I, Splotchy

Elevator Lobbies

2012-02-01T22:17:00.003-06:00

I like to sometimes take pictures with my phone. If I feel like it, I post those pictures to Twitter, Facebook, etc.

A month or so ago, I went out walking during my lunch break on a particularly nasty, cold rainy day and took these pictures.

I posted them all to Twitter, but people didn't respond to any of them, other than one person who said, "Please stop doing this."

I don't know. Sometimes you connect with people, sometimes you don't.

I like them. Enjoy.

Obey Or Else

2012-02-01T09:38:00.005-06:00

Several months ago I noticed an assortment of Shephard Fairey "OBEY" stickers plastered on the bike rack and other surfaces near the train station in my town.

I thought to myself, it only took a couple decades for that graffiti to ripple out to the western suburbs. Of course, now you can buy clothing, bags, mugs, mousepads, toasters, jello molds, etc. of that OBEY image. The person who placed the stickers didn't make those stickers -- they bought them.

Seeing those stickers makes me think about a lot of things. I think about how counterculture can be easily packaged and sold and completely defanged. I think about how the original graffiti that has been turned into a commodity was not particularly countercultural, or dangerous, or interesting in the first place. I think about how the artist Shepherd Fairey appropriates images for his own use and makes a profit on them, while simultaneously zealously protecting his own work when other people attempt to appropriate it. He's kind of a dick, probably.

All these thoughts really don't have much bearing on the real world, I suppose. I'm not thinking about war, or peace, or hunger, or how people should be nice to each other. They are the thoughts that a white guy with a comfortable life can think as he prepares to board a comfortable train to take him to his well-paying-but-not-too-particularly-stressful job.

Anyways, I saw something interesting today. Someone added accompanying graffiti to some of the stickers near the train station.

What did the person who wrote "OR ELSE" mean? Was it ironic? Was it brilliant? Was it redundant? Why did they feel compelled to write that? Isn't the "OR ELSE" already implied?

I walked around the other side of the pole and noticed another Fairey sticker, and more graffiti.

Ohhhhhh. That's nice.

So, now, more questions. Was "NIGGER LOVER" written at the same time as "OR ELSE"? Or was it written at a different time? Was it written by a different person? Note that the "L" in "LOVER" and the "L" in "ELSE" are different.

Did someone feel spontaneously compelled to write "NIGGER LOVER" on a pole, or was it in response to the André the Giant sticker? If it was in response to the sticker, did the person who wrote the graffiti think André the Giant as depicted in the sticker was black?

What do you think?

BONUS PICTURE:

I accidentally took a picture of my foot when I was taking the graffiti pictures. Enjoy!

Falling Ice

2012-01-24T15:16:00.002-06:00

It's winter. Yay! Yayyyyyy.

Okay, so it's winter. I work in downtown Chicago. It seems like every skyscraper in the downtown area has some variation of the signage above.

These signs have always bothered me. Essentially, they are saying, if you choose to walk here, you may get hit in the head by a hunk of ice falling off our ginormous building. Don't say we didn't warn you!

Is this supposed to be helpful? Is it some attempt at avoiding legal liability for pedestrian injuries or property damage? Do buildings have any liability for damaged sustained from falling ice? How many building-ice injuries are sustained on a yearly basis?

Are these warning signs an indication that one should find another path to a destination? These signs don't seem to have that effect. People don't take them seriously. Also, given the fact that every building seems to put these signs on their sidewalks, I think it would be largely impossible to find a clear non-falling-ice path.

Birthdays

2012-01-21T21:49:00.004-06:00

My twins turn 9 tomorrow. I got them two presents each. I hope they like them. They aren't fancy, or big, or expensive, or anything.

This is their first birthday after my divorce. I don't know what it's like growing up with divorced parents. I don't have any idea.

I know people can turn out great growing up in divorced households. I know that what's important is being a loving parent, and giving your kids love, and giving them a safe and happy environment. You don't need to tell me that.

I don't want to be married to the person whom I was married to for 10 years (Fun fact: 10th anniversary happened 6 days before the divorce was final). I don't want her back, ever. She did awful things to me; things I can't forget.

But, here's this. I wish I could have given my kids a mom and dad to grow up with. I wish I could have given them that. I wish, I wish, I wish.

Happy birthday, kids. I love you so much.

This was posted from my phone.

2012-01-17T10:19:00.001-06:00

I like my blog. I feel disconnected from the Internet lately.

I don't like Facebook.

Twitter has lost some appeal for me.

I miss my blog.

hey everybody

2011-11-27T21:32:00.000-06:00

how's it going

Express Yourself!

2011-11-12T20:18:00.001-06:00

Candle

2011-11-07T14:33:00.001-06:00

Extinguished

2011-10-11T16:00:00.000-05:00

Stop Crying and Listen Track Listing

2011-10-06T09:14:00.008-05:00

01 - This Time Tomorrow- the Kinks [denise]
02 - Thing of Beauty - Hothouse Flowers [denise]
03 - Here Comes the Sun - Richie Havens [denise]
04 - Forever Young - Bob Dylan [denise]
05 - If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out - Cat Stevens [denise]
06 - After Hours- The Velvet Underground [denise]
07 - Dog End of a Day Gone By - Love and Rockets [tim]
08 - All Things Must Pass - George Harrison [tim]
09 - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Monty Python [tim]
10 - The Funeral - Band Of Horses [tim]
11 - Teardrop - Massive Attack [tim]
12 - How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead [tim]
13 - What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding - Elvis Costello [drmvm]
14 - Stupefaction - Graham Parker [drmvm]
15 - Blink of an Eye - The Waco Brothers [drmvm]
16 - Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd [drmvm]
17 - Kiss Me Son of God - They Might Be Giants [drmvm]
18 - Diamonds And Rust - Joan Baez [drmvm]
19 - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow – David Bowie [samuraifrog]
20 - Since You’ve Been Gone – Cherie Currie & Marie Currie [samuraifrog]
21 - Box of Rain – Grateful Dead [samuraifrog]
22 - Surf’s Up – The Beach Boys [samuraifrog]
23 - Fading In and Fading Out – Ringo Starr [samuraifrog]
24 - I’ll See You in My Dreams – R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders [samuraifrog]
25 - Moving On Out Boogie - Lightnin' Hopkins [someguy]
26 - West End Blues - Louis Armstrong [someguy]
27 - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward - Billy Bragg [someguy]
28 - Waving My Dick In The Wind - Ween [someguy]
29 - What The Soul Desires - Donovan [someguy]
30 - End Of The Line - The Traveling Wilburys [someguy]
31 - Sunrise - Pulp [matt]
32 - Desperados Under the Eaves - Warren Zevon [matt]
33 - Don't Be Shy - Cat Stevens [matt]
34 - You're No Rock & Roll Fun - Sleater-Kinney [matt]
35 - The Wolf is Loose - Mastodon [matt]
36 - Soggy Tongues - Vic Chesnutt [matt]
37 - 'S Wonderful- Diana Krall [escralan]
38 - Best of All Possible Worlds - The Little Willies [escralan]
39 - Too Much Too Little - Fred Frith [escralan]
40 - Bygones - Sara Watkins [escralan]
41 - Parting Gift- Fiona Apple [escralan]
42 - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) - Talking Heads [escralan]
43 - Ad Ogni Costo - Ennio Morricone [splotchy]
44 - Whatever Happened To Pong? - Frank Black [splotchy]
45 - I Plan To Stay A Believer - Curtis Mayfield [splotchy]
46 - Symphony No.6 aka Pastoral, 1st Movement - Beethoven [splotchy]
47 - The Argument - Splotchy [splotchy]
48 - Slipping Into Something - The Feelies [splotchy]

