The site was down pretty much all day yesterday. Now it’s back up, but a week’s worth of posts are gone. Kaput. Donezo. One of ’em was funny, too. Drat. My host kinda sucks.
Heads up, sneaker fans: someone on eBay has a pair of replica McFlys from Back to the Future 2 up for auction (note: be sure to read the questions at the bottom). The current bid is $405. I tapped Al Cabino to let him know, thinking he would be excited. I’m not surprised that he already knew about it, but I guess I’m kind of surprised that he already had an official statement ready:
Official Response to the FAKE McFly Sneaker on eBay
“Sneakers are born to be worn. The FAKE McFly sneaker as seen on eBay is nothing more than a Fisher-Price toy. If sneaker fans want the McFlys, sign my petition.”
(via geekologie)
A few days ago, I sold my last keytar. I used to have two; now I have none. I feel empty.
After a few days of sulking, I managed to raise my spirits a bit and do some keytar-related web searching. Then I did some keytar-related emailing. Then I took a nap.
I had keytar-related dreams.
When I woke up, I had received a keytar-related response to my keytar-related email! Delightful! It was from Tom Schuman, keyboard player from Spyro Gyra and owner of the first prototype of the first commercially-released keytar (the Moog Liberation). Though credited as the first keytar player, he tells it a bit differently:
Thank you for thinking about me. I cannot take credit for being the first keytar player. I saw Jan Hammer with a thing called “The Probe” back when I just starting touring with Spyro Gyra in 1978. I think George Duke also used a keytar called a “Clavitar”. However, I can take credit for the first one to set his keytar on fire. Moog Music made me a prototype to the Liberation which had a compartment on the back for smoke bombs. At a certain point in my keytar solo, I had the stage manager kneel behind me and light the wick of a smoke bomb which then gave the illusion that the keyboard was smoking. Well, one time it actually caught on fire when the whole back of the keyboard started flaming at which point I was forced to throw the thing off of me. Fortunately, I was not burned. I also got electrocuted in Japan when our lighting director decided to string the keytar with flashing Christmas lights. He would turn them on when I went running through the audience. The effect was great except when I took off the thing to set it back on the stage, I touched something that shot 110 volts through my body…once again, I was forced to throw it off of me!
Needless to say, I no longer desire to use a keytar.
TOM SCHUMAN
When Tupac was 19, he was hired as a back-up dancer for Digital Underground. Whoopee. When the Tact Records crew was 19, they were serving in the Israel Defense Forces. If American rappers are pissed off, just imagine what these guys must feel like. Israel’s most popular rapper, Subliminal (MySpace profile here), is known as the creator of “Zionist hip hop.” Tamer Nafar, founder of hip hop group DAM (“Da Arabic MCs”), is an Arab-Israeli. They used to be friends who believed that hip hop could unite the world. Take a wild guess what happened with there.
Read about their falling out over at Guilt and Pleasure.
(link)
Remember that sick move Michael Jackson used to do? You know the one: where he’d lean way forward but never fall because he was such a good dancer? Remember all those times you tried to do it and kept falling on your ass? Well guess what: not only did you never have a chance of doing it right, but if you were trying to do it after October 26, 1993, you may have been breaking the law.
You can do a lot of things to a dog: pet it, feed it, maybe take it for a walk or something. I guess you could conceivably put it to work, maybe attach a plow to it or something. There’s a lot of options there.
Or alternatively, I guess you could put a horse mask on it. Or dress it up like a pig. Or, umm… put a leaf on its head. Or write “2005” on some oranges and put the oranges in its mouth, then balance some more oranges on its head. Or put a doll head in its mouth. Hey, you know what? Fuck it. Why don’t you put some fake eyelashes on it? There are so many great things you can do to a dog that I never would have thought of. Thanks, internet.
(link – via metafilter)
So I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that I’m being published in a new book called The Very Best Weblog Writing Ever. It features submissions by me and a bunch of other people I’ve never met, but I’m pretty sure that’s how the internet works anyway, so that’s not really a negative at all.
But now for the bad news: you’re gonna have to part with fifteen of your hard earned dollars to buy one. This is compulsory, and yeah, that makes me feel kind of bad, but fifteen bucks isn’t really that bad for a book you will cherish forever, something that will actually exist and sit on your bookshelf, something that you’ll have to pack up in a cardboard box every time you move unlike this ephemeral, web-based clusterfuck of apathy and HTML tags. I guess what I’m saying is they’re taking pre-orders so click the picture and buy the book alredy.
As you may be aware, today is 6/06/06, known to some as the National Day of Slayer, and better known to many, many more people than that as A Day of Really Nice Early-June Weather.
Some people are a little nervous about 6/06/06. Who wouldn’t be? To the uninformed, Slayer can be a little threatening. With song titles like “Altar of Sacrifice” and “Mandatory Suicide” it’s easy to be a little put off, but trust me: once you get past the Wall of Blood and Auschwitz references, the Slayer boys are nice as pie. Forget what you thought you knew about the kings of thrash and take a look at how they’re spending the most unholy of days.
6/06/06, 7:30 a.m.
THE UPS STORE
The boys got an early start on their special day at their local UPS store, participating in an ancient ritual: mailing care packages to their college-bound children. Devil’s food cake, anyone?
6/06/06, 11:15 a.m.
WALGREENS
Does Walgreens sell blood? Sorry, guys! They might be S.O.L on that front, but luckily for Tom Araya, they DO fill Lipitor prescriptions. With a metal lifestyle like his, that cholesterol isn’t gonna regulate itself! Speaking of which, anybody getting hungry?
6/06/06, 12:30 p.m.
TACO BELL
Forget “South of Heaven” – these guys are going South of the Border!!! Yum!
6/06/06, 2:15 p.m.
PETTING ZOO
I don’t really know what to say about this. It’s their day, alright? They can do whatever they want.
6/06/06, 4:30 p.m.
TIME TO CHILL
After an action-packed day, everyone deserves a little R&R. That means it’s time to kick back in Jeff Hanneman‘s basement home theater and watch the band’s favorite movie. Let’s give ’em a little privacy, shall we? As pioneers of thrash and all-around nice guys, I’d say they’ve earned it. Wouldn’t you?
Oh – and this happened too.
Remember when you figured out that Kraftwerk’s “Metropolis” is the exact same speed as Prince’s “Little Red Corvette?” Too late – some kid in Sweden already did that like two years ago. Screw a bunch of “mashups” anyway – it’s time to take it to the next level. While you were sitting in a swivel chair failing miserably at mixing Lil Jon with R.E.M., some dude named Matthew at Pottymouth.org was sitting in an even darker room than you were. He sat there for a long time staring at the wall for hours, thinking about how mashups are stupid. He made a snack. All of the sudden the wall-mounted CD rack right above him broke and all of his Pixies CDs fell on his head. Then it hit him. No – not “Caribou.” The future of mashups. The trail has been blazed. Thanks, Matt.
Matthew’s Celebrity Pixies Tribute (via metafilter)
