August 29, 2003
Jagoff Joe and NASCAR Jeff
My brother Jeff came to vist last week, en route to the NASCAR race a Bristol. NASCAR was a sport we never thought about growing up. Not sure where he got this addiction, but it definitely has hit him. He had a buddy with him, a shaggy guy named Joe, complete with a Jeff Gordon T-shirt. Joe's favorite epithet is "jagoff," one of the pillars of Pittsburghese, a language all its own. Joe's use of jagoff is so persistent that when he calls the house, my niece announces: "Jagoff Joe's on the phone!" Listening to the two of them jabber in Pittsburghese and swill Coors Light brought back a lot of Burgh memories. If only we could have had Iron City instead of Coors ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 1:11 PM | Comments (4)
August 26, 2003
Going up ...
Found a cool site that features a bunch of movie vignettes with an elevator theme. "Take the Stares" is pretty creepy. This is a neat use of video on the web. Short, sharp and very well designed. It all sticks to the elevator theme ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2003
Tennessee takes California to school ...
One of my favorite pages of the newspaper is the letters to the editor. It's a fascinating, sometimes frightening, look into the soul of the unwashed masses. A letter writer in this morning's paper had a great idea for how to solve all of California's fiscal woes. (It's the third letter on the page.)
Go ahead, California. Be like Tennessee. If you dare.
Posted by Bob Benz at 1:18 PM | Comments (0)
Ozzy's a fake ...
The final episode of the Osbournes this season was pretty damn strange, even for that drug and obscenity addled family. The implication seemed to be that not only this episode, but the whole series, has been a fake. Totally scripted. I'd always figured there was more than a little aping for the cameras. But this made me wonder.
Then I found this site, which has "proof" the whole thing is a fake. It seems some diabled guy ("I suffered a spinal cord injury when I fell over a second-level railing at a Whitesnake concert in 1987.") is using his Tivo to search for clues and has found plenty. Hey, if Tivo is involved, it's gotta be legit.
Is Ozzy a fake? Is this site some sort of spoof? You be the judge.
Posted by Bob Benz at 1:07 PM | Comments (2)
August 3, 2003
tribute to a friend and colleague
A former co-worker, Dave Carrillo, died recently of a heart attack at 41. He was a great person and journalist, and Ollie Reed, a reporter for The Albuquerque Tribune, put together a wonderful tribute to Dave. He quotes a lot of people I worked with at The Trib, probably the "golden age" of my journalism career. The talent in that newsroom was astounding. Ollie also included a quote from me. The one he couldn't print, however, is actually pretty funny.
Dave and my wife, Lara, were constantly engaged in good-natured sparring. Both worked on the design desk, and I was on the copy desk. Lara came up to me, knowing I was studying Spanish, and asked for some invective in espanol. I told her to tell Carrillo, "Coma Mierda," which means "eat shit."
So she saunters from the copy desk to the design desk, repeating the phrase along the way so she wouldn't forget it. But in customary Lara fashion, she managed to mangle it.
"Como mierda," she barked at Carrillo, who at first looked bewildered, then launched into a characteristic Carrillo fit of hysterics at this designer who had just come up and announced: "I eat shit."
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:43 AM | Comments (2)
August 1, 2003
media matters ...
Hit a triple with the three CDs I bought last weekend, and "28 Days Later," the zombie film I went to see, kicked ass. I love it when a plan comes together.
-- 28 Days Later: I saw the version with the alternative ending. Not surprisingly, I like the bleaker approach better. But I think it better fits the nature of the film. I also was amazed at how much it pays homage to Romero. The shopping spree harkens Dawn of the Dead, with all its shopping mall antics. The captured zombie and military angle are very similar to Day of the Dead. And the alternative ending brings a bleakness that Night of the Living Dead invoked. But 28 Days still goes its own way. I particularly like the whole rage thing, and the fast-moving zombies really are creepy. Not sure what effect they used to capture that, but it worked.
-- "Electric Bath," The Don Ellis Orchestra. This CD is awesome. Stumbled across a piece on Ellis and decided to check him out. He plays a lot of off time signatures -- 5/4, 7/4, 19/4 -- and gives jazz a dip in psychedlia that's really interesting. I'll be buying more of his stuff.
-- "Chinatown," The Be Good Tanyas. These three women are incedible. I have "Blue Horse" already and fell for it immediately. This CD is just as good. Great version of Townes Van Zant' "Waiting Around to Die," and the originals are really solid, too.
They can play.
-- "The Three Pickers: Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs." Another winner. Scruggs, to my mind, is the father of bluegrass music (and he was way cool on the Beverly Hillbillies). Alison Krauss also appears on a few tunes. Very nice. And thanks to Tivo (all praise Tivo) I also found a "Great Performances" of this show, so I got to see the video, too.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:31 PM | Comments (1)