New Green Monkey Mix!

2011-09-25T08:44:00.008-05:00

Hi kids.

Wow, I took a look at the last time I did an installment of the Green Monkey Music Project. It was well over a year ago! Holy disregarded blog, Batman!

I was talking with my Twitter buddy Denise. She found out about the mixes and she dug them, and really wanted to participate in one. She actually suggested a theme that for some reason I never got around to. It was a good enough idea that I decided to get the green monkey out of his bunker and ask him to start up the Mixtape Machine.

Volume 21 of the Green Monkey Music Project will be Stop Crying And Listen.

This mix consists of songs you want to have played at your funeral (Morbidity Alert!). This might sound like a depressing topic for a mix, but I totally disagree. I have always felt that mixtapes are some form of creativity and communication. One can use them to affect the emotional state of the listener, and to transmit some sort of spiritual essence by the sheer choice and ordering of a few songs. I believe this!

So, having a few songs played at your funeral is like a final way of saying goodbye, fuck you, I love you, whatever you want to say. It's your last chance of pushing your imagination and thoughts on the world -- it's your last hurrah.

I'm opening the mix to 8 participants. Denise and I are participating, so that leaves 6 open slots. Please comment on this blog post if you are interested in participating.

All that's required for your participation is simply selecting songs for your mix, and letting me know what they are. For now, all you have to do is say you would like to join in. We'll get to the song selection soon enough.

Thanks, and happy mixing.

PARTICIPANTS:
Denise
Tim
Dr MVM
SamuraiFrog
Some Guy
Matt
escralan
Splotchy

Broken Clouds

2011-09-20T22:56:00.000-05:00

Barry and the Setbacks, Episode 2: Barry's Car

2011-09-01T21:26:00.001-05:00

Here be Episode 2 of the Barry And The Setbacks series, mateys!

Enjoy! Arrrrrrrr!

Barry & the Setbacks Episode 2

Iced Tea, Ice Water

2011-08-04T14:43:00.000-05:00

Okay. I get it now.

Iced tea. Tea starts out hot. You apply ice to it to cool it down. The tea has been iced.

Ice water. It's water with ice.

However, the water is also iced, isn't it? I'm assuming the water is colder with the ice than it was without. Right?

Anyways, I guess I get it.

I guess.

Next Weekend: Proper Usage

2011-07-27T13:53:00.003-05:00

Today is Wednesday, July 27th. Next weekend is August 6-7.

Now, imagine that it's Monday or Tuesday (July 25th/26th). Next weekend is July 29-31.

If it's Saturday - Tuesday, the next Saturday/Sunday encountered (excepting the weekend you are currently experiencing) is "next weekend". In this scenario, "this coming weekend" can also be used. Don't use "this weekend" if the day on which you are commenting happens to be on a Saturday or Sunday. That's confusing. However, if it's a Monday or a Tuesday, you are free to use "this weekend".

If it's Wednesday - Friday, the next Saturday/Sunday encountered will be "this weekend". "This coming weekend" can also be used. "Next weekend" will be the weekend that follows "this weekend" or "this coming weekend".

Well, that's settled.

Two pieces of string walk into a bar in Germany, circa 1942

2011-07-20T22:38:00.002-05:00

Two pieces of string walk into a bar in Germany, circa 1942.

The bartender looks at them menacingly and says, "We don't serve your kind here!"

The two strings sit outside on the curb, thirsty and depressed. One of the strings says, "I've got an idea!" He twists and turns, wriggles, and roughs of the threads on his ends.

The other string says, "What are you doing?"

The roughed-up, twisted string replies, "Watch me!"

Both strings walk back into the bar. The bartender, still in a bad mood, sees the two strings sauntering back in.

He reaches under the bar and pulls out a pistol. He shoots one of the strings dead. BANG.

He turns to the roughed-up string and asks, "Well? You're a string too, aren't you!"

The string replies, "I'm afraid, Nazi!"

Barry and the Setbacks Season 1 in Production

2011-07-06T10:15:00.002-05:00

Is that what they say? "In Production"? We are making more Barry and the Setbacks episodes.

I think we'll do 5 and then start releasing them. Not sure where they will be hosted, but you'll able to get to them from this blog.

I guess I'm calling this one Season Zero.

Solace for Joplin, MO

2011-05-24T11:54:00.000-05:00

Mon Dieu!

2011-05-23T14:28:00.003-05:00

A Possible Wren

2011-05-19T21:44:00.001-05:00

Solitary Sandpiper

2011-05-19T21:43:00.001-05:00

Gray Catbird

2011-05-19T21:42:00.001-05:00

Good Forenoon, Everyone

2011-05-19T09:22:00.004-05:00

Have you been searching the Internet these past years for a "forenoon" reference, only to be disappointed time after time by the use of the word "morning"?

Hurry over to today's weather forecast at Chicago Weather Center then, and tell 'em Splotchy sent ya!

THE ARGUMENT

2011-04-17T23:13:00.004-05:00

I was futzing around on the piano right before putting the kids to bed. I came up with a simple piano part. I liked it enough that I worked on it tonight and eventually fleshed it out into a song. From my brain to an MP3 in a few hours time!

I had a 4-track many moons ago (okay, I still have it) and I was so intimidated by it. I was so intimidated by recording music. I felt like I didn't have the knack for it. But it really is quite easy for me now. That's neat. And I like it. I don't note the passage of time -- it absorbs my attention completely.

Okay, here's the song.

--> The Argument <--

As always, enjoy (or don't)!

