Today's song is "Hey Jealousy" by Gin Blossoms. It's stuck in my head today for some reason.  Doug Hopkins, the original lead guitarist for the group, wrote this song, but was fired and replaced with Scott Johnson before it became a big hit.  Hopkins never lived to see Gin Blossoms become the huge success they did because, on December 5, 1993, he placed a .38 revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger.  He was a gifted artist, an alcoholic, and a manic depressive, but never got the help he needed.

DNS issues with my Μοviεβrainia movie review site have been resolved, and it's back online.  Check it out at http://blogs.moviebrainia.com/mr.  Feel to post any comments you have there or send them my way.

Radio Shack fired 400 workers today via email.  Said the note, "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."  This is a $%^$%$# outrage!  It is beneath common decency.  What, they couldn't have sent the emails to these folks' bosses and let them break the news privately?  I suppose that's too much to ask.  Each fired employee was given 30 minutes to collect their thoughts, their belongings, and say goodbye.

 

As bad as that is, what really irks me is the reaction of the financial world to it.  What was the market's reaction?  Shares of Radio Shack rose 29 cents (1.6%) today after the firings.  Wall St. likes reduced costs.  Apparently at any cost.  And we wonder why corporations aren't more moral. 

I'm starting a new movie review blog because I wanted to get familiar with Community Server and because I thought my movie reviews really ought to be on their own site.  They tend to be much longer than other kinds of posts, and it occurs to me that some might like to subscribe to all the other categories on here and leave out the reviews.  Some might even want it the other way around.  Moving them to their own site makes my main Spaces page here much easier to navigate with a Web browser.

 

Anyway, the URL is http://blogs.moviebrainia.com/mr.  Have fun and let me know what you think.  If you'd like to be able to post your own reviews to the site, contact me and we'll see what we can do.

 

CNN reports that John Mark Karr won't be charged with JonBenet Ramsey's murder.  Karr's attorney is justifiably crying foul that Karr was even extradited to the US on such scant evidence.  Like I said, the guy is merely sick.  He didn't have anything to do with the murder of that little girl.

Today's song is "Tangerine," by Harry Connick, Jr.  This is from the album "25," which, in my opinion, is the last of the great Connick albums.  

 

Connick's popularity declined markedly after this album.  Critics charged that he had forgotten to dance with the girl that brought him, or had forgotten to leave on the horse he rode in on (or was it that he'd forgotten to dance with the horse that brought him?  I can't remember :-)

 

After this, Harry went in other directions and began experimenting in ways that really didn't suit his talents or the tastes of his legion of fans.  It's great to experiment (and I tend to respect artists who do), but it's another thing to leave behind what you know and what your fan base expects.  You've got to have balance.  Perhaps it's that Harry evolved to quickly, and a more gradual transition would have been more palatable to his listeners.  I'm not sure.

 

Regardless, this is a good song off of a good album.  Connick again plays his distinctive variety of piano on this one.  He jazzs up the song a bit and adds a bit of a rolling feel to it.  One thing he doesn't do on this one (which I was really thankful for) is slow the song down too much.  If Connick has a vice as an arranger, it's that he sometimes tries too hard to inject earnestness into a song, particularly when searching for a fresh take on a well-worn standard.  He's ruined many a good song by slowing them down to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.  Witness his take on the Bobby Darin classic, "More."  Slower doesn't necessarily mean better, Harry.  It depends on the song.  I know you're after a fresh take on the covers you do, but sometimes you just have to play the song the way it was intended to be played.  Particularly with respect to tempo, you can get creative to the point of butchering a song, and you don't want to do that.

Researching the Tesla Roadster a bit more and doing some reading on Nikola Tesla and his contributions to AC power technology, I came across this:

 

 

Truly sickening, if you ask me.  All in the name of propaganda, I guess.

Just saw that Tesla Motors has already sold out of their first 100 signature Roadsters.  Darn, I was hoping to get one of those.  They say they’re making another batch of 100, so I guess it might be time for me to start working that night job at McDonalds after all.

 

I’ve got a car I might like to convert to electric to sort of build my own poor man’s version of the Roadster, but the parts we home-kitters have access to are orders of magnitude less performant than what the Tesla guys have custom engineered.  What we can do as kit builders is get massive fork-lift DC electric motors, have them modified (rotate the stator ring a few degrees, I think) to take higher voltage and give better power, and figure out where to hide a bank of about 12 sealed lead-acid batteries (in my case, I’d probably have to give up the trunk).  Power management would be primitive, amounting to a massive rheostat or variable resistor at the gas pedal.  The biggest unknown is how to tie the DC motor to the power train.  Many home-kitters have just bolted the motor onto the existing clutch and drive train, and then rarely shift out of 2nd gear.  There’s a lot of energy loss in transmissions, differentials, and CV joints, though, so wheel-mounted motors would be much more attractive.  Basically, the design of your typical toy car would be about the most efficient.  The internal combustion engine has brought with it a Rube Goldberg array of contraptions to get power from the engine to the wheels.  The need for many of those goes away when you go electric.
 
