February 28, 2004
A monkeyhouse on their backs
Picked up a the Dandy Warhols most recent CD, "Welcome to the Monkeyhouse." I've listened to it a few times and it's just not grabbing me the way "13 Tales from Urban Bohemia" did. The songs are sleepy, whispered, almost somnabulant. There's nothing with the power of the Godless/Mohammed/Nietzsche opening of 13 Tales or the humor of "Bohemian Like You." "Monkeyhouse" isn't a total loss and it has its moments, but overall, it was a letdown.
I think the Dandy's have been too long on the island of the lotus eaters. Get to a methadone clinic. Clean up. Try again.
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:28 AM
Curse of the bloodsucking ticks
I took the dogs to the lake this morning for the first time in several weeks. It felt great. I don't realize how much I miss those early jaunts until I've skipped a few weeks.
We couldn't go last week because Xena had Lyme's disease. After I returned from a trip to San Antonio, she was crying and whining every time she got to her feet. One vet visit, a blood test and $250 later, we found out she had Lyme's. This is the second time a tick-borne disease has hit one of my dogs. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever almost killed poor Bubba 8 or so years ago.
Thanks to antibiotics, Xena has recovered, as terrified rabbits at Melton Hill Lake can attest ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:17 AM | Comments (2)
February 26, 2004
Building an empire ...
I recently picked up a copy of Civilization III, a computer game that allows you to build an empire. It didn't take long for me to get addicted. My fledging Roman empire already has wiped out the hated Egyptian and I'm now battling Greece. Those bastards. They sacked and pillaged one of my southern cities, took my catapults and used them against me and have cavalry units that are causing me no end of pain. I become so obsessed that I'll sit down and start playing and realize several hours have passed.
It's really a mix of chess, Risk and Dungeons and Dragons without all the tedious dice throwing. Some of the subtleties they've built into the game really are impressive. Attacking armies gain advantage based on the terrain they hold, and units gain power with each victory they score. It also allows for building monuments and other features that add a neat dimension.
I learned quickly that it's important to build features that help ensure domestic order or your cities will dissolve into revolt and disorder. After a few failed attempts, I built my next city near vineyards and immediately built roads to them, giving my Roman citizens an ample supply of wine. That's keeping those suckers happy while I wage war against Greeze.
Apparently, you can take a civilization all the way up to the modern day. I've never been much into computer games. Until now.
Today, Greece. Tomorrow, the world.
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2004
Death of a monkey ...
Breaks my heart to see Web Monkey die. That was a site I relied on heavily back in the day. It taught me to swing from the Internet's trees on tenuous threads of HTML. It was an inspiriation. I quit following it when I started writing less code and Web Monkey evolved into something more complex than an HTML geek's heaven.
Rest in peace, noble monkey.
Posted by Bob Benz at 1:57 PM | Comments (1)
February 16, 2004
Tesoros Modernos ...
We went to the San Antonio Museum of Art yesterday to see Tesoros Modernos (Modern Treasures), a collection of Latin American masterpieces from the Monterrey collection. It was impressive and included a lot of artists I wasn't familiar with and a few I was. I think my favorite was Alejandro Colunga's "La Muerta de un Loco." Very dark, even disturbing. They also had a piece by Diego Rivera, something from his Cubist period, and a work by Orozco, whom I've always liked.
We took our friend Anita's six-year-old with us, and as we drifted through the gallery, Emma's pink, glitter-splattered shoes clicked across the marble floors in staccato bursts.
"That's pretty," the tap-dancing art critic decreed.
More clicking. "That looks like nothing," she said, standing in front of Cesar Paternosto's "Inti," which is basically an orange canvas with orange rectangles on it.
Then more clicking, and a slip.
"These floors feel like butter."
Emma's antics definitely made the exhibit more fun.
