No mystery here. This really comes down to just two songs, each representing a different time in my life and each representing a different romantic ideal.
In this corner: "Dreamweaver" by Gary Wright. This is the video for this one:
Listen to it. Listen to it again and again. This song was popular, or re-popular, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, and would go to all ages dance clubs (those who know me can't believe I did that but I did and sometimes I danced, too, but not well...). After a night of dancing to the Communards and such, this song would come on, and it was almost always the last dance. And all the people who were part of a couple -- I almost never was -- would pair up and dance and go out into the night.
I, meanwhile, would head on home with this song playing in my mind, and the lyrics had an extra meaning to me, because this song represented to me my hope that someday I would find my own dreamweaver who would get me through the night.
That was then.
This is now, and in this corner stands the other contender: "True Companion" by Marc Cohn. Here is the Bolt stream for this song:
I can play this song on guitar, and almost on piano. I can sing this song. I sang this song to Sweetie way back when we first started dating, playing along on my guitar for her.
This song represents the newer phase of my life, the one where I met Sweetie and decided to spend my life with her. It has all the right words: "Sometimes I'm an angel and sometimes I'm cruel..." "I've got my heart set on our wedding day." It captured, and captures, my new outlook on love since growing up and getting engaged and then married... sometimes it's not perfect (it's not a dream) but it's there waiting for you at the end of the road, at the end of the day, and at the end of life.
What tips the balance for me, what makes me go with "True Companion" are two things. First, I used it in our wedding as our first dance song. Second, the reason I did that is becuase of the last verse, which I'll reprint here:
When the years have done irreparable harm
I can see us walking slowly arm in arm
Just like the couple on the corner do
'cause girl i will always be in love with you
And when i look in your eyes
I'll still see that spark
Until the shadows fall
Until the room grows dark
Then when i leave this earth
I'll be with the angels standin'
I'll be out there waiting for my true companion
Just for my true companion
When you hear that sung, and when you have just been married and are dancing with your new wife in your tuxedo and she's in that brilliant white dress, and all your friends and family are around you, and you look into her eyes and see that spark, you should, like I did, get a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes. And everytime after that that you hear that song, you should, like I am now, get that same lump in your throat and tears in your eyes, because that perfectly captures what love is: Spending your entire life with that person, and then waiting for them in Heaven because they're what you want.
So, "True Companion," experience has triumphed over hope, and you are The Best Romantic Song.
I can play this song on guitar, and almost on piano. I can sing this song. I sang this song to Sweetie way back when we first started dating, playing along on my guitar for her.
This song represents the newer phase of my life, the one where I met Sweetie and decided to spend my life with her. It has all the right words: "Sometimes I'm an angel and sometimes I'm cruel..." "I've got my heart set on our wedding day." It captured, and captures, my new outlook on love since growing up and getting engaged and then married... sometimes it's not perfect (it's not a dream) but it's there waiting for you at the end of the road, at the end of the day, and at the end of life.
What tips the balance for me, what makes me go with "True Companion" are two things. First, I used it in our wedding as our first dance song. Second, the reason I did that is becuase of the last verse, which I'll reprint here:
When the years have done irreparable harm
I can see us walking slowly arm in arm
Just like the couple on the corner do
'cause girl i will always be in love with you
And when i look in your eyes
I'll still see that spark
Until the shadows fall
Until the room grows dark
Then when i leave this earth
I'll be with the angels standin'
I'll be out there waiting for my true companion
Just for my true companion
When you hear that sung, and when you have just been married and are dancing with your new wife in your tuxedo and she's in that brilliant white dress, and all your friends and family are around you, and you look into her eyes and see that spark, you should, like I did, get a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes. And everytime after that that you hear that song, you should, like I am now, get that same lump in your throat and tears in your eyes, because that perfectly captures what love is: Spending your entire life with that person, and then waiting for them in Heaven because they're what you want.
So, "True Companion," experience has triumphed over hope, and you are The Best Romantic Song.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Best Breakfast Cereal
As you read through these, you're no doubt thinking Just how many of these things are going to be about food? My former life as a fat guy should tell you that, yes, a lot of them will be.
And my love of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch may tell you why I was formerly a fat guy and will in all likelihood return to that. But first, since my writing is the equivalent of driving using only your peripheral vision, two asides.
One, click on that link. Our breakfast cereal is so unhealthy that it's advertised as American candy.
Two, how dumb do the cereal manufacturers think we are? As cereal gets more expensive (it might be cheaper to serve a bowl of steak for breakfast soon) the boxes stay the same height, and width, but depth-wise they are almost two dimensional. I see the cereal on the shelf, reach for it, and it's like grabbing a piece of paper. I imagine the little Quisps and Frankenberries stacked single file in there.
And a third aside that occurred to me as I got those links. One of the things I like about writing these is the odd search terms that occur to me as I look for ways to jazz it up a bit, and, because of those odd search terms, I then get to see just what kind of things people will post on the Web. Things like this... an actual bowl of steak.
So with that done, I've already given away the nomination, and it's of course Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. I have had a fixation on this cereal since I was little. It's like an addiction. I have to have someone else put away the cereal or I'll keep eating bowl after bowl. Even now, when I have a modicum of willpower, I can't leave the box out or I'll keep going. I'll pour a bowl of it and then reach into the box and grab a few extra anyway.
And I have a theory about why I like it so much, beyond the obvious that it's peanut buttery and crunchy and gets kind of melty when you chew it (not soggy, I can't stand soggy cereal and I use so little milk that I might as well not bother, as opposed to the rest of the family, which in eating cereal employs a formula with a ratio of 1 piece of cereal per gallon of milk).
My theory is this: I like fake flavor better than real flavor. I've been raised on preservatives and additives and riboflavin and the like, and by this time, I don't want "real" flavor, I want real flavoring. I prefer Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch to real peanut butter and prefer generic peanut butter to natural peanut butter and prefer all of those to the taste of an actual peanut, which if I eat them at all I get the honey-roasted kind (so I also, obviously, prefer sweets.)
That's why I like McDonald's chocolate shakes and cheeseburgers, two foods so far removed from "natural" that they might as well have been created in one of those Jetsons-style food-a-lators or whatever they called them. And why I prefer "Pajedas" to Doritos -- although Doritos is hardly a natural flavor, it's more "natural" than a Pajeda. It's why I love a soda that has so little actual relationship to "natural" flavors that they can only refer to it by colors -- "Red Pop" is what I drink. (You can read about that here, where they claim it's strawberry flavored, but they don't call it "Strawberry Pop," they call it red. They also say it's "infamous.")
And so, to circuitously and overanalytically come back to where I started, that is why I like Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch so much. Because they are the ultimate expression of the fake flavors I love. Think about it. They start with a peanut.
A peanut looks like this:
They then process it, mash it around, bake it, send it to college, however they transform it, and end up with a Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. Which looks like a Bizarro Peanut, a peanut created by the use of kryptonite. So from a natural product we go to something that vaguely recalls that product in shape and taste and texture.
Or am I overthinking it? Either way, Peanut Butter Cap'N Crunch is the Best Breakfast Cereal.
I wanted to, as further celebration of both the Cereal and weird things on the Internet, show you a the number one video that pops up if you go to YouTube and search for Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. But there's no such thing. So here is the video for "Peanut Butter Captain Crunch."
If you go to Babel Fish you will learn that "Pajeda" means... "pajeda." It has no English translation. I thought it might mean something. It doesn't.
And my love of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch may tell you why I was formerly a fat guy and will in all likelihood return to that. But first, since my writing is the equivalent of driving using only your peripheral vision, two asides.
One, click on that link. Our breakfast cereal is so unhealthy that it's advertised as American candy.
Two, how dumb do the cereal manufacturers think we are? As cereal gets more expensive (it might be cheaper to serve a bowl of steak for breakfast soon) the boxes stay the same height, and width, but depth-wise they are almost two dimensional. I see the cereal on the shelf, reach for it, and it's like grabbing a piece of paper. I imagine the little Quisps and Frankenberries stacked single file in there.
And a third aside that occurred to me as I got those links. One of the things I like about writing these is the odd search terms that occur to me as I look for ways to jazz it up a bit, and, because of those odd search terms, I then get to see just what kind of things people will post on the Web. Things like this... an actual bowl of steak.
So with that done, I've already given away the nomination, and it's of course Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. I have had a fixation on this cereal since I was little. It's like an addiction. I have to have someone else put away the cereal or I'll keep eating bowl after bowl. Even now, when I have a modicum of willpower, I can't leave the box out or I'll keep going. I'll pour a bowl of it and then reach into the box and grab a few extra anyway.
And I have a theory about why I like it so much, beyond the obvious that it's peanut buttery and crunchy and gets kind of melty when you chew it (not soggy, I can't stand soggy cereal and I use so little milk that I might as well not bother, as opposed to the rest of the family, which in eating cereal employs a formula with a ratio of 1 piece of cereal per gallon of milk).
My theory is this: I like fake flavor better than real flavor. I've been raised on preservatives and additives and riboflavin and the like, and by this time, I don't want "real" flavor, I want real flavoring. I prefer Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch to real peanut butter and prefer generic peanut butter to natural peanut butter and prefer all of those to the taste of an actual peanut, which if I eat them at all I get the honey-roasted kind (so I also, obviously, prefer sweets.)