The Tesla guys have us kitters beat hands down because they use high-voltage AC motors rather than DC motors.  These variable AC motors can throw a lot more power to the wheels across a much wider RPM range than DC motors can handle.  However, “wild” AC requires sophisticated power management, inverters, and cooling, which Tesla has solved through a clever combination of computer management of the drive train, air cooling, and sophisticated electronics.  What you end up with is a near perfect car:  no real maintenance (except tires and brakes), no emissions, extreme acceleration, very low noise, a wonderful horsepower-to-weight ratio, and no dependence on gas.  I think I’m about ready to sign up for one.  I’ve just gotta drive it first to make sure it’s worth the 100 Gs.  To be worth it to me, I’d have to keep it for about 20 years, so I’ve got to fall absolutely in love with it in order to make that kind of commitment.  It’s got to be love at first sight, and I’ve got to get to third base on the first date if I’m going to drop that kind of change.  Anyway, the thing’s got me salivatin’, that’s for sure.

Score:  ωωωωω   (Four out of five omegas)

 

Saw Talladega Nights the other day.  It was hilarious, just as I thought it would be.  I laughed my butt off more than once.  It’s no big surprise that Will Farrell is roll-on-the-floor funny, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

I loved the film's many references to southern culture, such as it is.  The bleach-blond bimbo he marries, his idiot best friend (played to a T by John C. Reilly), his white trash dad, etc., etc.  I laughed out loud through much of the movie, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

One negative about the film is that too much is given away in the trailers.  They do that a lot these days.  They don’t seem to care if they ruin the movie or lessen your enjoyment of it, so long as you go see it.  By the time you realize they gave away too much of it in the commercials, they’ve already got your money.  There was so much buzz around this particular movie that it was wholly unnecessary, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

Michael Clark Duncan does a great turn as a pit chief.  He’s got some good lines, and he’s got a funny cut scene that they play over the credits that they should have left in the movie.  He’s got some comedic ability that you can see a bit in this movie (I love the glint in his eyes that you catch every now and then—he appears to be trying to keep from laughing), and I’m looking for great things from him down the road.  He rounds out an already strong ensemble cast, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

Another negative I guess I should mention is the casting of Gary Cole as Ricky’s father.  Nothing against Cole—I’m a big fan—but he’s just too young.  He was born in ’56, Farrell in ’67—you do the math.  They try unsuccessfully to make him look older, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

Trivia that may interest only me:  Cole was narrowly beaten out by Don Johnson for the role of Sonny Crocket in the Miami Vice TV series.  Jimmy Smits would have been Tubbs had Cole been Crocket.  Johnson became such an 80s icon (anyone remember his song “Heartbeat”?), that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else playing the role (sorry, Colin Farrell).  That said, the show would probably have been better for it as Cole is the better actor (I loved him in Office Space), but God I hate NASCAR.

 

One last negative:  why did they feel the need to shoot the Texas Motor Speedway scenes at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in North Carolina?  After $72.5m, were they a little short on cash?  As a Metroplex resident, it bummed me out to discover that I’d been fooled.  Why not just go with the actual name of the track?  Why pretend to be the TMS?  They tell me that the TMS is one of the nicer tracks in the country, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

I still can’t believe people actually find NASCAR entertaining.  For me, it’s the most brain-dead, insipid, pathetic excuse for a sport I’ve ever seen.  I’d rather watch a test pattern than watch a bunch of yokels race their hopped-up cars around in circles all day.  I’d rather watch a pseudo sport like badminton or shuffleboard or, heck, even curling than watch this nonsense.  It’s a bunch of cars zipping around an oval, for cryin’ out loud.  You call that a sport?  I outgrew race tracks when I was about ten.  What do you learn from watching NASCAR?  What educational value is there?  Like watching American Idol and listening to Kenny Chesney, watching NASCAR is one of those activities that actually features an intelligence deficit.  The longer you do it, the lower your IQ goes.  It’s supposedly one of the world’s leading spectator sports now, but God I hate NASCAR.