Overall, I really was impressed by the museum. It's one of the best I've been to, probably because it caters to Latin American art. After we looked at Tesoros Modernos, we went through the Nelson Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art. It's an awesome collection that includes pre-Columbian, revolution era and modern works. Several nice pieces by Rivera and Orozco, including Orozco's "Martirio de San Esteban I." It features Saul watching as St. Stephen is stoned to death, suggesting a link to what the church was doing during World War II while Jews were dying in concentration camps. Very moving.
The folk art section also was great. They had molas from the Kuna Indians and lots of Day of the Dead stuff.
I came across one piece that I really liked, though I'm not sure how to categorize it other than to call it contemporary. It had a Pop Art feel to it. It was Enrique Changoya's "Les Adventuras Des Cannibales Des Moderinistas." I made a mental note to look up Changoya and see some of his other work.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2004
Janet Jackson and H.R. Pufnstuf
Two great pieces in the New York Times Arts & Leisure section this morning. Registration required, but worth it.
In My Hero, Janet Jackson, Frank Rich comes out with a fantastic defense of Jackson and an indictment of the hypocrisy surrounding the furor over that Super Bowl breast thing. I was tired of that story about five minutes after it broke, but a defense of Jackson was something I couldn't pass up. And it was worthwhile. Rich writes: "You can argue that Ms. Jackson is the only honest figure in this Super Bowl of hypocrisy."
In The Evil Geniuses of Kiddie Schlock, Emily Nussbaum looks at all those incredibly strange, oddly psychedelic Saturday morning kids shows from the '70s, including Pufnstuf. "The weren't making shows that parents could watch with their kids. They were making shows that kids could watch alone, while severely addled by Cap'n Crunch." Yup. Been there. Done that.
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
Remember the Alamo ...
I'm in San Antonio this weekend after a quick business trip to Denver at the end of the week. We almost ended up stranded in Dallas thanks to a snowstorm yesterday, but the snows abated, we were moved to a new flight and we arrived here 4 hours later than planned.
That left enough time to go over to the Alamo. I've been to San Antonio several times and love the city, but I'd never seen the Alamo. It was pretty cool, but I really wasn't awed by it. And I can't put my finger on why. The grounds are really nice, and walking amid the cactus and live oak and pecan was really the highlight of the visit. There's just something too, well, propagandistic about the whole thing. But I guess that's half the fun of preserving shrines like this. I felt the same way in Puebla when I visited the fort where the Mexican army held off French invaders in what is now celebrated on Cinco de Mayo. The flags, monuments, cannons and jingoism are a little spooky to me. I started thinking about the death threats one historian was receiving when he posited that Davey Crockett really was executed after pleading for his life rather than dying valiantly in battle. People really get freaked out about this stuff, especially when you start questioning the legends they worship.
Overall, it definitely was worth a visit, especially if you can flash back to the battle and wonder what was running through the minds of the fighters on both sides. I read Stephen Harrigan's The Gates of the Alamo a few years ago and thought it did a great job of presenting all sides of the conflict in highly readable historical fiction. That's worth checking out.
Now it's time to toss Dr. Atkins under the bus and gorge on Mexican food ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:17 AM | Comments (5)
February 11, 2004
Turn it up!
This is a news item from my hometown paper, the Mobile (Ala.) Register, about a Mardi Gras parade scheduled for next Sunday. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up:
"The Mystic Order of Dead Rock Stars will present`A Salute to Ronnie Van Zant' when they take to the streets at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in Downtown Mobile as part of the Joe Cain parade.
The society will present its salute to the rock-and-roll icon in a procession that features a massive float with a black background festooned with a skull, skeletons, tombstones and portraits of Mr. Van Zant. J.D. Crowe will serve as grand marshal. A selection of the greatest hits of Lynyrd Skynyrd will be played at an extreme decibel level..."
Woo-hoo. The best part is I'm Alabama-bound next weekend for Mardi Gras, so I can go to the Skynyrd parade. I think I'll wear my Neil Young concert T-shirt.
Posted by Lauren Bonds at 9:18 PM | Comments (10)
Good dog ...
Great to see a Newfie beat all those annoying yappy dogs at Westminster. Xena was up all night partying to celebrate.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:52 AM | Comments (4)
February 8, 2004
Marketing army ...
