( 11:30 AM )
A while ago, Mike Walls wrote a piece about ways that he chooses what artists he accepts CD submissions for reviews on the site and what catches his attention once he's received the disc. It dawned on me last week that my methods aren't quite as well thought out as his are.
You see, I recently wrote a review for a CD called Fugitive Moments by a singer/songwriter named Gene Owens. Here's how I decided to listen to it right after getting it in the mail, as opposed to waiting the few days or a week that I normally procrastinate.
First, after the package arrived, our cat refused to leave it alone. I'm still not sure why the cat was obsessed with the envelope, but it had to be disposed of quickly because he was driving us crazy with it.
Then after viewing the CD cover and headshot, I had to look closer to see if Gene was a male or female name. In retrospect, that should've been a little more obvious but I've been tired a lot lately.
Next, I saw the address listed on the envelope/letter. Owens, as it turns out, lives down the street from someone I know in LA. Still being LA homesick I spent a few minutes reminiscing about being in that area of Los Angeles and my old writers group and how I wish I could go to C&O's Trattoria in Marina Del Rey right now, etc., etc., etc.
That was immediately followed by me noticing that the promo material mentioned Amoeba Records on Sunset, my favorite music/DVD store in the world. That led to some more teary eyed memories, like the joy of parking on the street near Amoeba since the covered parking lot is no fun and I get confused about the other parking vs. parking for the ArcLight, the cruddy Jack In the Box across the street that I always ended up at if I went on my lunch hour and the amazing groups of people hanging out at the bus stop in front.
Upon taking a second look at the CD itself, I was thinking that it looked like an album from the 60's, right down to the LP label color scheme on the disc itself. The cover kind of looked like something that might have been on a Flying Burrito Bros. album. When I took the disc out, I saw that underneath there is a listing of various organizations websites, like Sweatshop Watch and Food Not Bombs. Looking at the list, I almost went and looked on some of the various group e-mails that I sometimes get from friends in LA to see if I saw an e-mail address for someone named Gene Owens, since the politics made it seem like he might be friends with some people that I know.
All of this took place over...oh, I don't know...five minutes but it made me take the CD with me as I was leaving and listen to it shortly thereafter.
Now, certainly this doesn't work for every CD that I get. There are a lot of musical artists in LA living down the street from friends of mine but so far I've only reviewed CD's by two of them. The point is that my reasoning for what order I listen to CD's is much more random than "the order in which they're received." I still listen to all of them but I'll be the first to admit that I probably listen first to the ones that pique my interest/curiosity as soon as I see them -- interesting packaging, interesting titles, etc. I'm not all that deep...shiny stuff gets my attention.
Of course, the main thing that Mike pointed out in his article still remains true for me -- and I might be the easiest to please of the 2Walls staff -- and that is, above all else, the music must be good. We only review CD's that we like, so if the music sucks or is boring none of the rest of it matters.
But, still, send me the shiny buttons and bows...especially if you're based in LA. And if your CD arrives at my doorstep smelling like an In-N-Out double-double, I can just about guarantee that I'll be writing a review of your work.
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( 8:37 AM )
In the post below, I mentioned my toddler son's infatuation with Lindsay Lohan. In seeing another picture of her, again on the cover of the latest Entertainment Weekly, something dawned on me. I don't know if it's been mentioned, because I don't really read that much about her, but in some photos she bares a passing resemblance to a young Ann-Margaret. Surgery or no, she might not be able to match Ann-Margaret cleavage-wise, but there's a redhead's similarity there.
Which got me thinking...has any of the smart people over at Universal thought about doing a remake of "Kitten With A Whip" starring Lohan? Or, better still, "Viva Las Vegas"?
Think about it. Vegas is still a hot shooting location. Partner Lohan up with...well, I don't know who but there's got to be some hot young male singer...and BAM! It's gold, Jerry...GOLD!
I don't know who might be right for the Elvis role. Justin Timberlake or Usher seem overdone already. Not that it will matter much to the over-21 set -- any Elvis fan like myself is going to dislike any choice that would dare step into the motorcycle boots of the King, so there's no sense in trying to appease that set.
Maybe you flip-flop the roles, with Lindsay Lohan taking over the Elvis spot as a race car driver -- hey, Vegas has a NASCAR track now -- and some pretty boy, like that guy from "The OC," taking over the role of the cute hotel worker.
It's an idea just dying to make money is all I'm saying.
If any of the nice people at Universal -- Hello, Tim O'Hair! -- are interested, I can have a treatment on someone's desk in the morning. God knows I'm easy enough to find and always available.
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( 7:21 AM )
Right from the git-go, my son Dean has considered himself a ladies man.
Last week, Dean, who's 2-years-old, got possession of the television remote control while I was trying to accomplish something around the house. Normally, that's fairly harmless -- the most he normally does is turn the TV off or set the language to Spanish, neither of which are all that bad for him. This time, however, he managed to get his thumb on the channel up/down buttons and started doing some surfing. I figured that in a few minutes he'd bring the remote to me and want me to find Nickelodeon again for him.
Instead, after I had been gone for the room for a minute, I returned to find him intently watching some overly stylized slow motion shots. A second later, I found out why -- what he had stumbled upon was in fact Lindsay Lohan's video for "Rumors" complete with sweaty dancefloor gyrations. I waited for him to become bored with it, but that was a false hope.
Then a few days ago, the TV was on again, this time tuned to the Disney Channel...an innocent enough activity around our house. After all, a friend of mine played the father on one of those teen sitcoms they produce (Even Stevens' Tom Virtue), so I don't mind supporting the channel.