That's why I like McDonald's chocolate shakes and cheeseburgers, two foods so far removed from "natural" that they might as well have been created in one of those Jetsons-style food-a-lators or whatever they called them. And why I prefer "Pajedas" to Doritos -- although Doritos is hardly a natural flavor, it's more "natural" than a Pajeda. It's why I love a soda that has so little actual relationship to "natural" flavors that they can only refer to it by colors -- "Red Pop" is what I drink. (You can read about that here, where they claim it's strawberry flavored, but they don't call it "Strawberry Pop," they call it red. They also say it's "infamous.")
And so, to circuitously and overanalytically come back to where I started, that is why I like Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch so much. Because they are the ultimate expression of the fake flavors I love. Think about it. They start with a peanut.
A peanut looks like this:
They then process it, mash it around, bake it, send it to college, however they transform it, and end up with a Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. Which looks like a Bizarro Peanut, a peanut created by the use of kryptonite. So from a natural product we go to something that vaguely recalls that product in shape and taste and texture.
Or am I overthinking it? Either way, Peanut Butter Cap'N Crunch is the Best Breakfast Cereal.
I wanted to, as further celebration of both the Cereal and weird things on the Internet, show you a the number one video that pops up if you go to YouTube and search for Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. But there's no such thing. So here is the video for "Peanut Butter Captain Crunch."
If you go to Babel Fish you will learn that "Pajeda" means... "pajeda." It has no English translation. I thought it might mean something. It doesn't.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Best Pizza
Pizza has played an important role in my life. Not, perhaps, as much as it has in the life of this girl:
But an important role, nonetheless.
Sure, you say, we all love pizza, but I'm not talking about just loving pizza. I'm talking about pizza being an integral part of the biggest days of my life.
When I got engaged, I proposed to Sweetie on our regular Thursday night at her apartment, back when we used to play chess, then watch TV, and the loser had to clean up while the winner -- using that term loosely, given the prize -- got to watch "Veronica's Closet." And for a pizza tie-in to that, here's Dan Finnerty, who is credited as "pizza guy" on that show:
Which is not how pizza played into the engagement. How it played into it was, after we got engaged (which I did cleverly by tying it into the chess game: I'd start the game by holding a pawn in each hand and then having Sweetie pick one to see who went first. This time, I had the ring in one hand. Smart, right?)(People still ask me, what if she picked the other hand? I have no answer for that. I never thought about what would happen if she did that.) And then she got the ring (because she picked the right hand) and we were engaged, and we celebrated by ordering... Pizza!
Your interest is waning. Here's another picture:
And while you look at that, let me warn you. Do NOT go to Google and type in "hot girls with pizza." I don't know how those sites come up, but it's certainly not what I expected from that search.
Then, we got married. We had an hors d'oeuvres reception, and as you know, the bride and groom very rarely get to actually eat at the reception. So when we left the reception to begin our honeymoon, we celebrated our first night as a married couple, in the honeymoon sweet at the Holiday Inn, by ... eating pizza.
And so it goes. A big event in our lives is followed by ordering pizza. Any significant occasion is met with a pizza. Last year, when I had to have back surgery and couldn't eat for 24 hours before, the last thing I ate was pizza. We've had Valentine pizzas made, we've given them as gift certificates. I don't doubt that when the twins are born, we will order a pizza. I may bring it with me to the delivery room.
So I am uniquely qualified to weigh in on The Best Pizza. (I am, in my opinion, uniquely qualified to weigh in on The Best Of Everything. That's why I run this site. But Pizza is a particular qualification.) And I am here to tell you that The Best Pizza is, simply, Rocky Rococo's sausage pizza.
That's it. No fanfare. Just that one. It's got the great crust with Rocky's sort-of-sweet flavor. It's got big thick chunks of sausage. It's got melty, congealed, thick cheese. It's square. You can hold it in your hand and it won't slop off. And, perhaps most importantly for a pizza, it holds up as a leftover. That's significant because the only thing better than fresh pizza is leftover pizza that's been put in the fridge overnight. I deliberately over-order or over-make pizza simply to have leftovers, and then I get up early the next day to get to them before The Boy does. The leftover-quality is where Rocky's really puts themselves ahead of everyone else, because, man, does it ever hold up. Pizza Hut and frozen pizzas get soggy or the crust dries out. Papa John's? Don't make me laugh; the cheese falls apart. But Rocky's! The night before, you had a piping hot steamy slice of pizza dripping with sauce and juice and the cheese was stringy, just the way it should be. The next day? The cheese has insulated the crust, which has retained its flavor and shape and solidity perfectly. The sausage juice and sauce have hardened up and support the sausage, oh, man, I'm getting hungry just typing this. Look at it:
I've got to go, or I'm going to try to take a bite out of my monitor.
But an important role, nonetheless.
Sure, you say, we all love pizza, but I'm not talking about just loving pizza. I'm talking about pizza being an integral part of the biggest days of my life.
When I got engaged, I proposed to Sweetie on our regular Thursday night at her apartment, back when we used to play chess, then watch TV, and the loser had to clean up while the winner -- using that term loosely, given the prize -- got to watch "Veronica's Closet." And for a pizza tie-in to that, here's Dan Finnerty, who is credited as "pizza guy" on that show:
Which is not how pizza played into the engagement. How it played into it was, after we got engaged (which I did cleverly by tying it into the chess game: I'd start the game by holding a pawn in each hand and then having Sweetie pick one to see who went first. This time, I had the ring in one hand. Smart, right?)(People still ask me, what if she picked the other hand? I have no answer for that. I never thought about what would happen if she did that.) And then she got the ring (because she picked the right hand) and we were engaged, and we celebrated by ordering... Pizza!
Your interest is waning. Here's another picture:
And while you look at that, let me warn you. Do NOT go to Google and type in "hot girls with pizza." I don't know how those sites come up, but it's certainly not what I expected from that search.
Then, we got married. We had an hors d'oeuvres reception, and as you know, the bride and groom very rarely get to actually eat at the reception. So when we left the reception to begin our honeymoon, we celebrated our first night as a married couple, in the honeymoon sweet at the Holiday Inn, by ... eating pizza.
And so it goes. A big event in our lives is followed by ordering pizza. Any significant occasion is met with a pizza. Last year, when I had to have back surgery and couldn't eat for 24 hours before, the last thing I ate was pizza. We've had Valentine pizzas made, we've given them as gift certificates. I don't doubt that when the twins are born, we will order a pizza. I may bring it with me to the delivery room.
So I am uniquely qualified to weigh in on The Best Pizza. (I am, in my opinion, uniquely qualified to weigh in on The Best Of Everything. That's why I run this site. But Pizza is a particular qualification.) And I am here to tell you that The Best Pizza is, simply, Rocky Rococo's sausage pizza.
That's it. No fanfare. Just that one. It's got the great crust with Rocky's sort-of-sweet flavor. It's got big thick chunks of sausage. It's got melty, congealed, thick cheese. It's square. You can hold it in your hand and it won't slop off. And, perhaps most importantly for a pizza, it holds up as a leftover. That's significant because the only thing better than fresh pizza is leftover pizza that's been put in the fridge overnight. I deliberately over-order or over-make pizza simply to have leftovers, and then I get up early the next day to get to them before The Boy does. The leftover-quality is where Rocky's really puts themselves ahead of everyone else, because, man, does it ever hold up. Pizza Hut and frozen pizzas get soggy or the crust dries out. Papa John's? Don't make me laugh; the cheese falls apart. But Rocky's! The night before, you had a piping hot steamy slice of pizza dripping with sauce and juice and the cheese was stringy, just the way it should be. The next day? The cheese has insulated the crust, which has retained its flavor and shape and solidity perfectly. The sausage juice and sauce have hardened up and support the sausage, oh, man, I'm getting hungry just typing this. Look at it:
I've got to go, or I'm going to try to take a bite out of my monitor.
Friday, August 04, 2006
The Best Superhero
Update: Did you get here by googling The Best Superhero? I posted this way way back when and didn't know the controversy it would generate -- but don't let that stop you from weighing in, as all the others have done. See the end of the post for more.
This is a real bone of contention in our house, I have to tell you. The Boy is a Batman fanatic. Nobody else will do. He's watched all the Batman movies, even the boring re-run with Christian Bale (and, seriously, Batman's origin is among the most boring of all of them. How often do we have to watch that again), he has a Batman poster on his wall, he just went to Six Flags Great America and came home with a Batman hat and a Batman shirt for Twin A, you see my point.
In a different corner is Sweetie, who loves Spiderman, and hopefully it is Spiderman she loves and not Tobey Maguire. (Because how could I compete?) Sweetie is not a superhero person, or a comics person, per se but Spiderman gets her, so much so that she threatened divorce if we were late for the premiere of Spiderman 2. I do not think she was joking.
Then there's me, and my encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes that people who limit themselves to movie and TV do not ever get. That's because I grew up reading comic books, and, boy, did I read them. And the more obscure the superheroes, the better I liked 'em. Blue Devil? Loved it. Firestorm? Thought he was great. Ambush Bug? Had the entire series. I collected volumes of the Legion of Superheroes, (and thank you, Wikipedians, for concentrating on comic book history.) I even knew some of the more obscure members of the Justice League of America after it was no longer the original Justice League. (Steel? Come on, he sucked.)
But I loved even the lame superheroes, like Aquaman, whose miniseries was underrated (James Cameron, take note!) And I liked the weird ones, like Wildfire (whose potential was never really explored.)