 

I see my friend Nagin has opened his mouth again.  And he has once again "removed all doubt."  Nagin recently belittled the World Trade Center site as a mere "hole in the ground" when confronted about the slow pace with which New Orleans is being rebuilt.  It's such a stupid comment that it really doesn't even deserve a rebuttal.  Ever been to the site, Nagin?  I have.

 

I still say they should have imposed martial law in New Orleans and set Mr. Nagin aside.  We'd all have been better for it.

 

 

Today's song is "Be in My Heart," by Phil Keaggy.  Phil is one of the top guitarists in the world.  Rumor had it for many years that Jimi Hendrix was once asked who the greatest guitarist in the world was, and he replied that it was Phil.  Snopes has shot this rumor down, but it's still a good story.  The thing I always liked about Phil is that he kept his act clean, so he has spent the last thirty years perfecting his craft rather than recovering from alcohol abuse or doing time in rehab.

Score:  ωωωωω   (Three out of five omegas)

 

Kevin Smith presents a sequel to his award-winning flick from 1994.  I’ll end the channeling of Roger Ebert right there and say upfront that I don’t think a movie like this warrants a lot of highfalutin’ analysis.  That’s part of the fun of it.  It’s a guilty pleasure—it’s cotton candy at the circus or popcorn at the movies.  It is what it is, and there’s no point in subjecting it to pretentious analytical dissection.  You don’t go to a movie like this expecting Out of Africa.

 

That said, the Jersey Quick Stop obviously has some meaning for Smith and his motley crew of friends.  Ditto for Florida.  They’re analogues for what he considers the simple life versus the consumerism so rampant in bourgeois America these days.  He’d rather be working at a Quick Stop in New Jersey doing what he likes than living “the good life” somewhere else.  I’ve read that he considers big budget movies to be beyond him these days because he likes dialogue and likes the low expectations of smaller films.  This movie certainly seems like a snapshot of that type of thinking.  He’s found his muse, he likes what he likes, and he’s not apologizing for it.

 

Dante’s love interest in this one, Becky (played by the beautiful Rosario Dawson), is obviously Smith’s idea of the perfect girl.  Emma, Dante’s fiancé, is obviously not (ironically, she’s played by Smith’s own wife, Jennifer).  A word of advice for Jennifer:  stay out of the tanning bed.  You’re only in your mid-30s, and your skin is starting to look like a parchment from the 14th century.  Keep it up, and you’ll look like the Crypt Keeper by the time you’re 50.

 

I guess I’ll cut to the chase and say I simply liked the movie.  It took me back.  I thought a bit about the life philosophy it obviously embraces.  It makes some sense.  It’s easy to waste your life trying to keep up with the Jones’ and lose sight of what really makes you happy.  Smith has grown up some, and the movie shows that without being self-righteous or preachy or forgetting its bawdy beginnings. 

 

I related to Dante a bit and enjoyed watching him and Randal bounce one-liners off one another.  I enjoyed the slacker repartee—Jason Mewes is a funny dude.  The characters are familiar.  Everyone knows a guy like Dante or Randal.  Everyone knows a stoner like Jay.  Everyone went to high school with some loser that hit the jackpot financially but is still a godforsaken loser and always will be.  The characters, the settings, the emotions—they’re all familiar things we can instantly relate to.

 

I thought the musical interlude was a nice touch.   Good song choice.  I especially liked the 'teach Dante to dance' scene.  Watching Rosario groove to the Jackson 5's "ABC" with her omegas bouncing in rhythm was a sight to behold.

 

While I'm thinking about it, a word of advice for Brian O'Halloran (Dante):  lay off the Just for Men in the beard.  We all eventually go gray, dude.  You're starting to look like James Brolin in "Hotel."  At least change the color to something a little more realistic.  You're Irish, for cryin' out loud.  No one who thinks about it is going to buy that your beard is Elvis Jet Black #5.

 

Something I really respect about the flick is that Smith doesn’t settle for brain-dead replication of the first movie or mawkish devotion to it.  This movie stands on its own two feet and is every bit the film that Clerks was.  As far as I can tell, Smith doesn’t fall into any of the typical sequel traps:  too faithful, not faithful enough, big budget-itis, mediocre crap rehashed/repackaged, self-righteousness, etc.  Clerks II is its own movie and tells its own story.  People who saw the first movie will enjoy it, but so will those who’ve never seen a Kevin Smith film before.

 

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the humor in this one.  True to the Kevin Smith form, it was a funny flick.  It wasn’t roll-on-the-floor funny all the time—I’ve certainly seen funnier movies—but it was hilarious at times, and never embarrassingly stupid.  Maybe making ribald comedies like this is all Smith knows how to do, but he sure seems to know how to do it well.