The Weakest, Least Hopeful Baseball Advertising In Recent Memory

2011-04-11T12:48:00.003-05:00

The One Bright Spot In My Workday

2011-03-15T21:07:00.003-06:00

Click for bigger

X

2011-03-14T23:42:00.001-06:00

TANK GREEN TANK

2011-03-13T00:10:00.003-06:00

Hey, I had another Saturday night with nothing to do, nowhere to go. Jesus, that sounds depressing. I almost don't want to continue this blog post. Okay, I'm pressing on.

I made a new song.

I've had such hangups writing and recording music in the past. I have always sought other people to play with prior to writing any music. If I don't have any bandmates, it's really easy to not write. REALLY easy.

I have a motivation to write music now, in that I have agreed to record like a kazillion songs (or musical snippets) for a short film of a friend of mine, and he keeps on asking me about my progress.

I still think that writing and recording with other people is the ideal situation (magic can happen, sincerely), but I have not been in a band in a long time, and I don't know how I would easily go about finding/joining one, mostly due to my busy schedule as a dad.

I had fun doing this one. Again, I have no idea if it's good. I guess I think it's good enough to share with you.

Tank Green Tank

As always, enjoy (or don't)!

Joke

2011-03-07T13:28:00.004-06:00

A CEO, a Tea Party member, and a union member are sitting at a table. There is a plate with a dozen cookies in the center of the table.

The CEO grabs 11 of them and says to the Tea Party member, “The union guy is trying to steal your cookie.”

The union guy and the Tea Party member look at each other, nod knowingly, then grab the CEO by the neck, decapitate him, kick his head around the room until his face is no longer recognizable, stomp on his body, reattach the now hideously deformed melon-head to his bruised, broken body with staples and duct tape, build a rocket, stuff the CEO's carcass in the rocket, launch the rocket into outer space, build another rocket armed with a bomb filled with feces and vomit, launch that rocket to intercept the first rocket, remotely detonate the feces/vomit bomb to explode the CEO carcass rocket, sending its horrifically desecrated contents straight for the sun to be burned up into nothingness.

HELP

2011-02-27T01:21:00.005-06:00

I don't know if this is good. I think it is? I don't know.

I do music so infrequently, I treat every new song I write/record like a special event. I wrote and recorded this on Saturday night (and a little bit into Sunday morning) for my friend Andy's movie.

I'm not sure if he'll use it or not. It's a bit much, I reckon.

Help.mp3

As always, enjoy (or don't)!

Paradigm Shift

2011-02-17T07:11:00.000-06:00

THE FUCKING SUN

2011-02-07T14:55:00.000-06:00

Overexplaining Underappreciated Tweets #5

2011-01-31T14:08:00.005-06:00

Twitter User:
@ysplotchy

Tweet:
Idea: Spinoff of sadtrombone website. http://www.sadpiano.com/ - plays 1st movement of Chopin's Moonlight Sonata http://bit.ly/YLBa2
(link to original tweet)

Overexplanation:
It has been a while since of one of my brilliant tweets wasn't favorited or retweeted by at least one person. Oh, don't worry. My tweets are still being underappreciated, and most likely will be until the time I reverse the aging process and start starring in photoshoots in Tiger Beat.

This might sound strange, but I was quite happy to see this particular tweet not favorited or retweeted, because I thought my idea was funny enough that I would enjoy overexplaining it.

There's a website called http://www.sadtrombone.com/ which consists of... well, just go to the damn website and listen to the sound yourself. It's a clever website, in that it just does one thing -- just a "wahhh-wahh-wahh" sound effect.

The language for online interaction has acquired lots of interesting widgets/abbreviations/symbols, a shorthand for communicating. It's very vibrant, and constantly changing.

You might see someone link to the Sad Trombone site, or simply type [sadtrombone] in plain text to imply the sound effect. Sad Trombone can connote a lot of different things. I will not attempt to unpack the nuances of it here, but trust me, it's a very fluid signifier. Did I just say "very fluid signifier"? Jeez, someone kick me in the balls, please.

Okay, so basically, Sad Trombone is a very quick way of conveying a potentially complicated emotion/feeling.

Let's talk about the genius of my tweet. FINALLY.

My idea for Sad Piano is not a web page linking to a three second sound bite, but to the entire First movement of Frédéric Chopin's Moonlight Sonata. It's a solemn, mid-tempo song, clocking in at around six minutes.

I love the idea that in the incredibly quick back-and-forth of online communication, a link to Sad Piano will ostensibly slooooow down one's movement in the online space while he or she is obliged to listen to the Chopin piece in its entirety.

Similarly, imagine seeing "[sadpiano]" at the end of someone's comment. The reader then must imagine the Chopin piece in real time before he or she can progress onto anything else.

This whole Sad Piano thing reminds of a joke Louis C.K. told in his recent stand-up concert film, Hilarious. He said he wished that people who make the "jerk-off" hand gesture are forced to continue it until they "finish". He then proceeded to demonstrate this.

Anyways, I probably didn't word my tweet well enough to convey all of the above. There was probably a better way of putting it. But I liked my idea and I had a very pleasant time overexplaining it to you.

So thank you!

P.S. The website SadPiano.com does not actually exist -- another potential reason why people did not recognize the tweet's genius.

Sad Piano :-(

Mother Jones, Your Ads Are Fucking With The Intent Of Your Articles

2011-01-28T09:25:00.004-06:00

Look, here's a Mother Jones article.
The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape

This article decries a proposed bill to limit instances when abortions are eligible for government funding. The rape must be "forcible". Instances of statutory rape would not be included. It seems like a pretty awful bill, and...what the?

Look, a scantily-clad underage model! Thanks, Mother Jones!

The Elevator Lobby Font Face Mystery

2011-01-26T22:04:00.004-06:00

This past October, I started working in one of those skyscraper buildings in downtown Chicago. As you might guess, there are ELEVATORS in this building. Elevators which I actually RIDE on.

Elevator Lobby

See the bands of blue above each elevator? That's where it indicates what floor the elevator serves.

If you closely scrutinize the top picture, you may notice the band above the furthest elevator to the left is white, not blue.

Let's take a closer look.

DEAR LORD!

What the?!! What happened? What is happening? What's going to happen?

Calm down. I'll explain. A month or so some work was done on that elevator. I have no idea what kind of work was done. What do I look like? Some working-on-an-elevator-expert kind of person?

The important thing is that after they were done with the elevator, it did not look like the others.

My guess is that this is what all the elevators looked like at some time. For the recent repairs, the workers probably had to remove the sleek blue, ultra-modern "4-16", revealing the previous incarnation of the sign.

The font face looks to be Art Deco. This is not really important to the story, but how pretty is this image search result for "art deco font" from Google?

So, Art Deco was a style originating in the 1920's. There's no way this backlit sign is from the 1920's, right? Hmm. According to its Wikipedia page, Art Deco had a revival in graphic design in the 1980's. AH HA. That sounds about right.

