the band (I’ve been a big Queen fan for most of my life, but until now I was only really aware of some of their more well-known material. And now I’ve got their first four albums on CD. With BONUS DISCS!). So yeah, this week, I celebrate my love for Queen.
So Google did something kinda awesome for Freddie’s birthday yesterday:
My favorite part is around 1:15, because if anyone ever had adorable mustachioed bicycle-riding bears in their royal menagerie, Freddie would have.
It’s a very special someone’s birthday today…
I know it’s a bit late in the day to be announcing this, but today (okay, yesterday, by the time this is posted), September 5, 2011, is the sixty-fifth birthday of a rock ‘n’ roll legend. The man I speak of is quite possibly the greatest rock vocalist of all time, a charismatic performer, and the man I voted prom queen back in 2007 (true story).
I am talking, of course, of the late great Farrokh Bulsara, better known as Freddie Mercury.
Freddie rose to fame in the mid-1970s as the frontman of Queen, one of the biggest rock bands of all time, who remained active up until the singer’s untimely death from AIDS in 1991 (yeah, maybe Freddie’s former bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor may have re-united under the name Queen and toured with that guy from Bad Company and Free a few years, but I tend not to acknowledge that whole…thing). The group’s ecclectic array of musical style owes much to Mercury’s songwriting, which draws inspiration from diverse genres ranging from opera to ragtime to old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll (apparently, there are those who are still fooled into thinking “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is an Elvis song, despite being recorded after Presley’s death). With Freddie’s help, Queen stole the show at the already star-studded Live Aid concert in 1985 (to give you an idea of how big a deal this is, they shared a bill with Bono, David Bowie, and Paul McCartney. That’s right. They upstaged a freakin’ Beatle). Other instances of badassery in Freddie Mercury’s career and posthumous legacy include providing the soundtrack to two films (the film adaptation of Flash Gordon and the first Highlander movie. At least one of these soundtracks was almost certainly better than the film itself), collaborating with Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballé, having a statue of his likeness erected in Switzerland, and did I mention he was voted prom queen by yours truly at the senior prom (okay, but I didn’t tell you that I also spent most of the dinner course at said prom singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” into my fork, now did I)?
My faith in VH1 has been ever so slightly restored… September 4, 2011
Well, dear readers, I’m back. What, you thought I’d be gone the whole holiday weekend? Nah. A weekend of partying in Seaside Heights is only so much fun for so long when you have a distaste for alcohol and an indifference towards the haunts of Snookie and The Situation. And then once your second cousin is subjected to unsolicited ass-slapping from that old neighborhood guy you’d hitherto thought was weird but harmless, it goes without saying that it’s time to get as far the hell away from there as possible. But anyway, this post isn’t about that, nor is it about how littering kept me from being drafted or how much I dislike sauerkraut. This is about what I found out about an hour ago while watching Celebrity Rehab on VH1 (hey, even I have my weaknesses). ‘Cause during the commercial break, between all the mind-numbingly stupid ads that I mock ruthlessly was a short commercial announcing that Pop-Up Video will be returning in October. And there was much rejoicing.
Between rebooting Behind the Music and this, it looks like VH1 is heading in a positive direction.