Today's song is Bobby's Darin's version of "Sunday in New York."  Makes me wanna hop on a plane...

Today’s song is Bette Midler’s rendition of “In My Life.”  It's from the soundtrack of the movie For the Boys.  Although Bette’s version is, in my opinion, the definitive recording of the song and better than the Beatles’ original, it’s actually not the best I’ve heard.  The best rendition of the song I’ve ever come across was, believe it or not, the one sang by a lounge singer I heard in a club in Seoul last year.  The club sat atop my hotel and gave a gorgeous panoramic view of the city.  The place was hopping, and the Filipino lady up on stage was simply amazing.  I sat there with my friend Jong Ku Kim and tried to stump her for hours with one request after another.  She nailed every last one of them.  She had to help her accompanist a couple of times, but she herself was a veritable encyclopedia of song.  She had one of the purest, most ethereal voices I’ve ever heard.

 

I tipped her several times, but she deserved more than anything I could have given her—she deserved a recording contract.

 

Late in the evening, I thought I’d finally come up with one that she wouldn’t know when "In My Life" came to mind.  Naturally, she knew it inside-out and blew me away with her magnificent rendition of it.  She came and sat with us for awhile after her set and talked about her dreams of having a recording career someday.  I can’t remember her name now or the name of the club we were in (J.K., if you’re reading this and remember, you might reply back with the name), but it was an experience I’ll never forget.  Mystery Filipino Singer—whoever you are—I hope fortune has smiled on you and you’re making records for someone now.  You certainly deserve it.
 

People are pretty exuberant that JonBenet’s killer has finally been caught.  Sorry, I’m not so sure.  In fact, I don’t think he had anything to do with JonBenet or her murder.  Seven reasons why:

 

1. The ransom note was written on stationery from the Ramsey’s own house most likely using a Sharpie from their kitchen.  It was three pages long and had no bloodstains or fingerprints on it.  Whoever wrote it practiced on the same pad before writing the actual note.  They spent a significant amount of time in the Ramsey house before or after JonBenet’s murder and didn’t bring the note with them—they wrote it there.  How likely is that?  You intend to kidnap the child and hold her for ransom, but you don’t bring the ransom note with you?  Or, you’ve already murdered her, but you write a three-page ransom note anyway in the middle of the night in her own house?  The only person whose handwriting experts could not absolutely rule out as a possible match was Patsy Ramsey.

 

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the killer to have been someone who planned to dispose of the body and wrote the note to try to try to throw people off?  Someone who had no fear of being caught in the house in the middle of the night while penning a long, rambling note because they already lived there?

 

2. The ransom note demanded nearly the exact amount of John Ramsey’s recent bonus, $118,000.  It’s such an odd amount and such a low amount for a ransom demand that it strains credulity to believe that an outsider coincidentally happened upon this figure.  The evidence would suggest that whoever wrote the note knew what John’s bonus had been, and I’m pretty sure that group of people doesn’t include John Mark Karr.

 

3. JonBenet was killed by blunt force trauma to the back of her head.  She might not have died instantly from it, but the fracture to the back of her skull certainly killed her.  Evidently, the garrote was applied after she was already dead.  The same is true for the duct tape on her mouth and the rope on her wrists—they were likely applied post mortem.  Why do this post mortem?  One reason might be to hide the true nature of her murder, to make it appear to have been a sexual assault.

 

4. The garrote applied to her neck was made using a broken paintbrush handle that belonged to Patsy Ramsey.  If the murderer was an outsider, he didn’t bring this crucial weapon with him when he broke into the house.  I guess we are supposed to believe that he passed through the kitchen, where lots of handy garrote handles were available (JonBenet was found in the basement, which is accessed via a door off of the kitchen) and scoured the house while the Ramseys slept in order to find a broken paintbrush handle that happened to belong to the girl’s mother.  Sorry, that again strains credulity.

 

5. She may have known whoever killed her as she evidently had a meal shortly before being murdered.  Undigested pineapple from the meal was found in her stomach during her autopsy.  It’s difficult to imagine a complete stranger forcing her to eat in her own house in the middle of the night and risk being caught.

 

6.  Karr claims he drugged and had sex with her before accidentally killing her.  There were no drugs found in her system during her autopsy, and the evidence of a sexual assault is sketchy at best.

 

7. Karr’s ex-wife says he was in Alabama with her when the murder occurred.  I believe her.  I don’t think he had anything to do with this killing.

