art is the new religion

here's some dogs

The latest edition of Tiny Showcase comes out today, so I clicked over to the site to see if I could catch it right when it went up.  Instead of the new edition, I caught last week's edition which I had somehow missed!  It's by San Francisco's own Jay Howell, it was printed by Providence letterpress artist Dan Wood and it's awesome.  Too bad the limited run is already sold out. 

It's called "Here's Some Dogs":

I'm sad I was unable to purchase one of these.  I need some cheering up:

I'll conclude this post with two inspirational quotes from the artist Jay Howell:

"Take a stand against the jerks from hell. They are out there and they want you to feel bad just because they do. You will not be taken down, YOU are from Tuff Town and they are from the lame village across the river. We launch rocks at them for a reason."

"All I'm saying is that it's so important to be yourself. That's all you have to offer so just be honest. It's really scary to put yourself out there knowing that everybody is going to come down on you because they think they know where you're coming from and what you've been through. That's never, ever true. Personality is art."

Where's your sense of nonsense, Jinksy?

Earlier today I was chatting over IM with my friend Anil, and in reply to a story he told, I wrote "I hate meeces to pieceeeees."  His response was to ask, sincerely, why I hate mice because he knows me as an animal lover.

me: "i was quoting Mr. Jinks"
Anil: "i don't know who that is"

Anyone who knows Anil "seen it." Dash knows it's really hard to stump him, especially when it comes to pop culture references. 

The quote is from Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the late 50's/early 60's.  Mr. Jinks is a cartoon cat whose incredibly entertaining voice sounds as if he's just polished off his fourth martini.  His nemeses are Pixie (blue bow tie) and Dixie (red vest and Southern drawl).

YouTube has a bunch of episodes of the cartoon, but of course I couldn't easily find one with the famous "I hate meeces to pieces" catchphrase.  But here's a great episode that'll give you the gist of their personalities:

Things I love in this episode:

• Old school cartoon sound effects are the greatest.
• "Ahem"
• "Must be somethin' you et."
• Those mice have swank furniture, and they read in their downtime.  Classy.
• "Where's your sense of nonsense, Jinksy?"

Menomena @ the Independent tonight

As much as I love Menomena, it's a shame I'm not going to make it out to their show at the Independent here in San Francisco tonight.

Let's watch their video for "Evil Bee" off of Friend and Foe:

While we're at it, let's watch the Muppets' "Menomena" song, because it really never gets old:

Doo-doo, doo doo doo.

Meet Marlo Meekins

Reading my friend Anil's blog earlier this week, I clicked through to a site that featured him in some list of cool people on the internets (he's ambivalent about such things).  While on the random website (which, in protest, I shall not link to) my eye was caught by an entirely sexist list of "bloggers we'd like to see in bikinis" (written by a man, featuring all female bloggers).  I won't waste any time detailing why exactly a list like that gets my hackles up, because hopefully the reasons are obvious to any regular readers of my blog.  To offset the stupidity and offensiveness of the list, I clicked through it with the intention of reading the bloggers' content (and not judging their comeliness.)  That investigation actually tipped me off to a fascinating, fantastic artist: Marlo Meekins.

Apparently she draws (or drew) for Spumco (of "Ren & Stimpy" fame - one of my favorite cartoons of all time), which makes sense when you see her work: there is a lot of humor, exaggeration, imagination and naughtiness (some NSFW).

And yes, Marlo is beautiful (and has gorgeous hair).  You can tell from her pictures.

Wainy Days & Horrible People

David Wain's online comedy series "Wainy Days" is now in its third season over at My Damn Channel, proving once again that time moves faster on The Interweb.  The start of the third season maintains the level of absurdity I've come to expect from the show, and the looking-for-love premise remains intact, but I wasn't really bowled over by either episode.  Don't get me wrong though, I still love the show so I'm going to keep watching.

While I was catching up on "Wainy Days", a promo for another My Damn Channel series caught my eye.  "Horrible People" is a soap opera send-up created by and starring A.D. Miles ("Wainy Days", "Reno 911!", Wet Hot American Summer) as well as Kristen Schaal who you may know as Mel from "Flight of the Conchords".  Mather Zickel anchors the show as the character Carter who is ridiculous and sinister in equal parts.  I actually think "Mather Zickel" (his real name, I presume) is one of the most soap opera-sounding names I've heard in a long time.  It's strangely satisfying to say "Mather Zickel" out loud. 

Mather Zickel.

Watch the first episode of "Horrible People":

If you like "Horrible People", you can watch the entire first season on My Damn Channel.

• Related:  Read my original post on "Wainy Days"

We Are Scientists: Git Along, Lil Doggie

My love for We Are Scientists is pretty well-documented, but they've managed to make me love them a little bit more.  I just saw the new video for "Chick Lit" off of Brain Thrust Mastery (thanks to CupCate's post).  Combine the humor we're accustomed to from W.A.S. with lots of fluffy pomeranians, and I'm hooked:



Can't wait to see We Are Scientists at The Independent on Sunday.

