July 28, 2008
Cool twangy Brit humor Led Apple goodness
A few cool tidbits that I've stumbled across during the past few weeks. Not claiming any of this is new, but it was new to me ...
Shameless -- This might be the coolest thing I've ever seen on TV. Part soap, part British comedy, totally hilarious and always off-the-wall. At times, even I'm appalled and offended. That ain't easy to pull off. Kudos to Sundance for having the balls to air it in the U.S.
Mad Men -- I stumbled across this in the iTunes store when I was looking for something to download to my iPod to ease a mind-numbing flight to Montana. It worked. The second season just started on AMC, but I'm only about half-way through the first season, thanks to my iPod and Apple TV. It hooked me with the Pete Campbell character. It would have been so easy to make him the stereotypical oily villain, but the writers gave his character complexity and actually manage to make you feel sorry for him at times. It's also amazing how different today's world is from the 1960 Madison Avenue setting of the show. The characters are constantly drinking and smoking in a creepy patriarchy that makes you wonder how anyone ever came to idealize the '50s and early '60s. Great stuff.
Hayes Carll -- I've been hearing his stuff on WDVX and never seemed to be able to catch his name. During a drive from Crested Butte to Denver, "She Left Me for Jesus" came on XM's X Country station and I caught his name and realized he's the one who also sings "Good Friends" and "Chickens" of WDVX fame. I've been downloading his stuff ever since. Twangy-ass country goodness.
iLife '08 -- I resisted buying this upgrade for a while but finally broke down when I wanted to synch photo libraries between my laptop and desktop. I didn't realize how much cooler iMovie is in the upgrade. They've finally taken the same approach with iMovie that iPhoto has been taking almost from the start. It allows you to create a library of all your video. That alone was worth the price of the upgrade.
Led freakin' Zeppelin -- I loved these guys when I was a kid, but I grew tired of them and drifted away. My rediscovery came from the strangest of places -- John Baker. I never thought Zeppelin would be his thing, but he's a total convert, preaching the gospel of Plant and Page while sipping a Cold Smoke microbrew. I was dubious at first, but then I burned a few of their CDs, including a copy of "Jimmy Page & Black Crowes Live at the Greek" and "How the West Was Won." (To show how far I'd drifted from Zep, my iTunes library had only Led Zeppelin III in it.) I'd forgotten how good this band could be when they were hitting on all cylinders. Total rock. I even had to dust off my air guitar ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2008
Blathering Benz ...
For what it's worth, here's a link to an interview I did at the NAA show in Orlando. While I do try to explain Maroon Ventures on some level, even I had a tough time listening to it all the way through ... And there are links to Jay Small, Bob Kellagher and Howard Owens' interviews, too. Those are definitely worthwhile.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:57 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
Monty Python, the Wall Street Journal and the meaning of life ...
In his "The Game" column the other day, the Wall Street Journal's Dennis K. Berman did a column on BHP Billington's $132b offer for Rio Tinto, which would bring together two of the world's largest mining companies. His column included this quote:
"In the 19th century, countries were prone to dispatch navies to secure a flow of goods. Today, they send investment bankers."
I smiled at the idea, which clearly is true, and immediately my mind went to the sketch that opens Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," which I still rank as their greatest work:
Amazing, how the Pythons pull it all together here ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:21 PM | Comments (4)
June 13, 2007
How to save newspapers ...
I had the pleasure of having lunch yesterday with the Instapundit, who mentioned a recent post he made describing his scheme to save newspapers. Amusing. And a little frightening.
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:42 AM | Comments (1)
December 12, 2005
Cool comic ...
Newspaper comics pages have been a major letdown during the past few years. The return of "Opus" turned out to be a total bust (does anyone think the new strip is funny or relevant?), "Get Fuzzy" has totally jumped the shark and "Foxtrot" comes and goes. On the political front, "Boondocks" is consistently strange and outrageous (which is good), "Doonesbury" is tolerable, at best, and "Mallard Fillmor" just isn't funny (how can you be lame when you're lampooning liberals?)
But there is one bright spot ...
The News Sentinel has started running Don Asmussen's "Bad Reporter" on Sundays, and it's pretty consistently hilarious. It's probably more political cartoon than comic, but it definitely does the job.
So I Googled Asmussen to find out what else he's up to and found this site. There is some hilarious stuff on there. I've watched only a few of them ("Fiona Apple" and "David Crosby's Late Night Infomercial," in the "Like, News" section, but I ended up laughing out loud. I'll be checking out the rest of them soon.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:32 PM | Comments (3)
April 24, 2005
On apples and islands
Lots of good stuff on the music/book/Internet front in recent weeks.
Last night, NPR did a piece on a jazz band called Happy Apple. I liked the samples they played in the piece, not to mention the band's general attitude. So I jumped over to iTunes and download "Youth Oriented." Loved it. So much that I went back to iTunes and grabbed both of the other CDs that were on there: "The Peace Between Our Companies" and "Afternoon in Marrakech." The latter is a 34-minute meditation that's really a departure from the other two works.
I think my favorite tune so far is "Paulie's Quick Temper" from the "Peace" CD. Can't help but wonder if it's inspired by Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos. There's one part where it sounds like a CD stuttering, that maddening sound you get when the disc is scratched. Then it hops into an incredible jam. Really nice stuff. I'll be spending a lot of time exploring these discs ...