But wait! My building has a Wikipedia page, too! According to the page, it was built in 1990. Could this backlit Art Deco elevator lobby sign be from the building's original construction? Sure, why the hell not?

Should I be embarrassed by a building that used an Art Deco font face when everyone else was probably leaving it behind, along with their parachute pants, Duran Duran haircuts and Bret Easton Ellis novels?

I honestly don't know, but I will be embarrassed if you want me to be.

Short Posts

2011-01-25T11:39:00.002-06:00

"Using a blog post to convey info that could be easily done in a tweet implies your post is especially compelling & worthy of attention." -- Splotchy

(do not include the word "Splotchy" in your character count)

(asshole)

Bold

2011-01-25T11:19:00.001-06:00

"Without a sample of normal text for comparison, bold is not bold." -- Splotchy, 01/25/2010

The Social Kvetchwork

2011-01-19T22:28:00.005-06:00

This is not exactly a movie review, but it will be in parts. And parts of this post will be all over the fucking place.

I sat at home on the night of January 16th. I checked in on my Twitter feed. It seemed like everyone who I followed was tweeting about the Golden Globes (#GoldenGlobes!). They were making snarky observations. I got tired of all the ha-ha's, and turned on the TV, watched a little of the show.

I strongly disliked it. I might have even hated it. Of course I had to voice my displeasure on Twitter. I tweeted, "I don't like these people." I wasn't being funny, I was registering my unasked-for opinion like a good Internet denizen does.

I logged off and decided to go see The Social Network (TSN) at the LaGrange. And maybe I would write about the movie in one of my blog's long-abandoned regular features, Two-Buck Schmuck, where I watch films at a second-run theater and comment snarkily about them on my blog.

The irony of leaving a group of people being snotty about the entertainment industry online to go forth with the purpose of being snotty about the entertainment industry online was not lost on me.

The people I gravitate to on Twitter are funny people. I love to laugh. And the person who I am, the person who I used to express more regularly on this blog, is the person that writes on the @isplotchy account on Twitter.

I am also a member of Facebook. I'm on it. But I don't really care about it. Twitter and Facebook have decimated the blogosphere. I'm not sure which has had more of an effect -- probably Facebook. Many once-active blogs are now dormant. Perhaps their typists found whatever need they had to express themselves online satisfied by the Facebook. (NOTE: As I learned in TSN, Facebook used to be called The Facebook, which justifies my prior obnoxious use of the word "The" preceding it up to now, and into the foreseeable future).

I don't really care one way or the other about the disintegration of the blogosphere, I guess. My involvement in the blogosphere was waning already when everything started shaking up. I mean, I took a long break from my Splotchy.com days (1999) to the start of my blogging days (2007). I don't have a constant web presence, folks. Where we go, we go.

I guess you could say that the blogosphere has been revitalized somewhat with the explosion of Tumblr blogs, but I just fell asleep as you were saying that.

I thought about blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. as I watched the movie. I know it's impressive how fast and far The Facebook has spread, but, well….. MEHHHHHHHH. This MEH applies to The Facebook and not necessarily TSN. The Facebook has given lots of people a foothold to self-expression on the Internet, where they perhaps might not have had one before. The Facebook has brought people together, too, I suppose. I do not care about these people. Okay, they're okay. And I am friends with the drummer from the Feelies on The Facebook, which thrills me to this very day. But The Facebook is not to me what it might be to other people.

I liked doing the self-expression myself. And I like self-expression deriving from an amalgamation of my various writings, and hopefully you sometimes can get a sense of my "me-ness" from reading the things I write. And I like linking up with people who are sharing something very personal, interesting, which more times than not I have found in the blogosphere. I like reading good writing. And I connect with people whose writing touches me, reaches out to me, etc. I have felt connections to others on Twitter, I guess, but it's not quite as rich a connection, if that makes any sense.

You know what? I'm kind of self-involved and self-important on the Internet. It's true! I like having my own blog. MINE. It's mine alone. I remember being really pissed at something filmmaker/playwright Neil LaBute contributed to the blog Six Sentences. Here it is, it's short:

i stand all amazed

  it's astonishing how needy people are. i had no idea. it was a technical advancement like anything else -- the microwave or the radio. the blog was born and millions of gasping little voices appeared, spilling out of their journals and crying a chorus of 'me, me, me!' so many electronic hands reaching out. some collective 'i was here.'

I was pissed off when I read this back in 2007. But in some ways, I guess he was right. This blog *is* me saying, "I was here". On some level I probably realized there was some truth to that. I guess the issue I had with it was, why the fuck *can't* I say I was here? Why not?

The blog is a way of sharing my creativity, sense of humor, worries, thoughts, etc. How different is that from making a film, writing a book, a song, whatever? And what are other creative endeavors? Aren't they in some ways a way of saying "I was here."? Aren't you conveying your viewpoint of the world? Aren't you saying, hey everybody, have you thought about it this way, i.e. my way? You know what? Fuck Neil LaBute. I'm still mad at that douchebag.

Because I am operating under a rigid framework on Twitter and on Facebook, I feel like I am just renting space. Okay, this blog is technically running on someone else's website. OKAY. I WILL GRANT YOU THAT. But do you get how I can think of it as my space (MySpace!)?

But I digress. Or I digressed up until now. Okay, the movie. The review of the movie.

Actually before that, my car ride to the movie. I came to the lovely train tracks in my town, and counted 1, 2, 3 fucking freight trains moving hither and fro (there are a total of four tracks side by side). With only minutes to get to the movie theater, I said to myself, "Fuck that!", and followed another car who seemed to know where it was going.

Ah ha! I remembered, there was a way of going under the train tracks a half-mile west of where we were. So this car and me, its shadow, went zig-zagging towards the underpass. The car came to a one-way street that it could not turn down. This was the street that led to the underpass, but you had to take a circuitous route to get there. So the car turned left instead of right. And do you know what I did, dear readers? I TURNED RIGHT GOING THE WRONG WAY DOWN A ONE-WAY STREET. I didn't kill anyone or anything. Was this action-packed driving drama worth all that Facebook/Twitter/Blogging preamble you waded through? OF COURSE it was.

Onward!

The movie was okay. I got tired of Jesse Eisenberg and the Aaron Sorkin dialogue he was forced to spew. It was all like "wabbity wabbity wabbity wabbity" and "wibbity wibbity wibbity wibbity". Enough with the wibbity wabbities, Sorkin!

Lessee. Justin Timberlake was the Napster guy. Hey, Internet. Hey, everyone who has an opinion. I don't like Justin Timberlake. I don't care how talented you say he is. Fuck him and the boy band he rode in on. Okay, he was alright, I guess. But I don't like the fucking guy. I DON'T.