So I believe that I am uniquely qualified to weigh in on the Best Superhero. And I have to tell you, it's not Superman. What's so great about Superman? First of all, there's no suspense. He can't be hurt -- barring Kryptonite, which given that Superman is supposed to get his powers from the sun, makes no sense as his Achilles' heel, and which the other superheroes should have long ago rounded up and thrown into a star somewhere-- and his powers make no sense. Turn lakes to ice by blowing on them? X-ray vision? Heat vision? Okay, if I give you X-ray vision because his eyes are so strong they can see in different spectra, fine, but how can he shoot beams out of his eyes? And why not cold vision, then? (Oh, right, because his breath is super-cold but apparently not enough to freeze Lois Lane's face when he kisses her.) And does he have to eat? He's invulnerable and can fly in space without oxygen, so why eat? I don't like Superman.
And, sorry to The Boy and the Batgeeks, but Batman sucks. Yeah, mystery, yeah, haunted past, yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's just a rich guy with improbable gadgets. He's not a superhero, he's a well-equipped CIA agent. Hero, maybe, but SUPERhero? Not by a long shot. Plus, that boring origin story.
And we've come full circle, because despite my love of the obscure and weird and underrated superheroes out there, the correct answer was in front of our faces all along, and Sweetie got it right.
Spiderman is the best hero ever.
Superpowers that make sense? Yep. Weaknesses to add suspense? He got beat up by his own suit! Sympathetic background story that explains why he fights crime? He let his uncle's killer go while he counted his money. How sympathetic is that? You'd spend your nights brooding while hanging upside down from a web, too.
But Spidey's got more going for him. He was the first modern superhero, and by modern I mean: hates his job. He doesn't want to be a superhero anymore than you and I want to go into the office everyday. He doesn't get the benefits from it and has to try to make ends meet and get the girl anyway, and all he'd really like to do is spend his time making out with Mary Jane (I might be a little out-of-date on the comics that I haven't kept up with) and studying science and taking pictures. But he has to keep getting captured by the Beyonder, or fighting Doc Ock, or (once) meeting up with Superman to go into space to fight Lex Luthor (a great crossover!) and then, when that's all done, he comes home to find he's facing eviction.
Spidey has cool powers, a cool backstory, the best villains, and a real life outside of the webslinging. He's clearly the Best Superhero.
Excelsior!
Other nominations:
Spawn.
Ultimate Spidey
Batman.
Dr. Manhattan
The Hulk.
The Hulk, Juggernaut, Doomsday, Thor, Superman, Yoda.
Spider-Man. (That one was mine!)
Captain Carrot (Me, again!)
Batman, again.
And, if you like Supervillains, you can check out these articles:
"Carnage."
The Three Best Supervillains Who Deservedly Just Kept Coming Back And Should Keep Doing So.
The Best Worst Villain Ever, a five-part series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
_______________________________________________________
When Saoirse died in the plane crash, she had no idea that her life was just beginning. Now, she's running around her afterlife trying to find a way home... or to keep William Howard Taft from finding his way home.
Read the After, a thrilling novel published online at 5 Pages.
This is a real bone of contention in our house, I have to tell you. The Boy is a Batman fanatic. Nobody else will do. He's watched all the Batman movies, even the boring re-run with Christian Bale (and, seriously, Batman's origin is among the most boring of all of them. How often do we have to watch that again), he has a Batman poster on his wall, he just went to Six Flags Great America and came home with a Batman hat and a Batman shirt for Twin A, you see my point.
In a different corner is Sweetie, who loves Spiderman, and hopefully it is Spiderman she loves and not Tobey Maguire. (Because how could I compete?) Sweetie is not a superhero person, or a comics person, per se but Spiderman gets her, so much so that she threatened divorce if we were late for the premiere of Spiderman 2. I do not think she was joking.
Then there's me, and my encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes that people who limit themselves to movie and TV do not ever get. That's because I grew up reading comic books, and, boy, did I read them. And the more obscure the superheroes, the better I liked 'em. Blue Devil? Loved it. Firestorm? Thought he was great. Ambush Bug? Had the entire series. I collected volumes of the Legion of Superheroes, (and thank you, Wikipedians, for concentrating on comic book history.) I even knew some of the more obscure members of the Justice League of America after it was no longer the original Justice League. (Steel? Come on, he sucked.)
But I loved even the lame superheroes, like Aquaman, whose miniseries was underrated (James Cameron, take note!) And I liked the weird ones, like Wildfire (whose potential was never really explored.)
So I believe that I am uniquely qualified to weigh in on the Best Superhero. And I have to tell you, it's not Superman. What's so great about Superman? First of all, there's no suspense. He can't be hurt -- barring Kryptonite, which given that Superman is supposed to get his powers from the sun, makes no sense as his Achilles' heel, and which the other superheroes should have long ago rounded up and thrown into a star somewhere-- and his powers make no sense. Turn lakes to ice by blowing on them? X-ray vision? Heat vision? Okay, if I give you X-ray vision because his eyes are so strong they can see in different spectra, fine, but how can he shoot beams out of his eyes? And why not cold vision, then? (Oh, right, because his breath is super-cold but apparently not enough to freeze Lois Lane's face when he kisses her.) And does he have to eat? He's invulnerable and can fly in space without oxygen, so why eat? I don't like Superman.
And, sorry to The Boy and the Batgeeks, but Batman sucks. Yeah, mystery, yeah, haunted past, yeah, yeah, yeah, but he's just a rich guy with improbable gadgets. He's not a superhero, he's a well-equipped CIA agent. Hero, maybe, but SUPERhero? Not by a long shot. Plus, that boring origin story.
And we've come full circle, because despite my love of the obscure and weird and underrated superheroes out there, the correct answer was in front of our faces all along, and Sweetie got it right.
Spiderman is the best hero ever.
Superpowers that make sense? Yep. Weaknesses to add suspense? He got beat up by his own suit! Sympathetic background story that explains why he fights crime? He let his uncle's killer go while he counted his money. How sympathetic is that? You'd spend your nights brooding while hanging upside down from a web, too.
But Spidey's got more going for him. He was the first modern superhero, and by modern I mean: hates his job. He doesn't want to be a superhero anymore than you and I want to go into the office everyday. He doesn't get the benefits from it and has to try to make ends meet and get the girl anyway, and all he'd really like to do is spend his time making out with Mary Jane (I might be a little out-of-date on the comics that I haven't kept up with) and studying science and taking pictures. But he has to keep getting captured by the Beyonder, or fighting Doc Ock, or (once) meeting up with Superman to go into space to fight Lex Luthor (a great crossover!) and then, when that's all done, he comes home to find he's facing eviction.
Spidey has cool powers, a cool backstory, the best villains, and a real life outside of the webslinging. He's clearly the Best Superhero.
Excelsior!
Other nominations:
Spawn.
Ultimate Spidey
Batman.
Dr. Manhattan
The Hulk.
The Hulk, Juggernaut, Doomsday, Thor, Superman, Yoda.
Spider-Man. (That one was mine!)
Captain Carrot (Me, again!)
Batman, again.
And, if you like Supervillains, you can check out these articles:
"Carnage."
The Three Best Supervillains Who Deservedly Just Kept Coming Back And Should Keep Doing So.
The Best Worst Villain Ever, a five-part series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
_______________________________________________________
When Saoirse died in the plane crash, she had no idea that her life was just beginning. Now, she's running around her afterlife trying to find a way home... or to keep William Howard Taft from finding his way home.Read the After, a thrilling novel published online at 5 Pages.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The Best Band Name
I started thinking about this the other day when I downloaded a song by I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. I have a thing about band names. People have always said that you can't judge a book by its cover, but I have a theory that you can, in fact, do just that. I know I wrote about it on my other blog, but I'll summarize it here because I can't find it there. The theory is this: if you like the band name, you are more likely to like the band and its music, because (stay with me now) the band and you think alike-- you both think that name is cool, and so you both might like other things in common. Follow me on that?
Never mind. The point is, band names have come a long way from the Hollies or The Beatles or even Pink Floyd. They are all over the map now. You'll notice, as you peruse the list of some of my favorites (culled off my iPod just now) that I tend to like the longer ones, but I have some criteria for declaring a band name the best that I'll explain more in a moment.
Anyway, here are the ones I like just on the basis of I like them:
The Apples In Stereo
Cake (and there's a story behind why I like that one.)
Dropkick Murphys
The Flaming Lips
Fountains of Wayne
Kings of Leon
Loveninjas
Mercury Radio Theater
Modest Mouse
Nine Inch Nails
Over The Rhine
Say Hi To Your Mom
Spinning Jennies
Remember, I'm not saying these are the best bands, just great names for bands. Although since they're all on my iPod I do like them, or at least some of their songs.
A good band name -- not the best ever, but a good one -- catches your interest, makes you think for a second, and, ideally, tells you what category your music is in. Group called "The Killers"? Straightforward pop, right? (Which is why it was so sad that Da BoDeans became The Bodeans, and why Spooner became Firehouse -- and both suffered a little as their name watered down their music.) But "Nine Inch Nails?" You know you're not getting Clay Aiken-stylings there. When My Sister first made a tape for me with a band called "Modest Mouse" I knew to expect something a little different.