On the novel front, I'm well into Andrea Levy's "Small Island," which is a marvelous book. She's Jamaican, and the novel focuses on Hortense and Gilbert, who move from Jamaica to England after the Second World War. The contrast between the two islands is stark, and Levy does a wonderful job of breathing live into the characters, both Jamaican and English. I really like the scene where Hortense is having her first encounter with the English winter and its bleak, truncated days. I can only imagine how she must miss that year-round 12 hours of daylight in Jamaica. I know I do ...
And online, I've been reading a lot of travel sites, especially Travel Blog. There's a lot of drivel there, but if you sift through it (I use my RSS aggregator for this) there's at least one gem a day. Neat stuff about real people doing real stuff on the road. For something a little more off the wall and irreverent, I'm also checking Gridskipper daily.
And last but not least, two momentous TV events loom. Fetch, Tivo. Fetch:
1. Penn and Teller's "Bullshit!" begins its new season on Showtime Monday night.
2. The Family Guy returns on May 1. I can only hope and pray this resurrected version is as cool, irreverent and offensive as the first three seasons ...
Now Playing: Lincoln At Nevada from the album "Leftover Salmon" by Leftover Salmon
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:44 PM | Comments (4)
September 25, 2004
Kill Your Idols
I read Kill Your Idols a while ago, but it's worth a mention. It's a series of essays by Generation X and Y rock critics. The premise is pretty simple. Take aim at classic rock icons and open fire.
It's a lot like shooting trout in a barrel. The essays range from fun to obvious to annoying. The best one (and I'm prejudice here) is by my friend Leanne. She takes on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Pronounced" album. But she turns it more into a commentary on Southern culture, which is incredibly on the mark. To quote:
"I'm here to tell you that the definitive Southern rock band is handing you an F-350 truckload of bombastic, sentimental bullshit. Its vision of the South as a land of rebels resisting all things modern, intellectual and Northern is as outdated as hoop skirts, and was even when the band made its debut in 1973."
Other essays tackle everything from the Dead Kennedys to the Byrds. It's fun in the way top 100 lists are fun. I didn't even realize some of these albums were part of the canon. There were several I'd never heard. And when you look at the critics' favorite albums in the back of the book, it's amusing to note some of them list music that's targeted in "Kill Your Idols."
Definitely worth picking up for anyone who grew up with classic rock as their soundtrack ...
Now Playing: Long Black Veil from the album The Pizza Tapes by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman & Tony Rice
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:29 PM | Comments (6)
August 1, 2004
End of an era ...
I had a meeting with the Associated Press in New York on Friday, and it turned out to be the last meeting held in their space at 50 Rockefeller Center. Kinda cool to be there at the close of a 66-year run. When we arrived and told the guard we were there for a meeting with AP, he looked at us like were were nuts.
"They moved. Are you certain it's here?"
"I'm positive," I told him. He called the person we were meeting with and we were ushered up, but not before they went through my suitcase at security.
50 Rock is a very cool, art deco building. It's also right there in the thick of things near Times Square. It would be sort of a drag to move somewhere else.
The AP office had the look of a space in transition. Barren walls. Piles of boxes. Electrical cords that connect nothing. Hard to believe this was the brain center for coverage of major events during the past six decades.
The meeting came and went and an era ended.
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
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 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)
January 30, 2004
Forget the South
I've been watching the Democratic primaries with considerable amusement. What a confederacy of dunces. It was particularly fun watching Dean get tangled in a Confederate flag several weeks ago. An article in Slate says what I've been thinking for a long time: Why are the Democrats so worried about the South anyway? Face it. The South is Republican. Now get on with your lives ...
To quote:
"Since 2000, many Democrats have questioned quietly why they should expend so much effort trying to win votes in what is now a solidly Republican region. The Democrats' ceaseless courtship of Southern votes has fostered an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Southerners now consider it their God-given right to supply Democrats with presidential candidates or, failing that, to force non-Southern candidates to discuss Him using an alien evangelical vocabulary."
Now Playing: Shining Moon from the album Whites Off Earth Now by Cowboy Junkies
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:31 PM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2004
For sale ...
I have several items that I'm trying to get rid of. This also is giving me an eye-opening look at online classifieds. I'm putting online/print ads in the local paper, the Thrifty Nickel and Yahoo! just to see what the differences are. So far, all I can say is that Yahoo! totally gets it. They make placing an ad online a simple and painless experience. The real test will be to see if their ads bring results ...
Here are the items I'm selling:
A saltwater aquarium (You have to enter my phone number 865-691-7731 to see the ad, which is a print ad keyed to my phone number.)
A desk
A printer
No sense linking to the desk or printer ads since the local paper got the numbers wrong. We'll have to see if the Thrifty Nickel does better, but that ad doesn't publish until Wednesday.
So Yahoo! was the only one that could get my ad up and running on New Years Eve without any delays. It's also telling me how many people have viewed the ad ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 4:03 PM | Comments (1)
December 8, 2003
Paging John Media ....
A newspaper recently held a meeting for all of its print salespeople. The discussion focused on selling online media, especially interactive banner ads.
After the presentation, one print rep walked up to a friend of mine:
"You know that Rich Media everyone is talking about? I think I know his brother, John."
Hmmm. I want if we can sell any of those John Media ads and make some big bucks ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 7:12 AM | Comments (2)