January 16, 2009 · No Comments
I blame this commercial for getting Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 stuck in my head. :P
January 16, 2009 · No Comments December 16, 2008 · No Comments
Yes, I rented “Bedtime for Bonzo” — when I was a little kid and it would be time to go to bed, my parents would often say that “it’s bedtime for Bonzo,” and for the longest time I thought “Bonzo” was the name of some clown. It sounds like it should, doesn’t it?
I don’t remember how many years later it was when I found out that Bonzo was actually the name of the chimpanzee and character in the film. But, the nice thing about Netflix is that if you get an urge to see some movie or another, chances are pretty good that they have it; I’ve rarely been disappointed with their selection.
I’m kind of surprised that on IMDB.com, “Bedtime for Bonzo” has only 5.1 stars out of a possible 10. Even “The Perfect Score” (a previous Netflix rental) had 5.3 stars on IMDB, so you’d expect both of these films to be in the same tier of overall movie quality. Still, I think that “Bonzo” is a much better film than “The Perfect Score”. Yes, even though “The Perfect Score” had Scarlett Johansson in it, I still thought it was a pretty awful film! Now that’s saying something!
So, sure, “Bedtime for Bonzo” is a jokey film that seems to have dubbed in man-made chimpanzee-esque noises (often poorly done), but it’s funny, and there’s quite a few lines from the film that brought out the chuckles. It’s also the first Ronald Reagan film I’ve seen, so it was also pretty amusing to see him pre-PotUS.
Bedtime for Bonzo — 
(out of 5)
(out of 5) October 28, 2008 · No Comments Monday night I went to see my third “Zappa Plays Zappa” concert…
2006: Warner Theater, Washington, D.C.
2007: Ram’s Head Live!, Baltimore, Md.
2008: The Birchmere, Alexandria, Va.
This was part of of their “You Can’t Fit On Stage Anymore” tour – designed for the more devoted fans, it had a few things that you wouldn’t expect from a normal concert:
- A few days before the concert, an email was sent to the attendees with 70 songs to pick from. Each person could vote for up to five songs, and the top picks were included in the setlist for the evening. (The website says folks can vote for up to ten songs, but the email I received specified five.)
- The concerts are being held in smaller venues that hold just a few hundred people at most, for a more intimate setting with the band. Smaller stages, too, hence the name of the tour.
- Admission includes being able to download a recording of that night’s performance in MP3 format about a week after the concert, at no extra cost.
- The performances also include a guitar giveaway, and the winner is able to go up on stage to claim their prize, plug in their new guitar and jam with the band.
Or, in a more entertaining version of my four bullet-point recap:
I only wished that I was able to get there earlier: I went to the concert straight from work and drove through the District in order to get to the venue, and arrived only 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start. Since the Birchmere is set up like a dinner theatre, I ended up in an open seat at a table to the right of the stage. Not the best vantage point – I saw about as much of the sound man as I could of the band itself – but being close to the stage door meant that I was the first one who noticed the band coming out and was the first one who started the applause as they came towards the stage, so that’s got to be worth something, right? Anyway, I didn’t care too much since I’ll be able to hear the whole performance when I can download the MP3 files soon. Hopefully they’re good quality! It’d be nicer if they were lossless, but I’ll take what I can get. Here was the whole setlist for the night (from the ZPZ review forum):
- Inca Roads
- Tell Me You Love Me
- Dog Breath
- Joe’s Garage
- Packard Goose
- Peaches en Regalia
- Billy The Mountain
- Pound for a Brown on the Bus
- [ Guitar giveaway ]
- Blues Jam
- Dirty Love
- Echidna’s Arf (Of You)
- G-Spot Tornado
- Oh No
- Son of Orange County
- More Trouble Everyday
- Token of My Extreme
Encore:
- Camarillo Brillo
- Muffin Man
- Zomby Woof
- Willie The Pimp
Hopefully they’ll return to Baltimore again soon. The band does such a good job of entertaining (I like concerts to be experiences, not just musical performances), I can’t not go when they come by my area.
February 12, 2008 · No Comments
The legality of skateboarding in the Inner Harbor aside, conduct like that from an officer of the law is reprehensible. So is punching teenagers in the jaw and assaulting passers-by while off-duty. Three incidents. Three news stories about police misconduct, excessive force and assault. In two days!
Remarkably, not even a year ago (May 4, 2007), Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed that the Baltimore City Police Department had “a 41 percent drop in excessive force complaints and a 29 percent drop in discourtesy complaints” in the first four months of 2007. It seems hard to believe when confronted with incidents like these.
And of these three events, the only incident resolved thus far resulted in a one-year’s probation for the officer in question. Internal-affairs investigations are all well and good, but still, shouldn’t the police be held to a higher standard?