But the absolute best is not listed there. The absolute best is not just kind of lengthy (which I like) but also sticks in your head because it's self-contained, and also happens to more or less give you a feel for the kind of music they make: when you say the band name, you get a sense of what kind of music that band should make, and then when you listen to the song, they actually make that kind of music.
I'm talking about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, which is commanding, and kind of funny, and also captures the mood of their quasi-Talking Head-esque music, which is complex and interesting and also mysteriously upbeat -- like the band name. So Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, you've got my vote for The Best Band Name. To help you agree with me, here's a video for "Over And Over Again."
Never mind. The point is, band names have come a long way from the Hollies or The Beatles or even Pink Floyd. They are all over the map now. You'll notice, as you peruse the list of some of my favorites (culled off my iPod just now) that I tend to like the longer ones, but I have some criteria for declaring a band name the best that I'll explain more in a moment.
Anyway, here are the ones I like just on the basis of I like them:
The Apples In Stereo
Cake (and there's a story behind why I like that one.)
Dropkick Murphys
The Flaming Lips
Fountains of Wayne
Kings of Leon
Loveninjas
Mercury Radio Theater
Modest Mouse
Nine Inch Nails
Over The Rhine
Say Hi To Your Mom
Spinning Jennies
Remember, I'm not saying these are the best bands, just great names for bands. Although since they're all on my iPod I do like them, or at least some of their songs.
A good band name -- not the best ever, but a good one -- catches your interest, makes you think for a second, and, ideally, tells you what category your music is in. Group called "The Killers"? Straightforward pop, right? (Which is why it was so sad that Da BoDeans became The Bodeans, and why Spooner became Firehouse -- and both suffered a little as their name watered down their music.) But "Nine Inch Nails?" You know you're not getting Clay Aiken-stylings there. When My Sister first made a tape for me with a band called "Modest Mouse" I knew to expect something a little different.
But the absolute best is not listed there. The absolute best is not just kind of lengthy (which I like) but also sticks in your head because it's self-contained, and also happens to more or less give you a feel for the kind of music they make: when you say the band name, you get a sense of what kind of music that band should make, and then when you listen to the song, they actually make that kind of music.
I'm talking about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, which is commanding, and kind of funny, and also captures the mood of their quasi-Talking Head-esque music, which is complex and interesting and also mysteriously upbeat -- like the band name. So Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, you've got my vote for The Best Band Name. To help you agree with me, here's a video for "Over And Over Again."
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Best Mascot, New Nominee
Once a snowball begins to roll, it can't help but get bigger and bigger, and that's how it is working with The Best Of Everything. From humble beginnings (me) TBOE has grown to captivate a readership of... well, dozens. But dozens of very smart, very cool, very hip people who certainly know what they like and certainly know that what they like is, in fact, The Best.
Cool, smart, hip people like Horrorgirl, who in her everyday life is doing the smart thing-- spending most of her time writing the next great horror novel, which she expects to not only be excellent, but also to feature (and I quote) "gore, aliens and sex." So much so she feels it necessary to warn that: "If you are an alien interested in gore and sex, and you are reading this in dismay, my book IS about you."
So, if you are the alien version of Quentin Tarantino, you should perhaps be looking for royalties from Horrorgirl, who you can learn more about by going to her Myspace page. Horrorgirl has not weighed in yet on The Best Horror Movie Ever. I'll be eagerly awaiting that. But until then, we have to be content with Horrorgirl's opinion on The Best Mascot, which she says is:
"those slugs from Santa Cruz." Asked to expound on just why, Horrorgirl replies that she "used to get drunk in Santa Cruz with a bunch of punkers back around 1990. Santa Cruz has a special place in my heart." And she gave me permission to quote it!
So there you have it: A new nominee: the Santa Cruz Banana Slug, nominated as The Best Mascot Ever, and for what might be the best reason ever. If getting drunk with a bunch of punkers isn't a great reason to love a banana slug, I don't know what is. Thanks, Horrorgirl, and good luck on the novel.
This is the Santa Cruz Banana Slug when you're sober:
This is the Slug after a few drinks:
Cool, smart, hip people like Horrorgirl, who in her everyday life is doing the smart thing-- spending most of her time writing the next great horror novel, which she expects to not only be excellent, but also to feature (and I quote) "gore, aliens and sex." So much so she feels it necessary to warn that: "If you are an alien interested in gore and sex, and you are reading this in dismay, my book IS about you."
So, if you are the alien version of Quentin Tarantino, you should perhaps be looking for royalties from Horrorgirl, who you can learn more about by going to her Myspace page. Horrorgirl has not weighed in yet on The Best Horror Movie Ever. I'll be eagerly awaiting that. But until then, we have to be content with Horrorgirl's opinion on The Best Mascot, which she says is:
"those slugs from Santa Cruz." Asked to expound on just why, Horrorgirl replies that she "used to get drunk in Santa Cruz with a bunch of punkers back around 1990. Santa Cruz has a special place in my heart." And she gave me permission to quote it!
So there you have it: A new nominee: the Santa Cruz Banana Slug, nominated as The Best Mascot Ever, and for what might be the best reason ever. If getting drunk with a bunch of punkers isn't a great reason to love a banana slug, I don't know what is. Thanks, Horrorgirl, and good luck on the novel.
This is the Santa Cruz Banana Slug when you're sober:
This is the Slug after a few drinks:
Monday, July 17, 2006
The Best Soda Ever
I drink a lot of soda. A LOT. Soda (pop, whatever you want to call it) takes up a disproportionately large percentage of our grocery budget. That's probably not surprising, since my dad worked for Coca-Cola when I was growing up.
And it's mostly limited to diet soda now, since I lost all that weight in part by not drinking 90 ounces of Mountain Dew per day (which alone would be almost 1200 calories) but there is one soda that I'll drink that's not diet* and which is so good that I buy it only periodically because I like it so much (I've learned that willpower begins in the grocery store, not in the 'fridge.)
That soda is
Honestly, I'm at a loss for words. Do you like those Dreamsicles, or Creamsicles, or whatever they're called (Having checked, it's Creamsicle.) Stewarts has captured that, which means they've captured not just orange, and not just cream, and not just cold carbonated bubbly beverage, but they've captured YOUTH. They've captured a frozen treat on a stick, filled with a surprise of sweet-cream ice cream, melting and ephemeral as you sit on the back porch in the shade taking a break before going back to the world series of wiffle-ball where the crabapple tree is second base and invisible men can steal home. That's what Stewarts has put in a bottle and sells you in a four-pack. It's the Best Soda Ever, not just for the taste but for the memories caught in that taste.
*PS: I know that they offer it as a diet soda, but I think that would take away from the forbidden-fruit pleasures of it. So I drink the regular.
And it's mostly limited to diet soda now, since I lost all that weight in part by not drinking 90 ounces of Mountain Dew per day (which alone would be almost 1200 calories) but there is one soda that I'll drink that's not diet* and which is so good that I buy it only periodically because I like it so much (I've learned that willpower begins in the grocery store, not in the 'fridge.)
That soda is
Honestly, I'm at a loss for words. Do you like those Dreamsicles, or Creamsicles, or whatever they're called (Having checked, it's Creamsicle.) Stewarts has captured that, which means they've captured not just orange, and not just cream, and not just cold carbonated bubbly beverage, but they've captured YOUTH. They've captured a frozen treat on a stick, filled with a surprise of sweet-cream ice cream, melting and ephemeral as you sit on the back porch in the shade taking a break before going back to the world series of wiffle-ball where the crabapple tree is second base and invisible men can steal home. That's what Stewarts has put in a bottle and sells you in a four-pack. It's the Best Soda Ever, not just for the taste but for the memories caught in that taste.
*PS: I know that they offer it as a diet soda, but I think that would take away from the forbidden-fruit pleasures of it. So I drink the regular.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The Best Painting Ever
When I was a kid, I remember going to the Milwaukee Art Museum on many a field trip, and each time, I was somewhat mystified by a painting there. I was mystified because I thought "That's not art." I thought "That's nothing." I thought, "I could do that." And I saw it every single time I went there, and never understood why it was art.
This is that painting:
It's called "Red Yellow Blue II" and it's by Ellsworth Kelly.
Later, when I was reading a book -- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, if you must know -- I came across a quote that explained to me, finally, why "Red Yellow Blue II" is in an art museum. I'm not going to quote him verbatim here, but the gist of it was that things are genius because they don't seem to require genius. In a discussion about the catflap, a character pointed out that Isaac Newton discovered it and that it was genius because it makes everyone say "I could have thought of that" but they didn't.
So "Red Yellow Blue II" is an artwork that displays that particular kind of genius, the kind that makes you think "I could have done that," but you didn't.
My nomination for the Best Painting Ever is not "Red Yellow Blue II." I'm not as interested in celebrating the quiet, thoughtful kind of genius that takes 27 years to accumulate. I'm interested in celebrating the open kind of genius that demonstrates itself to you right off and makes you want to cry because it's so beautiful, and for that you need look no further than this:
Just sit and look at it for a minute. Look at the way you can see brushstrokes and the colors mixing and the stars are larger than the houses below. There is nothing about that painting that isn't perfect. It reduces its elements to their constituent parts-- you can almost see the atoms that make up the trees and the stars and the house, suggesting that we are all made of the same stuff (right, Moby?) and with the stars being that big he creates the feeling that they are close, they are looming, their beauty becomes almost overwhelming.