Ummmmmmmm.

A chunk of the movie takes place in the wintertime. They apparently shot some of the outside scenes when it wasn't wintertime and/or cold out, and in order to placate viewers who would expect to see the characters exhale visible breath, they CGI'ed the breath. THEY CGI'ed THE BREATH.

I'm done reviewing now.

LOVE,

SPLOTCHY

(and don't look for Splotchy on Facebook, he is not there)

Misheard Lyrics, Vol 9

2011-01-14T15:55:00.003-06:00

Neil Diamond - Cherry, Cherry

Actual Lyrics
Ain't got no right
No, no you don't
Ah, to be so exciting

What I Sing
Ain't got no right
No, no you don't
On a piece of *siding

* Aluminum

Overexplaining Underappreciated Tweets #4

2011-01-14T15:02:00.003-06:00

Twitter User:
@ysplotchy

Tweet:
@JennaStern Don't worry. It's this September you need to worry about. The Month For Procrastinating Terrorists.
(link to original tweet)

The above was a reply to this tweet by @JennaStern:
"1am on 1-11-11. <<holding breath>> ...okay. Didn't blow up. Cool."
(link to original tweet)

Overexplanation:
I don't want to complain about the underappreciation of this tweet, so much as explain where it was coming from.

Sometimes I will get good ideas. I will think they are very funny or interesting, but then I won't ever make them into anything. They don't come along all that often, but they do come along.

A few days prior to the tweet featured here I had a funny idea about 09/11. Not 09/11/2001, but the month of 09/2011. I imagined a story where a group of terrorists intended to plan another attack against the US, echoing the number symbolism of the attacks in 2001.

However, they were very lazy. They kept on putting things off, because, unlike 2001, they had a lot of time to actually execute the attack. They had a whole month! Who cares -- 09/01/2011, 09/30/2011, it would be 09/11 when it happened, dammit!

And so my idea of the procrastinating terrorists was born. We would see them at various points during the month of September where they would be doing ANYTHING but actually doing terrorist things... cleaning their fridge, going apple-picking, whatever.

So, that's the idea. The chance of me actually putting forth the effort to write or film it was very slim.

But then I saw Jenna's tweet. Ahh! I could just unleash my funny idea as a tweet. Did anyone realize what I was saying? Maybe not. I don't know, because I wrote it. It probably is a bit obscure.

I regretted it a bit after tweeting the reply to Jenna. She lives in Brooklyn, and I was making a 09/11 joke. Maybe she has family and friends that died back in 2001. I don't think I did any lasting damage. She knows I think very highly of her and all that stuff, and wouldn't say something intentionally hurtful.

Anyways, I'm not complaining at all. I just think the story behind this tweet is interesting and worth overexplaining.

Overexplaining Underappreciated Tweets #3

2011-01-14T14:41:00.003-06:00

Twitter User:
ysplotchy

Tweet:
What am I doing for NYE? I'll attempt to instill an interest in science in my children, I suppose.
(link to original tweet)

Overexplanation:
I wrote this on December 31st, sometime in the afternoon, I think.

As you probably know, my tweet used "NYE", a popular abbreviation of "New Year's Eve".

But wait! WAS I referring to New Year's Eve?!!!

If you thought so, this tweet probably made little sense to you. But if you were "on the ball" and not "fucking dull stupid" you realized from the remainder of the tweet that in actuality I was referring to this guy:

Yes, it's Bill Nye, the Science Guy!

It's okay. People were probably more focused on their NYE plans to get my Nye joke.

Maybe this tweet will be appreciated next year. But I am not counting on it.

Testing The Bounds of "Sweet Caroline" Singability

2011-01-10T23:30:00.007-06:00

Okay, so every time the Neil Diamond song "Sweet Caroline" is on, and Neil Diamond sings the words "Sweet Caroline", you pretty much *have* to sing along with the horns going "BUM! BUM! BUM!" It's a compulsion. I can't explain it.

I was wondering how slowing down the song would affect one's desire to sing along. Here are my findings.

(NOTE: The following are snippets of the song, not the entire song.)

Normal Speed - Completely Irresistible. Don't bother fighting it.

26% Slower Than Normal - Mostly Irresistible. Oddly stately, regal.

42% Slower Than Normal - Still Pretty Damned Irresistible. A stoner anthem.

57% Slower Than Normal - Not Very Irresistible. I think the pain meds are kicking in.

88% Slower Than Normal - Resistibility Accomplished. That being said, this is a very nice moody piece. And the horns have the gravitas of a tragic Shakespearean death.

Thanks for listening. BUM! BUM! BUM!

Start Making Interesting Zombie Movies, Or Stop Making Shitty Ones

2011-01-10T22:14:00.004-06:00

Enough with the zombies. They aren't interesting anymore. Dawn of the Dead came out in 1978. 1978! What other interesting zombie movies ARE THERE?!!

I don't really like any of the recent zombie movies/shows I have seen. 28 Days Later. Zombieland. The Walking Dead. Okay, so we see how people act under duress. Enough already. Who cares?

I haven't read the Jane Austen zombie book, but I am going to go out on a limb and say I hate it. Yeah, I hate something I haven't read! DEAL WITH IT!

I am going to give you 3 Zombie Story Ideas. They might have been used already, they might have not. I'm not checking.

1) Vegetarian Zombies

The dead walk the Earth! But they don't want to eat brains. They want grains, fruits, vegetables! They menace crops. They go after farmer's markets. They invade supermarkets.

Maybe they get violent in their attempt to procure these non-meats. They are aggressive.

How does the non-zombie world treat them?

2) Sex Zombies

Zombies don't want to eat your brains. They want to fuck your brains out. See, I just came up with the tagline. I did half the work for you.

The zombies are driven by their genitalia. To kill the zombie, you must destroy their junk. Ouch!

Depending on the zombies' sex and sexual orientation, they will be moaning after "Tiiiiiiiits" or "Coooooooooooooock" or, you get the idea.

3) Eat A Zombie To Stay Alive

Okay, the zombies are like regular zombies. They eat people, they can be killed by destroying the brain.

The world is overrun by zombies. They outnumber the living.

Scientists have discovered that when a human being ingests zombie flesh, they give off a scent which repels zombies. Well, the zombie doesn't want to eat the human, at least.

They have tried synthesizing the scent, coming up with a perfume, etc., but none of that works. The only thing works is eating zombie flesh.

Are there side effects to eating zombie flesh? I don't know, haven't thought of that yet. Perhaps some long-term effects that would be discovered in the course of the movie.

So, in this world zombie flesh is what's for dinner. It's a means of survival. How does this ripple out to society? There are chefs that attempt to make zombie flesh more palatable. Companies start marketing products. You get the idea.