Glenbot has a link to a Forbes piece on how Procter & Gamble is using word-of-mouth marketing among teens to push its products -- and other companies' products, too. It's pretty cool stuff, though I think the P&G folks might be a little full of themselves here ...
"The mass-marketing model is dead," says James Stengel, P&G's global marketing officer. "This is the future."
Well, we'll see.
But it really is prevalent, and there seems to be some potential here. When I went to the site for the remake of the Dawn of the Dead, it offered a chance to join the Zombie Army. How could I refuse? Then, less than a week later, this arrived in my inbox.
Seems they'll give me "points" for telling friends about the movie and generally doing things to promote it. I can redeem the points for cool zombie shirts and zombie posters and zombie screen savers.
Kinda ironic. Turning today's youth into an army of marketing zombies, eh?
Posted by Bob Benz at 4:21 PM | Comments (3)
Driving all night ...
I spent 15 hours in my truck during a recent two-day trip to and from Ohio University, which gave me a chance to test my iPod's FM tuner gizmo. It worked very well, better than I expected. There are a few spots where I was catching a bit of fuzz, but overall, it was clear and made the drive much more bearable.
It plugs into your cigarette lighter and allows you to listen to your iPod on one of four FM frequencies. It also keeps the iPod charged.
Driving home Friday night reminded me of several of the long-haul late-night trips I made in my younger days. Driving back to Edinboro from a 1981 Dead show at the Capitol Center in D.C. only to run out of gas at daybreak a mile from our exit. Driving from Birmingham to Destin in the middle of a muggy summer night in 1986 and freaking out at the stars and insect accordion hum during a piss stop somewhere south of Montgomery.
And this time, driving through rainy central Ohio swarming with swollen creeks, hoping the temperature wouldn't drop below freezing and having my entire CD collection at my fingertips. Loading all my CDs into the iPod has given me a chance to revisit stuff I haven't listened to in a long time. Returning home, I listened to Mazzy Star, the Breeders, Natalie Merchant and Phish. The more I use this thing, the more I love it. I'm now into the "S" CDs in my collection (Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys ...) and think I'll have the whole thing loaded on the iPod within another week or so.
Here's a link for iPod freaks with too much time on their hands ...
Now Playing: From Gagarin's Point Of View from the album Somewhere Else Before by Esbjorn Svensson Trio
Posted by Bob Benz at 3:53 PM | Comments (7)
February 2, 2004
Just ducky ...
A hunter friend recently graced us with a few ducks, which I promptly marinated in cayenne, black pepper, red wine (a cab), tamari and lemon juice. I then offered this sacrifice up to the BIg Green Egg with a liberal helping of mesquite. A few hours later, the smoker surrendered two of the best ducks I've ever eaten. These guys were much better than the farm-raised ducks I occasionally buy at the local store, and they came with the added bonus of an occasional shotgun pellet.
Now Playing: WUMB - Folk Radio
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:48 PM | Comments (0)
February 1, 2004
When there's no room left in hell ...
Looks like a remake of the George Romero masterpiece Dawn of the Dead is in the works. My Tivo downloaded a preview that I watched immediately. Then I went to the website for more details. Not a lot there. But it looks promising. It's supposed to be released in March.
I do have some concerns, as every card-carrying zombie fan will after the remake of Night of the Living Dead. That remake just didn't stand up, but the original was a tough act to follow. I did like the way Barbara's character was recast from catatonic terrorized victim to an ass-kicking woman of the '90s.
I'm particularly interested in how the new Dawn will handle the whole consumerism/mall satire that the original did so well. Also, the original was filmed in a mall a few miles from where I grew up, which added considerably to my experience of the film. It was pretty cool seeing zombies feast on bikers in front of stores that I'd actually shopped in.
A few worthwhile zombie links:
Now Playing: Alcohol & Pills from the album The Fallen by Audrey Auld
Posted by Bob Benz at 2:12 PM | Comments (1)