But what really gets me is you can see the wind. You can actually see the air flowing around the things in the picture. I don't know why that makes the picture so great, to be honest -- I'm not an art critic -- but it does.
You can't look at Starry Night without feeling the madness and pain and love of life that Van Gogh is expressing, and feel how your own life embodies that painting, too. It takes what everyone thinks of as a quiet, peaceful, beautiful thing, a starry night, and retains that quality while also showing the turbulence that surrounds us even at the quietest times. And that, my friends, is what makes it The Best Painting Ever.
This is that painting:
It's called "Red Yellow Blue II" and it's by Ellsworth Kelly.
Later, when I was reading a book -- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, if you must know -- I came across a quote that explained to me, finally, why "Red Yellow Blue II" is in an art museum. I'm not going to quote him verbatim here, but the gist of it was that things are genius because they don't seem to require genius. In a discussion about the catflap, a character pointed out that Isaac Newton discovered it and that it was genius because it makes everyone say "I could have thought of that" but they didn't.
So "Red Yellow Blue II" is an artwork that displays that particular kind of genius, the kind that makes you think "I could have done that," but you didn't.
My nomination for the Best Painting Ever is not "Red Yellow Blue II." I'm not as interested in celebrating the quiet, thoughtful kind of genius that takes 27 years to accumulate. I'm interested in celebrating the open kind of genius that demonstrates itself to you right off and makes you want to cry because it's so beautiful, and for that you need look no further than this:
Just sit and look at it for a minute. Look at the way you can see brushstrokes and the colors mixing and the stars are larger than the houses below. There is nothing about that painting that isn't perfect. It reduces its elements to their constituent parts-- you can almost see the atoms that make up the trees and the stars and the house, suggesting that we are all made of the same stuff (right, Moby?) and with the stars being that big he creates the feeling that they are close, they are looming, their beauty becomes almost overwhelming.
But what really gets me is you can see the wind. You can actually see the air flowing around the things in the picture. I don't know why that makes the picture so great, to be honest -- I'm not an art critic -- but it does.
You can't look at Starry Night without feeling the madness and pain and love of life that Van Gogh is expressing, and feel how your own life embodies that painting, too. It takes what everyone thinks of as a quiet, peaceful, beautiful thing, a starry night, and retains that quality while also showing the turbulence that surrounds us even at the quietest times. And that, my friends, is what makes it The Best Painting Ever.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
The Best Joke, New Nominee
I have to tell you, I think MySpace is a glorious thing. Since I got more active on my site there, I've been getting more hits on these pages and more nominations, and it just keeps going up and up.
Now, here comes yet another disagreement with my opinion (I have teenage kids, so I'm used to that) and a new nominee in the category of The Best Joke Ever. Here is Allex Spires (who right now is featuring the very cool, very classical Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5 on his profile page) commenting on my nomination (The Monk Joke) and setting up his own favorite for your review:
[When asked whether I could post his nomination on TBOE:] Sure, I don't know how. It's not my joke, however, but I think it's better than the monk, which is great to tell but just pisses you off if you read it.
. . .
From: Allex Spires Date: Jul 6, 2006 7:14 AM I disagree. Funniest joke I've ever heard:
Sherlock Holmes and Watson were out in the woods one night, camping, they had their tent set up and a fire, roasted marshmallows and sang Kum-Ba-Ya or some late nineteenth century English variation, cooked sausages over the open blaze and then decided to go to sleep.
During the night, Sherlock felt a chill and his eyes opened and he looked up, his eyes widened as the night sky so much more pure than in the heart of London, on Baker Street, gazed on him as he gazed up he woke Watson and said, "Watson, my dear fellow!"
Watson woke and asked "Whatever is it, Holmes?"
Sherlock pointed up and Watson exclaimed, "how beautiful the stars are out here."
"What does that mean to you, my dear chum?" asked Holmes.
"Oh, when I was a boy we used to look at the stars," returned the doctor, "we would gaze up and just imagine how insignificant we are and how vast and amazing all of the universe would be. We'd try counting them sometimes but there are far too many. Maybe," he turned and looked at holmes, "in all that vastness there is life on another planet, perhaps looking back at us as we look at it and we'll never know. "
Sherlock Holmes looked at Doctor Watson and said, "no, you idiot, someone stole our tent."
Now, I have in fact heard that the Sherlock Holmes Joke was voted to be the best joke ever but I can't remember where I heard it and I can't find confirmation of that. If you can, let me know, but since TBOE is the official Internet site for determining what is The Best, I can't promise that I'll consider some other source binding. But now you have two nominations for The Best Joke, and you can just hear the world gearing up for this battle.
Now, here comes yet another disagreement with my opinion (I have teenage kids, so I'm used to that) and a new nominee in the category of The Best Joke Ever. Here is Allex Spires (who right now is featuring the very cool, very classical Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5 on his profile page) commenting on my nomination (The Monk Joke) and setting up his own favorite for your review:
[When asked whether I could post his nomination on TBOE:] Sure, I don't know how. It's not my joke, however, but I think it's better than the monk, which is great to tell but just pisses you off if you read it.
. . .
From: Allex Spires Date: Jul 6, 2006 7:14 AM I disagree. Funniest joke I've ever heard:
Sherlock Holmes and Watson were out in the woods one night, camping, they had their tent set up and a fire, roasted marshmallows and sang Kum-Ba-Ya or some late nineteenth century English variation, cooked sausages over the open blaze and then decided to go to sleep.
During the night, Sherlock felt a chill and his eyes opened and he looked up, his eyes widened as the night sky so much more pure than in the heart of London, on Baker Street, gazed on him as he gazed up he woke Watson and said, "Watson, my dear fellow!"
Watson woke and asked "Whatever is it, Holmes?"
Sherlock pointed up and Watson exclaimed, "how beautiful the stars are out here."
"What does that mean to you, my dear chum?" asked Holmes.
"Oh, when I was a boy we used to look at the stars," returned the doctor, "we would gaze up and just imagine how insignificant we are and how vast and amazing all of the universe would be. We'd try counting them sometimes but there are far too many. Maybe," he turned and looked at holmes, "in all that vastness there is life on another planet, perhaps looking back at us as we look at it and we'll never know. "
Sherlock Holmes looked at Doctor Watson and said, "no, you idiot, someone stole our tent."
Now, I have in fact heard that the Sherlock Holmes Joke was voted to be the best joke ever but I can't remember where I heard it and I can't find confirmation of that. If you can, let me know, but since TBOE is the official Internet site for determining what is The Best, I can't promise that I'll consider some other source binding. But now you have two nominations for The Best Joke, and you can just hear the world gearing up for this battle.
Monday, July 03, 2006
The Best Disney Princess Ever
Wonders will never cease, it seems. In a short span, this site has begun to attract newfound attention and now, for the first time ever, we have a category that I did not create. From TBOE nominator Susan comes a brand new category, one I wholeheartedly endorse as being suitable for submission to the masses (that's you.) Here is Susan on her nominee for The Best Disney Princess Ever:
I would like to make a nomination for best disney princess ever. [My friends and I have had an ongoing debate about this for a few years now.] The best Disney princess ever is Sleeping Beauty.
There are many reasons for this, first of all, she is one of the classic Disney princesses and was first released in 1959. She is the only Disney princess who is seen most often wearing pink. The movie also has no hidden innuendos in it like "The Little Mermaid" or "Cinderella." (e.g., in "The Little Mermaid" girls are taught to do anything to get the boy and in "Cinderella" children are taught that they should just deal with abusive parents by creating a fantasy world. Sleeping Beauty is also a real princess but she isn't spoiled and grows up living as a peasant, which makes her more appealing. She also doesn't seem to be the main character in the movie, sharing the spotlight with Prince Charming, the fairies, and Maleficent, who is one of the coolest Disney villians. Overall Sleeping Beauty is just awesome and she is definitely the best Disney princess ever.
I have to confess that my favorite of the movies referenced was "The Little Mermaid," which, if Susan's right about the message would be only natural, what with me being a guy and all. But it's hard to argue with her logic, and so there's your newest nominee in your newest category: Sleeping Beauty, the Best Disney Princess Ever.
I would like to make a nomination for best disney princess ever. [My friends and I have had an ongoing debate about this for a few years now.] The best Disney princess ever is Sleeping Beauty.
There are many reasons for this, first of all, she is one of the classic Disney princesses and was first released in 1959. She is the only Disney princess who is seen most often wearing pink. The movie also has no hidden innuendos in it like "The Little Mermaid" or "Cinderella." (e.g., in "The Little Mermaid" girls are taught to do anything to get the boy and in "Cinderella" children are taught that they should just deal with abusive parents by creating a fantasy world. Sleeping Beauty is also a real princess but she isn't spoiled and grows up living as a peasant, which makes her more appealing. She also doesn't seem to be the main character in the movie, sharing the spotlight with Prince Charming, the fairies, and Maleficent, who is one of the coolest Disney villians. Overall Sleeping Beauty is just awesome and she is definitely the best Disney princess ever.
I have to confess that my favorite of the movies referenced was "The Little Mermaid," which, if Susan's right about the message would be only natural, what with me being a guy and all. But it's hard to argue with her logic, and so there's your newest nominee in your newest category: Sleeping Beauty, the Best Disney Princess Ever.
The Best Horror Movie Ever, New Nominee!
I CANNOT believe it. My opinion is being challenged, and not in a very meek way, either. Susan, who has also weighed in on the best fight scene now has gone and read my entry for The Best Horror Movie Ever and has come up with a
contrary opinion?