I THOUGHT OF THESE THREE IDEAS IN AN AFTERNOON. COME UP WITH INTERESTING ZOMBIE MOVIES OR STOP MAKING ZOMBIE MOVIES.

P.S. I LOVED THE SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Who Killed Me?

2011-01-05T20:17:00.002-06:00

Adoption: Always An Option

2010-12-31T06:52:00.006-06:00

It seems like only yesterday in 2007 when I called on some kind soul of the Internet to adopt David Warner. Alas, none answered the call.

David Warner, circa 2009. Note the despair.

Yet, in the final hours of 2010, when all hope seemed to be lost, you stepped up and opened your heart and home! To be more accurate, Scott of the LATEANDSOON Group did! (The rest of you did nothing, honestly.)

Congrats, Scott and David!

Barry & The Setbacks: Episode 1

2010-12-24T10:01:00.000-06:00

Hi, a little present for you during this holiday season.

My friend Andy and I have started what we hope to be a series of webisodes around his old friend Barry.

We have come up with 10 or so ideas. Some of them have a basis in fact, some are completely made up.

Unlike my previous Streaking For The Shy movie, there wasn't a lot of time spent scouting locations, storyboarding, rehearsing with actors, etc.

We had the idea, shot the thing in an afternoon without a script, Andy edited most of it, I wrote and recorded the theme song, and BAM! Finished.

I hope you like it. Oh, I play the prospective home buyer.

Barry & The Setbacks: Episode 1

Overexplaining Underappreciated Tweets #2

2010-12-24T09:16:00.001-06:00

Twitter User:
ysplotchy

Tweet:
"Reap, those little slices of death; Oh how I loaf them." -- Edgar Allan Poe, Baker
(link to original tweet)

Overexplanation:
What went wrong here? I made Edgar Allan Poe a baker, and turned one of his most famous quotes into something a baker might say. How is that not funny?

Original quote: Sleep, those little slices of death; Oh how I loathe them.

Okay, okay, I think using "Reap" instead of "Sleep" was weak. Are there types of bread that rhyme with sleep? That would have been much, much better. I tried thinking of a better rhyme, but was unsuccessful. Reap was the best thing I could think of.

Still... I kept slices of death, and changed loathe to loaf. That was funny, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. It was indeed.

Overexplaining Underappreciated Tweets #1

2010-12-18T11:34:00.006-06:00

Twitter User:
ysplotchy

Tweet:
"Take me hunk, I'm drome!" -- Spister Moonerism Brand Novelty Tees
(link to original tweet)

Overexplanation:
Spister Moonerism is a character I invented and have been playing around with for a couple months. As you may notice, the name is a spoonerism of "Mister Spoonerism". I have had people chortle at the ingeniousness of the name itself (for good reason). That being said, I don't expect all of my Spister Moonerism tweets to be favorited simply because I made another reference to the name. That is not why this particular tweet is underappreciated.

The briliance of this tweet hinges on my reference to an existing novelty t-shirt:

The source of the humor for the above shirt is that the words "drunk" and "home" are transposed. I believe the implication is that the person is so drunk they are jumbling up their words.

I thought to myself, why not take that shirt, and then spoonerize it! Not only have I transposed the words like the joke, I have also transposed letters! I have doubly transposed the shirt, deflating the original t-shirt's humor in an original and fundamental way.

And note the added satisfaction of the word "drunk" becoming "hunk". Does this add a little undercurrent of playful homoeroticism to the tweet? Yes, I think it does.

This tweet was not favorited or retweeted. I think I have sufficiently outlined and overexplained the tragedy of this to you, dear reader.

Overexplaining Underappreciated Tweets

2010-12-18T10:56:00.005-06:00

Hey, you! Twitterer! Nee Borp Doobie Crutch! *

As you already know, Favstar is the metric by which the value of tweets is measured. On the site, one can easily identify the number of times a tweet has been celebrated. It can happen in two distinct ways.

1) Favorited - By favoriting a tweet, someone has literally given it a gold star, as if to say, good job, fellow Twitterer! A+!

2) Retweeted - When one is retweeted (aka RT) by someone, the original tweet appears as part of their feed. In this case what they are saying is, "Hey, look at what my smart and/or funny Twitter acquaintance has to say!"

Unfortunately, many tweets are not celebrated with the fervor they so richly deserve. Some terrible tweet by Justin Bieber gets vaulted to the highest echelons of Twitter accolades, while an immaculate, ingeniously-constructed joke languishes in the fetid basement of ignorance and misunderstanding.

You might visit Favstar in anticipation of witnessing the abundant praise lavished on one of your especially chuckleworthy tweets, but... it's not there! If it's absent, that means NO ONE has favorited it. NO ONE has retweeted it. The injustice!

I do not offer to correct this injustice. I am unable to do so, unless I buy Favstar and make it work like the world is supposed to work.

What I *can* do is provide a service. Have you felt one or more of your tweets was underappreciated? Did you feel that perhaps maybe your audience was a bit, for lack of a better word, dim, dull, incapable of seeing something FUCKING BRILLIANT?

Here's what you can do. In an email, provide me the underappreciated tweet, as well as a paragraph explaining the ingenuity of your tweet. Help us to appreciate this underappreciated tweet, my friend. You may contact me on the email address listed on my Blogger profile.

I will post your tweet and explanation on this blog, so everyone will realize what a mistake they made in not recognizing your genius. Better late than never, right?

So, are you with me? Let's not be underappreciated... Let's overexplain... TOGETHER!

* Standard informal Twitter greeting

Aa

2010-12-17T15:33:00.000-06:00

Bb
Cc
Dd
Ee
Ff
Gg Hh Ii Jj
Kk Ll Mm

nN oO pP
qQ rR sS tT
uU
vV
wW
xX
yY

Barry & The Setbacks

2010-12-16T23:33:00.004-06:00

Hiya!

I'm working on a series of webisodes with my friend Andy. We're calling it Barry & The Setbacks. We have the first one almost done. We need to get the very last shot, and we need a theme song along with a nice little opening credits sequence.

I worked a few hours on the theme song tonight. I'm not sure if we're sticking with this or not, but it's a start. I like it enough that I'd thought I'd upload it for your amusement and/or withering-yet-somehow-supportive criticism.

The track is a little under a minute long, because it's just going to be supporting the opening credits and such. I intended it to have a little maudlin, cheesy feel to it. Really, I meant to do that!

I have a verse or two for the song that I didn't include on this version, so I might record a longer rendition of the song, probably a more straightforward pop kind of thing.

And yes, that's me singing on the track, after I ran it through the "Helium Breath" filter on GarageBand.

Enjoy! (Or Don't!)