During one of their extended commercial breaks though, they showed a little bit of another Lohan video, this time from the "Mean Girls" soundtrack. Other than a bare midriff -- and let's face it, that's a video requirement now -- it was fairly tame. Still that didn't stop my little Hugh Hefner from looking away from the set for just a moment...long enough to make eye contact with me and raise his eyebrows in a very "Yeah, baby!" way.
It didn't help anything that in the midst of all of this I had the Entertainment Weeekly with a half-naked Lohan on the cover -- reprising Elle McPherson's Playboy cover shot -- sitting around the house (I'm a subscriber for the record).
I honestly don't know where he gets this. In Los Angeles, the first time I let him sit in the grocery cart seat he sqirmed around in the checkout line, trying to turn himself all the way around. When I followed his eyes, I realized that he was trying to keep watching a young blonde in a tank top and shorts. He used to squirm around in my arms to get better looks at girls. At Warner Bros., I worked with some very attractive women, including an extremely beautiful Hispanic woman. Dean would act shy until one of the office hotties came by and then he'd babble and want to be picked up (a phenomena that even some of my male coworkers picked up on). He also had a bad habit of trying to feel up an actress friend of ours, which we thought was accidental until he started trying to use misdirection to get away with it.
Since then, he's graduated to more "playa" type moves. I took him to the library once and before we got to the little kids section, he spotted a girl in the preteen area. He proceeded to walk over, pick up a Mary Kate & Ashley book and pretend to read it about two feet from her. Of course, he kept looking over to see if she was looking at him. He's not always smooth...he's tried the move of walking up to a group of young girls and just laughing along with them once too often...but he seems to learn from failure. After one bad stretch, including an ugly incident where he tripped over his own feet while trying to get a girl to notice him, he pulled off something that would put my single friends to shame. We were in Bath & Body Works in the local mall, and he was carrying around one of their little shopping baskets. When we were ready to leave the store, my wife asked him to give her the basket. Instead, he turned on his heels, walked over to a group of three teenaged girls and quietly handed the basket to one of them. He then silently turned and toddled out of the store to a chorus of "Oh my God, he is so cute."
My wife figures that no good can come from this, but some of my friends are already taking cues from him. Hey, if a little pale, redheaded kid wants to aspire to being a chick magnet, who am I to squash that dream?
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( 9:01 AM )
I've written on the site before about the angst that goes along with being a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Well, even though they get to rest for the first weekend of the NFL playoffs, like a good Iggles fan I'm feeling anxious.
The soonest their brightest star player -- Terrell Owens -- will play is the Super Bowl. Of course, that only means that they just have to get there without him playing a single down. And then after he gets hurt against the Cowboys, Eagles head coach Andy Reid shuts down the team for the rest of the season with most of the key players having essentially 3 weeks off before playing another game.
Subsequently, they lost their last two games to inferior opponents and played ugly doing it. Now if they want to make everyone happy they'll have to be the first team since the Packers in the 60's to lose their last two regular season games and still win the championship.
A lot of Philly fans are now worried that they won't even win their first playoff game...which would be a complete disaster. Luckily, there's still another week to have to worry about all of this.
As for this weekend's games, I think that the Packers will beat the Minnesota Vikings. The Rams will win in Seattle against the Seahawks. The Colts will win easily against the Broncos and the San Diego Chargers will win a much closer game against the Jets (unless Chad Pennington starts throwing interceptions, in which case the Chargers will smoke them). I also predict that I won't have time to watch more than a quarter of any of the games.
You can take it to the bank. (You do so at your own peril however...I suck at picking football games.)
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( 8:30 PM )
It's a phenomena that needs to be studied. Ever since this blog was created I've become busier than I've been in at least a year. Suddenly, something like taking a few minutes to rail about the system or anything else is a big deal. I'm not whining, I'm just saying that it's strange.
I did, however, force myself to take long enough to post here that I found out today that the fetus my wife is presently carrying in her womb is a boy. We have one son and now apparently we'll have two.
I'm not sure if it's wrong to say it, but I was slightly disappointed. Not that I had my heart set or anything, but I kind of wanted a girl. The strongest influences in my life have been women, I was close to my nieces as they were growing up and I used to coach girls' basketball and softball. I just always thought that I would have a girl if I was ever going to have children at all.
Still, there are a lot of positives to having a second son. First, we don't have to ask anyone for the hand-me-downs, because we've still got all of the stuff from when my son was a baby. Second, there's something intriguing about having two sons with sporting events or playing sports. Taking your sons to a baseball game. Or football or basketball for that matter. Going to spring training. Teaching lessons through sports. And there are certain things that brothers can do together that a brother and sister probably wouldn't...like go golfing or playing pick up basketball.
Our sons will be 2 1/2 years apart which seems like a decent amount of time. Hopefully, they'll like each other. It seems a silly thing to hope for but I've got a brother 12 years older than me that I've barely talked to my entire life. And in reality I don't speak to any of my blood relatives anymore. So, even if it's unfounded I still worry.
Oh and we're naming him Quinn Thomas after...well, this time it's not after anyone. The name just sounded good.
The one big decision that we have left is selecting godparents. That might end up being tricky. I might decide to turn that into a reality show. "The Godfather." America decides who my son's godparents should be. If you're interested in filling out an application, e-mail me at BMccullin@2walls.com. Be prepared to show some financial statements along with your application.
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