So I suppose I'll allow not just nominations but comments and dissents, and I'll post what Susan has to say, and we'll let free speech reign and the public decide:
[responding to my nomination about The Amityville Horror]
Oh man. No way. I have to step up in the name of good horror movies ever and tell you that, that movie and all its sequels and the remake were all horrible. Yes I said ALL horrible. I like horror movies so much its hard for me to decide on just one nomination... Not to mention the fact that there are so many different categories of horror movies. I could probably nominate one from every type of horror movie, but I'll just go with my most recent favorite.
Hostel was an amazing movie in general but it was a really great horror movie. I mean how many horror movies have you ever watched and were actually intrigued by the plot line? Not to mention there were plenty of guts and death to go around and of course enough jumpy parts to make the girls scream in the theater. I just loved it because it actually made me nauseous. :)
To show what she's talking about, here's a clip I pulled:
So there it is. The second nominee for The Best Horror Movie Ever. Like I said, we'll let free speech reign and allow the public to decide that I'm right.
contrary opinion?
So I suppose I'll allow not just nominations but comments and dissents, and I'll post what Susan has to say, and we'll let free speech reign and the public decide:
[responding to my nomination about The Amityville Horror]
Oh man. No way. I have to step up in the name of good horror movies ever and tell you that, that movie and all its sequels and the remake were all horrible. Yes I said ALL horrible. I like horror movies so much its hard for me to decide on just one nomination... Not to mention the fact that there are so many different categories of horror movies. I could probably nominate one from every type of horror movie, but I'll just go with my most recent favorite.
Hostel was an amazing movie in general but it was a really great horror movie. I mean how many horror movies have you ever watched and were actually intrigued by the plot line? Not to mention there were plenty of guts and death to go around and of course enough jumpy parts to make the girls scream in the theater. I just loved it because it actually made me nauseous. :)
To show what she's talking about, here's a clip I pulled:
So there it is. The second nominee for The Best Horror Movie Ever. Like I said, we'll let free speech reign and allow the public to decide that I'm right.
The Best Fight Scene In A Movie, New Nominee!
As this snowball gets rolling downhill, it'll just pick up steam. My excitement, and hence use of metaphors, is because there is a NEW NOMINATION! And not even from someone who's related to me but from a total stranger who nonetheless was cool enough to recognize not just that The Best Of Everything is great fun, but also that she has an opinion and wants it to count.
But enough about me. Let's talk about the nominee and the nominator. Not in that order. The nominator is Susan, who goes by the myspace name [love]slave. In her own words:
"I'm Susan, I'm 19, I work at Shoney's as a waitress, I'm a junior at UNC at Asheville, I love movies and writing, and as far as classification goes, I'd have to say I'm a punk rocker. I think that pretty much covers me."
To learn more about her, go to her myspace page and read about her already.
And now for her nomination. I don't pretend to understand it because I never saw the movie, so I let her know that and she was nice enough to explain it to me. So here is the nomination and her explanation in full:
I think my vote for best fight scene in a movie would be at the end of Fight Club when you get to see all of the fights "Tyler" had with himself. And when he makes the gun be in his hand by believing it.
Fight Club is a movie about a man who is played by Edward Norton, even though that character is never acutally named in the film. At the beginning of the movie aformentioned character befriends a man named Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt. They start what will later be called Fight Club by having a brawl with each other outside a bar. Fight Club is and underground fighting/boxing/wrestling league and through this organization Tyler starts building an army. He eventually uses his army consisting of all middle class citizens to demolish all of the credit card buildings in America to erase debt. Toward the end of the movie, the viewer comes to discover that Tyler and Norton's character are really one in the same. Norton's character then has several flashbacks one in particular to his first fight with Tyler outside the bar. In the flashback, he's the only person there and he's hitting himself. He also fights Tyler over the demolitions that are about to occur. When the camera is on the two directly you see both characters, but at times the camera shows the view from either a mirror or a security camera in the building. In these scenes Norton's character is the only visible one. He is even shown dragging himself by his neck down a corrodor. It's a great movie and I think its a great fight scene because its a a physical and mental struggle all at the same time within one character.
So there you have it. Susan/[love]slave, thanks for your nomination, and the battle for the Best Fight Scene In A Movie is on. And, because I could not find a clip of that scene, I've got what Fight Club would be like if it were a romantic comedy:
But enough about me. Let's talk about the nominee and the nominator. Not in that order. The nominator is Susan, who goes by the myspace name [love]slave. In her own words:
"I'm Susan, I'm 19, I work at Shoney's as a waitress, I'm a junior at UNC at Asheville, I love movies and writing, and as far as classification goes, I'd have to say I'm a punk rocker. I think that pretty much covers me."
To learn more about her, go to her myspace page and read about her already.
And now for her nomination. I don't pretend to understand it because I never saw the movie, so I let her know that and she was nice enough to explain it to me. So here is the nomination and her explanation in full:
I think my vote for best fight scene in a movie would be at the end of Fight Club when you get to see all of the fights "Tyler" had with himself. And when he makes the gun be in his hand by believing it.
Fight Club is a movie about a man who is played by Edward Norton, even though that character is never acutally named in the film. At the beginning of the movie aformentioned character befriends a man named Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt. They start what will later be called Fight Club by having a brawl with each other outside a bar. Fight Club is and underground fighting/boxing/wrestling league and through this organization Tyler starts building an army. He eventually uses his army consisting of all middle class citizens to demolish all of the credit card buildings in America to erase debt. Toward the end of the movie, the viewer comes to discover that Tyler and Norton's character are really one in the same. Norton's character then has several flashbacks one in particular to his first fight with Tyler outside the bar. In the flashback, he's the only person there and he's hitting himself. He also fights Tyler over the demolitions that are about to occur. When the camera is on the two directly you see both characters, but at times the camera shows the view from either a mirror or a security camera in the building. In these scenes Norton's character is the only visible one. He is even shown dragging himself by his neck down a corrodor. It's a great movie and I think its a great fight scene because its a a physical and mental struggle all at the same time within one character.
So there you have it. Susan/[love]slave, thanks for your nomination, and the battle for the Best Fight Scene In A Movie is on. And, because I could not find a clip of that scene, I've got what Fight Club would be like if it were a romantic comedy:
Saturday, July 01, 2006
The Best Horror Movie
Look, I know it's dated and I know that by today's standards there is not enough blood and there is not enough sex and the special effects look like something done with Christmas lights. I know they made it into a crummy remake, too, although I don't hold that against it. And I am a fan of horror movies, and know a little something about horror myself.
I know all that, but I also know this: when I was 12, I first watched The Amityville Horror, the original one, and I saw that Jody The Pig in the window at the end (you've got to look for it) and that night I woke up screaming. And about two years back I watched it again -- the old version, again, bad special effects and all -- with the Older Daughter, and I got scared ALL OVER AGAIN. And thinking about it now, frankly, is a little scary. The babysitter in the closet? The moved carpeting? The blind priest, fly room, the pit to Hell in the basement?
AND IT'S ALL TRUE?
There can be no other choice. The Amityville Horror, the original one, is the Best Horror Movie. Ever.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
The Best Fast Food (Non-Hamburger Category)
I remember when they first came out with Kentucky Fried Chicken's "Popcorn Chicken." I thought it was ridiculous. I thought it was just the skin, really, wrapped around a tiny morsel of chicken. Although I liked KFC, I did not like the idea of Popcorn Chicken. (Which I never really considered a "McNugget" although that link shows they are apparently in the same category.)
Then about two or three years ago Sweetie and I went to a friend's wedding (the rare occasion when we were social) and in between the ceremony and the reception we had some time to kill and had not eaten lunch. We located a KFC and decided to try that. Sweetie went for one of their platters. I was taken in by the packaging for the Popcorn Chicken, which looks like an old-fashioned carnival popcorn box. (Yes, that is how I make many of my decisions.) So I tried it, and I loved it. I was overwhelmed by the experience of eating a box of KFC chicken skin. It cuts to the chase: it is the exact part that we want to eat, without all the messing around with bones and white-vs-dark and all that.
I know that nowadays we are not supposed to fry foods before eating them, and take the skin off of chicken if we eat meat at all, and generally not have fun. But when we were kids we didn't have those concerns, and when we were kids we'd peel the skin off the chicken, eat that, and hide the meat under the beans. Popcorn chicken gives you that same experience without wasting food.
To help celebrate Popcorn Chicken, the best (non-hamburger) fast food, I've included the South Park episode that shows the allure of chicken skin and how Popcorn Chicken might save lives:
Then about two or three years ago Sweetie and I went to a friend's wedding (the rare occasion when we were social) and in between the ceremony and the reception we had some time to kill and had not eaten lunch. We located a KFC and decided to try that. Sweetie went for one of their platters. I was taken in by the packaging for the Popcorn Chicken, which looks like an old-fashioned carnival popcorn box. (Yes, that is how I make many of my decisions.) So I tried it, and I loved it. I was overwhelmed by the experience of eating a box of KFC chicken skin. It cuts to the chase: it is the exact part that we want to eat, without all the messing around with bones and white-vs-dark and all that.
I know that nowadays we are not supposed to fry foods before eating them, and take the skin off of chicken if we eat meat at all, and generally not have fun. But when we were kids we didn't have those concerns, and when we were kids we'd peel the skin off the chicken, eat that, and hide the meat under the beans. Popcorn chicken gives you that same experience without wasting food.