Barry & The Setbacks

Closed-Eye Scribble #3

2010-12-16T15:56:00.000-06:00

Closed-Eye Scribble #2

2010-12-16T12:38:00.001-06:00

Closed-Eye Scribble #1

2010-12-16T10:57:00.005-06:00

Hi,

Here's something I just thought of. The closed-eye scribble. I like it.

STEPS:

1) Open MS Paint
2) Select the Paintbrush
3) Select circular brushstroke

STEPS: (continued)

4) Close eyes
5) Count to 30 seconds, while moving the mouse, left button depressed
6) Open eyes, save scribble

The default canvas size when opening MS Paint takes up less than 25% of the screen. So, most of my scribbling won't actually be recorded at all. This makes the creation of each scribble very random and enjoyable and wonderful.

FIRST CLOSED-EYE SCRIBBLE

David Patrick Kelly Has A Website

2010-12-16T08:49:00.005-06:00

Cloud Smokestack Vapor Trail

2010-12-15T08:45:00.000-06:00

Pulse

2010-12-14T20:00:00.005-06:00

I want to write again. I don't know if I have the momentum.

I dearly love people I have met on Twitter, and that's what occupies most of any "creative"-type time I spend online.

But all that stuff funnels straight down the garbage chute. I thought blogs were ephemeral, but Twitter is ephemeral on ephemeroids.

And, believe it or not, I *do* get tired of desperately trying to please people, something I inevitably fall into when tweeting. Okay, I don't get tired so much as wearied by it. (P.S. LOVE ME. LOVE MEEEEEEEEEE!) I get my feelings hurt more than I care to admit. Hm. Okay, I just admitted it. Okay, so now, I get my feelings hurt as much as I care to admit. Exactly equivalent to that.

This blog has always been nice for me. And it's still here, even though I rarely tend to it. It's a robot pet that just needs its batteries swapped when I want to play.

Here, another metaphor. My blog is an island. It's mine. You can comment on my island, but I can shoot your comment with a fucking gun. There, I just killed your fucking comment. How does it feel, comment-leaver? Oh, I wouldn't do that. But I like having SPACE here, on the Interwebs. I even like having a little CONTROL.

On Twitter I'm just an account name and an avatar. My personality does percolate through, but I'm a dot bouncing around in something larger, anonymous and potentially unfriendly.

Hey, I *like* typing things that are longer than 140 characters. I like the idea of wasting page real estate.

Look!

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

boggedy boggedy boggedy boggedy boggedy boggedy!

That felt good. So good.

I like existing in space and time. I like leaving a trail. I like blogging.

There's nothing expected of me here, I know. I could post this and never say another word. But that's so sad. I want to have a pulse at this blog.

What am I gonna write about? I don't know. Maybe I'll make up a robot sister. Maybe I'll write about my goddamned feelings. But I'd like to have a pulse, to not be confused with something dead.

beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep, etc.

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-12-14T19:55:00.001-06:00

Ski Pants

Jellyfish

Grazle Parny

2010-12-14T09:38:00.001-06:00

It's my blog.

If I want to create a post called Grazle Parny, I'm going to.

Two Months!

2010-10-15T15:39:00.003-05:00

I have been away a long time! Holy moley.

I don't know that I will regularly post again, but I logged onto Blogger just now and saw a sprinkling of very nice comments on my blog (I set Moderation on old posts after constantly having to clean-up after hineseCay pammersSay).

I love you all. You're good eggs. Much, much, much, much love.

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-08-10T12:58:00.000-05:00

Wickets

Eye

The Turtle Comforts A Grieving Widow

2010-08-08T11:14:00.001-05:00

(click for bigger)

I'm Tired

2010-08-05T13:05:00.002-05:00

I'm tired.

I'm tired of being human. I'm tired of being humiliated, disregarded, frustrated.

I'm tired.

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-08-03T13:04:00.000-05:00

Icon

Ambulance

Laundry

2010-07-31T21:27:00.000-05:00

Funerals

2010-07-30T16:06:00.001-05:00

Sidewalks

2010-07-29T10:50:00.000-05:00

People Riding Trains

2010-07-28T10:08:00.003-05:00

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-07-27T15:38:00.001-05:00

Wallpaper

Action Figures

Pretty Bug

2010-07-26T22:10:00.004-05:00

I went over to my neighbor's house to ask them a question and saw this beautiful bug on their screen door.

Sorry for not including something for scale -- it was about an inch long.

What is it?

UPDATE:

I posted this question to Twitter and quickly got an answer: it's an Ailanthus-Webworm-Moth. Thanks, @amanjo!

You're Not Gonna Die

2010-07-26T08:40:00.003-05:00

The commuter train I ride to work has two levels. In the morning I generally ride on the lower level.

A woman in her early 50's sat next to me today. She is often in the same car as me. Generally she sits up one seat with some friends of hers, where two sets of seats face each other, but her particular spot happened to be already taken.

Still, she was gabbing with her friends on the ride in, if a little more awkwardly. I had started the book Devil In The White City that morning, but got tired of reading, put away my book and just stared at nothing particular.

I was startled by a loud noise. A travel mug from the top section of the train had crashed to the floor next to our seat. As it made contact with the floor, coffee erupted out of it, spraying the woman next to me, and to a lesser extent some other women sitting nearby.

The rest of the ride was tense. Well, not for me -- for the women involved. The owner of the travel mug was a woman around the same age as my seat buddy. The mug was handed up to her.

My seat buddy began wiping a napkin over her bleached blond hair repeatedly. She kept on saying, "It fell on my head." It seemed like she was implying the mug fell on her head, which wasn't the case. I don't doubt that some coffee got in her hair, on her clothes, etc. I couldn't see the degree of coffee damage done from my vantage point, but I imagine it was significant.

She wasn't incredibly loud or obnoxious about it, but my seat buddy continued to talk about the coffee on her person. My eavesdropping isn't so good, but I *think* she was talking about how coffee can ruin platinum. Also, she kept on glaring up at the coffee dropper as she was talking.

The coffee dropper, apparently tired of hearing about the droppee's complaints, leaned down and said, "You're not gonna die."

This was fuel to the fire of my seat buddy. She repeated the coffee dropper's words to her friends. This drew the coffee dropper back to speak again to my seat buddy. My seat buddy said, "You didn't even say 'sorry'. You said, 'You're not gonna die.'".

The coffee dropper insisted she *had* said sorry already. I didn't hear the coffee dropper actually say sorry, but I don't see how she couldn't have.

My seat buddy recounted the entire story to the conductor as he handed her the napkins, including the "You're not gonna die" exchange. As she spoke to him he repeatedly told her to not worry about the floor (she must have been looking down at it intently, I guess) -- either it would take care of itself, or he would have it cleaned up.

