Dude!
I thought it would be really cool if we played Lalo Schifrin’s excellent Theme from “Enter the Dragon” [2.9MB MP3] as either the wedding march or when the wedding party enters the dining room. I suspect that it will get voted down by everybody but me, even if I use my most compelling argument: “But dude, it’s Bruce!“
Here’s a video from last night’s Kickass Karaoke at the Bovine Sex Club:
Kickass Karaoke host Carson T. Foster usually strips down to his skivvies by the end of the night.
Today, November 10, 2004, is the first anniversary of ther release of Outkast’s biggest single, Hey Ya!, in the UK. While the clever pop magazine Pop Justice hails the song as one of the greatest singles of 2003, they’ve had enough. They’ve posted a page titled ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and are asking all you Beyonces and Lucy Lius and babydolls to get off the floor. They’re asking people to stop dancing to Hey Ya.
I think they will meet with very little success. The song’s riff (build
on top on an infection G – C – D – Em progression) is so catchy that
people will dance and sing to even my (necessarily pared down)
accordion rendition.
Here are two more videos from Friday’s event, Mysterion the Mind
Reader’s Haunted Hotel Halloween Hoopla. Both are of the “psychobilly”
local band The Matadors. The first is of their audio-animatronic
skeleton introducing them; the second is a snippet of their rip-roarin’
performance.
These files are included as attachments, so if you’re reading this on a web page, click here to get them.
Those of you reading with aggregators that can “see” RSS 2,0 enclosures
should be able to grab them — I think. Let me know what you see!
Marc Canter, in case you’re not familiar with the name, was one of the founders of Macromind, which later turned into Macromedia. While Marc and I have never met, his career has intersected mine: Macromind (and later Macromedia) created Director, the multimedia authoring software that was my primary programming tool for my first three years after graduating from Crazy Go Nuts University.
Boss Ross and I have been communicating with him lately, and it would appear that he’s into rapping; his voice mail greeting and the messages he leaves are always in rap form (You can listen to one of Marc’s messages on Ross’ blog, Random Bytes).
As a service to Marc, I thought I’d post a cartoon which had been sitting in my “blog this someday” folder. Enjoy, Marc!
Update: Oh, what the hell, let’s remix it with the cartoon Canter…
Saturday night: The last errand I ran prior to hopping in my car and going to Homecoming at Crazy Go Nuts University was to buy up as many copies of The Globe and Mail as I could. Ryan Bigge’s story on Wendy’s and my engagement (“There he goes again…does he talk about anything else?”, I can hear you say) appeared in the Saturday issue, and I wanted enough copies to send to relatives and as personal souvenirs.
Saturday’s edition was a special one spolighting China as a great power — if not the dominant one — of the 21st Century (Adam Yoshida must’ve had a total conniption fit).
It was a popular issue, so picking up a dozen copies as I’d planned took travelling to five separate stores. The last store, from which I bought the last two, was the magazine shop beside the Lettieri cafe at Queen and Spadina.
As looked for an available bike rack, I noticed that someone sitting at one of Lettieri’s outdoor tables had a small accordion. An old-school accordion case — the sort that looks like one of those stiff cardboard suitcases from old black and white movies — lay open at her feet. She sat beside two of her friends and was talking to a rubby on rollerblades.
“You really play accordion?” asked the girl, the incredulity showing on her face.
“Shhhhhure I do,” said the rubby. “Jush han’ it over, and I’ll play you something.” He held out his arms, making “gimme!” gestures with his hands.
I wasn’t about to let anything bad happen to this nice girl or her accordion, so I intervened.
“I play accordion,” I said.
She turned and looked relieved to see me. “Okay, you play.”
I slipped the accordion on and started riffing in C minor, easing into Baby One More Time.
“Ahhh, I didn’t want to play anyway,” grumbled the rubby, who lurched northward on his rollerblades, his ankles almost running against the ground. For a guy who probably was on his fifth bottle of cough syrup that day, he skated pretty well.
Accordion Girl explained that she’d bought the accordion earlier in the summer and really wanted to learn how to play. I offered a couple of pointers.
I found out that the girls were big fans of Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine. I played Head Like a Hole [Windows Media link], and snippets of Down In It [Windows Media link], Terrible Lie [Windows Media link] and Only Time [Windows Media link].
It was then that I noticed that I’d forgotten the keys to my bike lock.
“Hey, could you watch my bike for a moment? I have to go buy some copies of the Globe and Mail. And hey, there’s a picture of me and my accordion in it.”
One of them pulled the bike closer to their table as I ran into the magazine store and bought their last three copies of the Globe. I returned and showed them the engagement article.
“Aww, she’s pretty!” one of them said, looking at Wendy’s picture.
“I’ll bet you use the accordion to get chicks,” said Accordion Girl.
“It helps,” I said. “It’s also good for making money. On a good night on Queen Street, you can make anywhere from fifty to a hundred bucks. You can also use it to gate-crash parties; most people at the door assume you’re the entertainment.”
“I could eat feel-eh meen-yon in a fan-cy res-toh-rant,” said Accordion Girl, affecting a posh accent.
I quickly went over the important chord patterns for most rock and pop songs: I-IV-V, I-IV, I-III-IV and so on.
“Look, I have to go,” I said, “but can I get your picture for my blog?”
“Blog?”
“You know, like a LiveJournal,” said one of her friends.
Except without all the drama and psychological problems, I mentally added.
“Oh, cool!”
I snapped their picture:
Miranda [Accordion Girl], her accordion and her friends.
Taken at Lettieri (southeast corner of Queen and Spadina) last Saturday evening.
“Okay, I’ve got to run now, but promise me this: don’t let that thing gather dust in the attic, okay? Play it!” I was already on my bike and heading north.
“I will, Mister Accordion!” she said.
Ten minutes later, still enjoying an accordion high, I was in my car and turning onto the Don Valley Parkway. Nice start to a good evening, I thought.
BBC Radio’s legendary DJ, John Peel,
has passed away. Without his work, we may never have heard of the Sex
Pistols, The Clash, The Undertones, The Fall, The Smiths, Joy Division,
New Order, The Pixies, Pulp, The White Stripes, The Strokes and many other wonderful bands who exist off the Top 40 radar.
(His taste was as eclectic as it was good: he even played Kylie Minogue!)
So long and thanks for all the musical discoveries, John.