To help celebrate Popcorn Chicken, the best (non-hamburger) fast food, I've included the South Park episode that shows the allure of chicken skin and how Popcorn Chicken might save lives:
Saturday, June 24, 2006
The Best Stand-Up Comedian
There are a lot of people I could nominate in this category, a lot of people whose jokes are funny when you first heard them and funny when you hear them again and funny when you tell them to your friends. There are people who have classic routines: Bill Cosby talking about the beatings, Eddie Murphy's welfare burger (or his impression of Richard Pryor!). There are people who somehow redefined comedy, like the guy I was going to nominate for this, Jerry Seinfeld. (A show about nothing, and some of the best routines ever that I quote back and forth with Sweetie and who even the kids like. "I've got my arm on it!") There are the weird guys: Jake Johannsen, or Steven Wright.
But there can be only one best and I kept coming back to her: Ellen DeGeneres. This may come as a shock to those of you who know her only as a talk-show host and commercial-dancer. But Ellen is, or was, a stand-up comedian, and if you watch either one of her HBO specials (all I've seen of them) you will understand why I am so impressed. I didn't stop laughing when I watched either of them. They are funny, they are crazy, and they all tie together. In her second special, when she told the last joke, you suddenly realize how she tied up the entire show and that makes it even better somehow (and I won't ruin it for you.)
She's got the memorable one-liners, which if you've watched you'll recognize: ("M In The P." "Gloria Estefan.") She has the great stories, and she's so talented you just sit back after a show and realize just how likeable and funny and great she really is. I can't find video of it, but you can check out video clips from Ellen's show, and bits of her stand up, here.
Go, Ellen, the Best Stand-Up Comedian ever.
But there can be only one best and I kept coming back to her: Ellen DeGeneres. This may come as a shock to those of you who know her only as a talk-show host and commercial-dancer. But Ellen is, or was, a stand-up comedian, and if you watch either one of her HBO specials (all I've seen of them) you will understand why I am so impressed. I didn't stop laughing when I watched either of them. They are funny, they are crazy, and they all tie together. In her second special, when she told the last joke, you suddenly realize how she tied up the entire show and that makes it even better somehow (and I won't ruin it for you.)
She's got the memorable one-liners, which if you've watched you'll recognize: ("M In The P." "Gloria Estefan.") She has the great stories, and she's so talented you just sit back after a show and realize just how likeable and funny and great she really is. I can't find video of it, but you can check out video clips from Ellen's show, and bits of her stand up, here.
Go, Ellen, the Best Stand-Up Comedian ever.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
The Best Summer Food
As promised, I'm trying to insert some less-strange categories in here. And what is less strange than a life-size hot dog squeezing ketchup onto itself? This would be a good place, too,o to insert a video of the Will Ferrell as Harry Caray on Weekend Update skit where he asks Colin if he were a hot dog and got hungry would he eat himself, and then congratulates Colin on his wise choice.When I was 21 I moved out of my parents' house and into a crummy apartment with two roommates in a terrible part of town -- so terrible that a year later I would learn that Jeffrey Dahmer had lived 6 blocks away. And I went through a series of jobs in that first summer, among them a one-day stint as a canvasser for a political action committee. That was depressing. But there was nothing depressing about my job as a hot dog vendor. We would go to the store front in the morning, and load up our carts with dogs and buns and relish and onions, and load them onto a truck, and we'd all sit in the hot, dark truck, talking quietly sometimes, as it drove around the city and stopped occasionally to have us hurriedly unload a cart and then continue on. My corner was downtown, near a bunch of banks and an insurance company. Boring, but easy work. And I worked the night of the Fourth of July fireworks, too, and sold over 700 hot dogs in 2 hours. That's a lot of hot dogs, all made by me.
The point is, I guess, that hot dogs are associated with summer in my mind, and with an idyllic summer of easy work and no parents for the first time in my life. And beyond that, they taste GOOD. And you can do anything with them. You can fry them and coat them with chili and cheese like I saw Rachael Ray do last week while I was on the stationary bike. You can bread them and put them on a stick and people will pay $3 for them at the State Fair. You can wrap them in 59-cent ready-bake croissants to make cheap pigs-in-a-blanket. You can eat them from a hot dog stand on 5th Avenue with a pretzel and a Diet Coke everyday on your honeymoon, like Sweetie and I did. But mostly you can (as I did that summer) put them on a bun, put a lot of onions and relish and mustard on them, and eat them as you sit in the sun and watch people go by to their jobs that do not let them sit on an upside-down pickle bucket and bask in the sun. Here's to the Hot Dog, the Best Summer Food.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
The Best Pop Song with "Pop" Or "Music" In The Title
I confess to two minor problems.
First, when I started this site I sort of thought of it as a site where there would be nominations in actual categories, like "Best Hamburger," or "Best Movie." And I've sort of gotten away from that because of fun with other categories. So in the future I'll try to put up some nominations for more 'regular' categories, although it would not hurt for one of the 20,000,000 people who view this site daily* to go ahead and nominate something, anything. Until then, I will continue to be the Ultimate Arbiter of What Is The Best.
The second minor problem is that sometimes I want to rethink my nominations or can't make up my mind, and like having a kid or voting for Bill Clinton one time, you can't take some things back. Also, it doesn't make sense for me to nominate two different things for "The Best Of" something because I have to think one or the other is the best, right? (I plan to never throw that logic at my pending twin boys.)
This is all brought about because on the drive into the office this morning I pulled one of my old cassette tapes out of the box in the garage, since our second car has a cassette deck and I didn't want to go through the trouble of bringing the iPod and its transmitter along. (How lazy is that, right? So I pulled out "Pop Goes The World" by Men Without Hats, and it was revelatory. I first heard the song "Pop Goes the World" on a two-day trip to visit a friend in Fort Knox at his graduation from basic training, a trip that involved so little sleep I hallucinated towards the end of it. And I bought the album the minute I got back to my dorm room. And I loved it and I've loved it since then. And I loved it this morning and thought "Why didn't I nominate this for Best Album?" (Short answer: because I'd forgotten it.) (Thought: An album that slips your mind probably is not the Best ever, right? Maybe, maybe not. I forget a lot of things.)
So I'm driving in and listening to that little tinkly piano beat behind the drum machines on the title track, and I still know all the words to the song and this song is GREAT, and I decided that rather than create the logical problem of my thinking both Graceland and Pop Goes The World could be the Best Album, I'd create a new category. And one that has some meritorious potential nominees itself. Because it's not just "Pop Goes the World" the song that could go in here. I gave consideration to "Pop Muzik" by M, and "Music That You Can Dance To" by Sparks, two great songs, but "Pop Goes The World" ultimately beats them for its catchiness, for the way the "Intro" (which I count as part of the song) is so overbearing and then goes into music-box-like piano, for the silliness of the little girl announcing the song, and for the lyrics, which tell the brief but enthralling story of Johnny and Jenny and their crazy dream. Oh, and the video is a masterpiece. It really is. Elvis and a drumming snowman and the baby on the Casio.
*Dark hits. For an explanation of this new Internet statistic, go to Thinking the Lions. But don't doubt the veracity of that count just because it cannot be proven.
First, when I started this site I sort of thought of it as a site where there would be nominations in actual categories, like "Best Hamburger," or "Best Movie." And I've sort of gotten away from that because of fun with other categories. So in the future I'll try to put up some nominations for more 'regular' categories, although it would not hurt for one of the 20,000,000 people who view this site daily* to go ahead and nominate something, anything. Until then, I will continue to be the Ultimate Arbiter of What Is The Best.
The second minor problem is that sometimes I want to rethink my nominations or can't make up my mind, and like having a kid or voting for Bill Clinton one time, you can't take some things back. Also, it doesn't make sense for me to nominate two different things for "The Best Of" something because I have to think one or the other is the best, right? (I plan to never throw that logic at my pending twin boys.)
This is all brought about because on the drive into the office this morning I pulled one of my old cassette tapes out of the box in the garage, since our second car has a cassette deck and I didn't want to go through the trouble of bringing the iPod and its transmitter along. (How lazy is that, right? So I pulled out "Pop Goes The World" by Men Without Hats, and it was revelatory. I first heard the song "Pop Goes the World" on a two-day trip to visit a friend in Fort Knox at his graduation from basic training, a trip that involved so little sleep I hallucinated towards the end of it. And I bought the album the minute I got back to my dorm room. And I loved it and I've loved it since then. And I loved it this morning and thought "Why didn't I nominate this for Best Album?" (Short answer: because I'd forgotten it.) (Thought: An album that slips your mind probably is not the Best ever, right? Maybe, maybe not. I forget a lot of things.)
So I'm driving in and listening to that little tinkly piano beat behind the drum machines on the title track, and I still know all the words to the song and this song is GREAT, and I decided that rather than create the logical problem of my thinking both Graceland and Pop Goes The World could be the Best Album, I'd create a new category. And one that has some meritorious potential nominees itself. Because it's not just "Pop Goes the World" the song that could go in here. I gave consideration to "Pop Muzik" by M, and "Music That You Can Dance To" by Sparks, two great songs, but "Pop Goes The World" ultimately beats them for its catchiness, for the way the "Intro" (which I count as part of the song) is so overbearing and then goes into music-box-like piano, for the silliness of the little girl announcing the song, and for the lyrics, which tell the brief but enthralling story of Johnny and Jenny and their crazy dream. Oh, and the video is a masterpiece. It really is. Elvis and a drumming snowman and the baby on the Casio.