 

I may come out of this with egg on my face, but what I think we have here is a sick person confessing to a crime he did not commit.  They claim he has knowledge of details not released to the public.  Let’s hear them.  I’m quite skeptical.  How the heck could they know that anyway given how much has been leaked—repeatedly—to the media and given that it's already known that he has been studying the case for some time?  You can even view her autopsy photos online, for cryin’ out loud.  This case was mishandled from the beginning, and we may never know for sure who murdered JonBenet.  One thing that I think is certain, though, is that John Mark Karr did not.

 

Today's song is Straight from the Heart by Bryan Adams.  I really like the words to this one:

 

I could start dreamin but it never ends
As long as youre gone we may as well pretend
Ive been dreamin
Straight from the heart

 

You say its easy but whos to say
That wed be able to keep it this way
But its easier
Straight from the heart

 

Give it to me straight from the heart
Tell me we can make another start
You know Ill never go
As long as I know
Its comin straight from the heart

 

Ill see you on the street some other time
And all our words would just fall out of line
I was dreamin
Straight from the heart

 

Give it to me straight from the heart
Tell me we can make another start
You know Ill never go
As long as I know
Its coming straight from the heart

 

Give it to me straight from the heart
Tell me we can make one more start
You know Ill never go
As long as I know
Its coming straight from the heart

Today’s song from hell is another KISS number (surprise, surprise) "God Gave Rock and Roll to You."  This was originally a Petra tune, and was a perfectly good song before KISS got a hold of it. The problem with this version is that, for starters, KISS can’t sing or play.  I believe it’s Paul Stanley on vocals, and, quite frankly, he sucks.  He sounds like someone choking a cat.  He certainly can't hold a candle to Greg X. Volz, the vocalist on the original version of the song.  Second, they ruined the lyrics.  They just couldn’t leave well enough alone—I guess the religious overtones were just too much for them (Petra was a Christian rock band).  Take these verses from the original song, for example:

 

 

 

These are now:

 

 

And…

 

 

Sickening, isn’t it?  Faith in a loud guitar?  So profound!  And to think some accuse KISS of being more flash than substance.

 

I never thought I’d live to see the day when the likes of KISS would be preaching a work ethic. KISS?  Please! 

 

And you know it's a sure sign of the apocalypse when a band like KISS covers a Christian rock song!  A Christian rock song!!  Criminy! What's the world coming to?!

 

I’ll leave you with this last bit of lyrical wisdom from the puckered, painted lips of starchild Paul:

 

 

Today's song is "Home" by Michael Bublé.  I first heard this one on the soundtrack for The Wedding Date, a charming little movie starring Debra Messing and her gorgeous red hair.  I later bought the album and have just about worn it out.  I was already a Bublé fan before I'd heard the song, and when I discovered that he'd also written it, I had to have the CD.  In many ways, Bublé is doing what I wish Harry Connick, Jr. would do--playing to his strengths and reinvigorating the light jazz/swing genre in the process.  Whether it's by covering standards from the American Songbook or via completely new material, Michael seems to be well on his way.

 

First, I'm glad Oklahoma found out and did something about it before the NCAA did.  Stoops is a stand-up guy.  No matter what happens, this is the right thing for this year's team and for the program in general.

 

Second, if it was going to happen, I'm glad it happened now rather than in the middle of the season.  Switching QBs midseason was very disruptive for the team last year.  Switching now isn't as good as switching in the spring, but it's better than having to break in a new QB between games during the season.

 

Third, the Sooners should learn from their mistakes last season and adapt their offense to the personnel they have.  Paul Thompson is not the passer that Jason White was.  It's foolish to expect him to be.  Instead, I would take a page from Texas' playbook and orient the offense around a QB who's really a running back that can throw a little.  In last year's Rose Bowl victory, half of Texas' offensive calls were the same play:  simple pass routes run by two or three receivers, and, if they weren't ridiculously open, QB keeper.  Texas didn't expect Vince Young to read the defense or fit the ball into tight places because they knew he couldn't do it.  Instead, they called the same play repeatedly because it kept working (that USC never picked up on this still astounds me).  They kept it simple and played to Young's strengths.  I'd suggest OU do something similar.  Particularly, I'd like to see them work in the option and maybe even the wishbone.  With talent like Adrian Peterson in the backfield of a well-run option offense, no defense could stop them.

 

Now, the $64,000 question is whether the Sooners can still make a title run without Bomar.  I think so.  But, to tell you the truth, I don't really care.  Sure, I'd like to see them win another national championship, but I'd rather have a clean program.  I'm proud of Stoops for his stand, and I'm proud of the players for sticking with him.  People like Bomar don't deserve to play on a championship caliber team like Oklahoma.  OU is better off without him.  No matter what the win-loss record ends up being, they've already won in the only category that really counts:  character.