• Buy We Are Scientists' Brain Thrust Mastery from Insound.

My Boys

I'm taking a break from art and music for a moment to tell you about a sitcom I really like.  It's not going to change your life or go down in history as giving you one of the best half hours you've ever spent, but it's unpredictable, fairly well-written and has some genuinely interesting characters.  The show I'm talking about is "My Boys" and Season 2 premieres Thursday night on TBS.

I first heard about the show last year when I used to watch "Sex and the City" reruns on TBS.  The network was running a ton of ads for the premiere of "My Boys", and I started to get annoyed at this new show about a tight group of friends (five males and one female who works as a sports writer) who do a lot of drinking and talking about dating.  I kept imagining a group of TV execs sitting around a table saying "let's market this as a 'Sex and the City' that men will actually watch!"

I was annoyed to the point of obsessive curiosity, so I tuned in on premiere night with the masochistic expectation of writhing and eye-rolling my way through the first episode of a series that would no doubt get canceled quickly due to being derivative and uninteresting.

Of course, I ended up really enjoying it and faithfully tuning in to every episode of the first season.

The plot centers around PJ, the cute, female, blond sports reporter with a group of five close male friends and one close female friend.  The dudes are like her brothers, especially since one of them is her brother, except for the one or two with whom she has sexual tension (of course).  They drink a lot and have a weekly poker night and talk about all their dating exploits.  What makes them interesting is that they never spend too much time fitting the stereotypes you'd expect them to, they have a genuine rapport together, and they all do a great job of portraying the humor and familiarity that's written in their scripts.  The actress who plays PJ does an especially good job of being beautiful, nice, funny and likeable.  She's a girl's girl who is also believable as 'just one of the guys'.

This series also has one of the most hilarious peripheral characters I've seen in a long time.  Johnny Galecki, perhaps best known as Darlene's boyfriend from "Roseanne", plays Trouty, a deliciously obnoxious and clueless hanger-on who lights up the small screen during each of his rare appearances.  He plays his part perfectly, keeping you wondering how they could possibly keep him around, yet being just endearing enough to charm you.  Here's a bit of Trouty in action:

Check out some other clips from the show:

go to My Boys page more TBS widgets

Tune in tomorrow night for the season premiere!

Guitar Hero Roadies

Bands make it rock, but roadies make it roll

One of the purchases I made from Antone's Record Store was the double album soundtrack to the movie Roadie.

I love looking at the soundtrack section in a record store because it's inevitably amusing and bewildering.  Most movie soundtracks that were released on vinyl were for movies I've never seen, but that's not because they weren't star-studded and/or bizarrely awesome.  It's fascinating to get a glimpse of what films have stood the test of time (Grease, Saturday Night Fever) and what films faded into obscurity.  I'm going to file Roadie under: faded into obscurity* (please correct me if I'm wrong and this film is well-known).  This is the first time I've heard of this 1980 film starring Meatloaf and featuring cameos from Blondie, Alice Cooper, Hank Williams, Jr. and Roy Orbison.

Here's the trailer:

Of course, I didn't need to know anything about the movie to want to own the soundtrack.  It's a staggering roster of cool artists with a few complete unknowns thrown in to keep us guessing.  Check out the track list:

Side 1

• Cheap Trick "Everything Works If You Let It"
• Pat Benatar "You Better Run"
• Joe Ely Band "Brainlock"
• Alice Cooper "Road Rats"

Side 2

• Teddy Pendergrass "Can't We Try" (I've always felt a strange kinship to Teddy Pendergrass, as his name is similar to mine in sounds & syllables)
• Eddie Rabbitt "Drivin' My Life Away" (this song's second mention on AITNR)
• Stephen Bishop and Yvonne Elliman "Your Precious Love"
• Jay Ferguson "A Man Needs A Woman"

Side 3

• Styx "Crystal Ball"
• Sue Saad and the Next "Double Yellow Line"
• Blondie "Ring of Fire" (I've never heard this cover!)
• Alice Cooper "Pain"

Side 4

• Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" (so much for my Emmylou moratorium)
• Jerry Lee Lewis "(Hot Damn) I'm A One Woman Man"
• Hank Williams, Jr. "The American Way"
• Asleep At The Wheel "Texas, Me and You"

The Texas connection is a special bonus for me.  The synopsis:   

A young Texas good ol' boy has a knack with electronic equipment, and that talent gets him a job as a roadie with a raucous traveling rock-and-roll show.

Songs from Joe Ely and Asleep At The Wheel are also a tipoff that it's Texas-centric, but the Shiner on the front cover is the biggest giveaway.

The art inside is pretty great too.

All in all, I consider this a pretty good score.

• Buy Roadie(released on DVD in 2003) from Amazon.

                        *Not to be confused with Roadhouse, which is still going strong.

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