*Dark hits. For an explanation of this new Internet statistic, go to Thinking the Lions. But don't doubt the veracity of that count just because it cannot be proven.
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Best Celebrity Baby (Right Now)
This is a very exciting time in the world of celebrity babies for The Best of Everything. No, not because of the Infangelina (with thanks to Fametracker for that), who TBOE will refer to as "McGruff," because (as The Superficial and TBOE's wife pointed out) "Shiloh" is a popular dog's name, and The Superficial suggested McGruff would be appropriate (and if you don't believe me, at the end of this post are the top 3 images that turn up on Google when you look for "Shiloh.") No, it's not because of all that at all. This has nothing to do with McGruff.
The excitement is because there is finally a nomination from someone other than me. Now, true, the nomination is from Sweetie, but that's still an accomplishment because the members of my family support my websites in a "You-do-great-but-don't-make-me-get-involved" kind of way, so Sweetie nominating someone is an achievement.
And her nomination comes in the category of "The Best Celebrity Baby (Right Now)." Currently, that category features Apple Martin as the first nominee. Sweetie's nominee is none other than Leni, the daughter of Seal and Heidi Klum:
The excitement is because there is finally a nomination from someone other than me. Now, true, the nomination is from Sweetie, but that's still an accomplishment because the members of my family support my websites in a "You-do-great-but-don't-make-me-get-involved" kind of way, so Sweetie nominating someone is an achievement.
And her nomination comes in the category of "The Best Celebrity Baby (Right Now)." Currently, that category features Apple Martin as the first nominee. Sweetie's nominee is none other than Leni, the daughter of Seal and Heidi Klum:
Sweetie's reasoning behind the nomination, verbatim:
"How can you not say that Leni is the cutest?...Because she is so silly that is why she is the cutest.”*
*The intervening was my saying that she had to provide reasons for her nomination.
So there you have it. We have a race on: Apple vs. Leni, for cutest celebrity baby.
Oh, and here are the Shiloh searches. Good job, Brangelina!
"How can you not say that Leni is the cutest?...Because she is so silly that is why she is the cutest.”*
*The intervening was my saying that she had to provide reasons for her nomination.
So there you have it. We have a race on: Apple vs. Leni, for cutest celebrity baby.
Oh, and here are the Shiloh searches. Good job, Brangelina!
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
The Best Sing-Along-With Singer
I was, to go with this post, hoping to put in a video of Donald Faison singing a Neil Diamond song, because he actually does an amazing impression of him. But I couldn't find one. Why has nobody posted that?
The video I have might be better, though, because it provides the original Neil and a snippet of each song. And you're probably humming along and you would be singing along except that you're at work and can't let people know that you're not actually working on your TPS reports. But you will be singing those songs, as soon as you can and each time after that that you listen to a Neil Diamond song.
There can't be anyone in the world more fun to sing along with. He's got nonsense lyrics ("And the tune can be sung and the words all rhyme, deedle-lee dee dee deedle-lee dee dee deedle-lee-dee,") he's got soaring choruses ("Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies 'cause everyone goes,") he's got rhythm, he's got guitars, he's got more nonsense lyrics ("And no one heard at all not even the chair") and most of all he's got
That VOICE! That Neil Diamond voice that echoes and resonates and is shouting and crying and laughing and you just want to imitate it and make it your own, don't you? Has anyone
ever listened to a Neil Diamond song and not tried to sing like him? No way.
I was making dinner one night a few weeks ago and "I Am I Said" came on my iPod and I couldn't help it, I tried to sing it like Neil and had a great time. And I do everytime it comes on. Right now, you're thinking of doing that: "She got the way to move me, cherry!"
So go ahead and do it. I'm sure Neil won't mind. We'll never sing quite like him, but we'll never quit trying.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Best Album
I thought about starting off smaller, like I did with Elvis. Or sub-dividing into "pop" and "rock" and other categories, but then I thought, Why not just go for the gusto. Why not just ride my own melt and name the best of all time.*
And maybe there can be some debate about this, but I don't think so. I've heard The White Album. I've heard Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I've heard Abbey Road (and once wrote a novel based on that album in a weird way.) I've listened to Dark Side of the Moon. I never thought much of The Joshua Tree, and in fact thought Rattle & Hum was better (I know, heresy, except that Rattle had a more visceral feel to it and took more chances. It holds up better to repeated listenings.) And that seems to be the list of the albums people would put up here if they ever bothered to nominate something. (You hear that, people? Nominate something! Between Saturday and today, 8 people looked at this but didn't comment or nominate or anything. Don't be shy.)
So I've considered alternatives, and I always come back to this:
,
I got this album as a gift from my uncle for my birthday back in what must have been 1987 since it came out in 1986 but my birthday is in January. I kind of liked Paul Simon a little, and I liked the song "You Can Call Me Al" off this album, and my uncle (who was living with us) must have been at a loss for what to get me because this was an unusual choice. But I loved it the minute I heard it, on cassette (this was the 80s) and I loved it every single time I listened to it since then. I've got all the songs memorized. I know them in the order they appear.
This is one of the few albums, there's maybe three, that I've liked every single song on and kept liking them. The weakest song ("Under African Skies") is still better than the best on most other songs. It manages to be unique and new 20 years later, and the African and zydeco beats and influences don't come off as just gimmickry. Plus, it has "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" which is both romantic and sweet and bouncy and should, by rights, have been a great hit but never was for some reason. And it has "Graceland," which should be the first song on any drive mixtape (or mix CD or mix playlist) because it not only has a good beat for driving but it's about driving and it fits any drive anywhere because Graceland is a metaphor. Or not, because once when I was bored and stressed and depressed all at the same time and listening to this album, I decided I would go to Graceland, and did that.
Graceland. By Paul Simon. Go buy it now. It might not synch up to The Wizard of Oz, and it didn't spark any rumors that (this) Paul was dead, but you'll never get tired of listening to it.
If you want to listen to parts of it, and haven't yet heard any of it (and how could that happen?), you can check out snippets here. I have no idea (yet) how to stream an album or even if that's legal, so if Paul Simon reads this and wants to give me permission to do that, let me know. And if anyone who's not Paul Simon knows how to do that, let me know that, too.
* From the movie "Reality Bites." Those of you who read my Myspace blog know (now) that I have a personal bias against Ethan Hawke that stems entirely from this movie and the fact that he was supposed to be some kind of hero in it, so I'm co-opting his stupid catchphrases for my own. The actual whole quote is: There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a quarter-pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter becomes a cackle... and I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt. Got that? "... ride my own melt." Like that means something.
And maybe there can be some debate about this, but I don't think so. I've heard The White Album. I've heard Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I've heard Abbey Road (and once wrote a novel based on that album in a weird way.) I've listened to Dark Side of the Moon. I never thought much of The Joshua Tree, and in fact thought Rattle & Hum was better (I know, heresy, except that Rattle had a more visceral feel to it and took more chances. It holds up better to repeated listenings.) And that seems to be the list of the albums people would put up here if they ever bothered to nominate something. (You hear that, people? Nominate something! Between Saturday and today, 8 people looked at this but didn't comment or nominate or anything. Don't be shy.)
So I've considered alternatives, and I always come back to this:
,I got this album as a gift from my uncle for my birthday back in what must have been 1987 since it came out in 1986 but my birthday is in January. I kind of liked Paul Simon a little, and I liked the song "You Can Call Me Al" off this album, and my uncle (who was living with us) must have been at a loss for what to get me because this was an unusual choice. But I loved it the minute I heard it, on cassette (this was the 80s) and I loved it every single time I listened to it since then. I've got all the songs memorized. I know them in the order they appear.
This is one of the few albums, there's maybe three, that I've liked every single song on and kept liking them. The weakest song ("Under African Skies") is still better than the best on most other songs. It manages to be unique and new 20 years later, and the African and zydeco beats and influences don't come off as just gimmickry. Plus, it has "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" which is both romantic and sweet and bouncy and should, by rights, have been a great hit but never was for some reason. And it has "Graceland," which should be the first song on any drive mixtape (or mix CD or mix playlist) because it not only has a good beat for driving but it's about driving and it fits any drive anywhere because Graceland is a metaphor. Or not, because once when I was bored and stressed and depressed all at the same time and listening to this album, I decided I would go to Graceland, and did that.
Graceland. By Paul Simon. Go buy it now. It might not synch up to The Wizard of Oz, and it didn't spark any rumors that (this) Paul was dead, but you'll never get tired of listening to it.
If you want to listen to parts of it, and haven't yet heard any of it (and how could that happen?), you can check out snippets here. I have no idea (yet) how to stream an album or even if that's legal, so if Paul Simon reads this and wants to give me permission to do that, let me know. And if anyone who's not Paul Simon knows how to do that, let me know that, too.
* From the movie "Reality Bites." Those of you who read my Myspace blog know (now) that I have a personal bias against Ethan Hawke that stems entirely from this movie and the fact that he was supposed to be some kind of hero in it, so I'm co-opting his stupid catchphrases for my own. The actual whole quote is: There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a quarter-pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter becomes a cackle... and I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt. Got that? "... ride my own melt." Like that means something.
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