The conductor looked up and asked, "Was that your coffee?" The coffee dropper said, "Yes." "Try to be more careful," he replied. Then my seat buddy informed the conductor that after the accident the coffee dropper had returned her mug to the *same* location it had been when it had fallen down in the first place.

The conductor said that if my seat buddy had any cleaning bills for her coffee-stained clothes, please let him know about it.

I don't know if the coffee dropper removed her mug from the place where it had previously fallen from, but the mug did not fall again.

My seat buddy continued to glare at her.

Finally, we pulled into Union Station. The coffee dropper slipped out of the train well before my seat buddy and I were able to exit. I presume no fight ensued.

sixty second doodle

2010-07-25T21:11:00.003-05:00

first commenter with a doodle idea gets that idea doodled.

UPDATE:

For Roses:
a splotchy headhunter

I opted for corporate over cannibalistic

The Dad Flourish

2010-07-24T18:23:00.005-05:00

There is such a thing as The Dad Flourish.

The Dad Flourish is important. The Dad Flourish is something that doesn't necessarily make sense. You could define it as a slightly irrational display of paternal fun and affection.

It can be anything. It can be an object, an impromptu road trip, a weird game made up as you go.

The Dad Flourish is very important, for both the kids and the dad.

I personally witnessed a Dad Flourish when I was a kid. We had two cars when I was growing up. For a while, my dad drove a light blue El Camino pickup. For some reason, he had "Riseman & Sons" painted on the side. My dad worked for the state of Illinois. He did not have a side business, and being 12 and 5, my older brother and I did not work for this non-existent side business.

I don't think he painted it himself. It was kind of fancy, cursive handwriting. There might have even been a dropshadow. So my dad paid someone to paint a non-existent business sign (referencing his sons!) on the driver side door of his El Camino.

CLASSIC DAD FLOURISH.

I have a great time with my kids. I have danced with them on many occasions. But, despite that being well and good, that's not really a Dad Flourish.

So, here is one thing I know for sure *is* one.

There is a Rec Center in the neighboring town. They have an indoor playground I sometimes take the kids to. They also have a gym. It consists of three full-sized courts right next to each other. It's big, and usually pretty empty.

I like shooting baskets, but the kids aren't yet strong enough to shoot baskets at the full height of the hoops. Probably as a result of this, they don't really like playing with the basketballs too much.

So, I got this idea in my head. I take quarters and give them to the kids to throw and chase after. Often I will whip quarters too. If you throw it right you can get a good roll going, making a giant circle on the floor (these are throws close to the ground, not big airborne ones).

We haven't been asked to stop yet, but as I mentioned before, the gym is usually pretty empty, and, ummmmm, I... keep an eye out for the "authorities". This whole quarter-throwing business is slightly irresponsible, stupid and wonderful.

Dad Flourish. :)

Yes, You Get A Blog Post, Too, Dad!

2010-07-24T16:52:00.002-05:00

No need to thank me! Enjoy!

This Blog Post Goes Out To My Mom

2010-07-23T12:54:00.001-05:00

Enjoy, Mom!

12 Pictures Of Bret Michaels Looking At You

2010-07-22T15:01:00.004-05:00

What's That Crazy Donkey Up To?

2010-07-21T11:10:00.000-05:00

Dead Mice

2010-07-21T09:51:00.005-05:00

I am cleaning out the garage.

I took an old plastic Christmas tree spilling out of its box and put it on the floor in the center.

I took a half-constructed cabinet, that never got fully-constructed because it was missing some parts, and laid it down in the center.

I took boxes of old broken kitchen appliances and placed them in the center.

I took a rickety, dirty toddler saucer and put it in the center.

Some water-damaged ceiling tiles. A lawn bag of old yard waste whose bottom fell out when I picked it up. Soiled cardboard.

Tomorrow is garbage day.

On Monday and today I have gone to the garage to get my bike, to ride to the train I take to work.

Monday, outside the garage's side door, I found a dead mouse. I kicked it aside into some weeds near the garage.

This morning, I saw another mouse. I assume it's a different mouse, and not the same mouse moved by the ants that were crawling all over it on Monday.

I kicked this second mouse (or first mouse that resumed its former position) where I kicked the other/same mouse before.

Tonight, I take heavy-duty garbage bags and waste stickers, collect the garbage from the center of the garage and dump it all to the back alley.

I'll wear gloves. I'll look for dead mice.

Here, a movie Stan Brakhage made about his dog's corpse decaying.

Part 1

Part 2

Adopted Actor David Patrick Kelly In Louie!

2010-07-20T23:42:00.006-05:00

If you haven't seen Louis CK's new show, Louie, on FX, you really should. It's a very nice, human show. It's funny, but is also grounded in a very real emotional place. I have seen other people describe it better than I on the Internet, so that's all you'll get from me. Don't try to wheedle any more out of me. I'll cut ya!

Anyways, I was watching Louie last week, and in that particular episode he uses some framing scenes with a low-key but slightly disturbing therapist. You never get a close shot of the guy, but it looked kind of like David Patrick Kelly. Well, it looked a little tall for DPK, but it looked like him. A tall version of him. Of DPK. Okay, onward.

I checked the credits and didn't see DPK's name, so I figured it wasn't him. I watched the show again, and decided, well, to be sure, better check out the IMDB, the font of all verified and truthful knowledge about movies and television. Sure enough, it *was* DPK playing the therapist. Hurray! I was very happy it was him.

About five minutes ago, I found this interview with Louis CK where he talks about DPK.

Interviewer: First a little quick thing. I want to make sure that that was David Patrick Kelly playing the shrink, but that's not my real question. My real question is, looking at the pilot and then the first episode that follows it, there's quite a bit of a difference between them that I kind of want to see, what evolved between the making of the pilot and that first episode? Which, they're all fantastic. I mean, as somebody who has seen you live many, many times, it was amazing to see that captured, both the live stuff and then just your personality that comes through a lot of your work. What evolution took place between the pilot and then that first episode?

Louis C.K.: It's a good question. First of all, it is David Patrick Kelly, who I love from Warriors and 48 Hours and Dreamscape. He's an actor I always connected with. We did an audition for that therapist part and a lot of people did a really corny, kind of beard stroking Freudian therapists, and he just did this really wild, really freaky character and it made me laugh the instant I saw the audition, so he came in. We only had one scene planned for the therapist, and as we started shooting it, he was just so funny I started throwing things at him, saying, "Try saying this," and he would do it and it was perfect. So I think we have about eight therapist segments. I'm not done editing all the shows yet so I don't know if I'm going to use them all in this season. I think we've used about four.

Interviewer: It was a huge victory seeing him.

Louis C.K.: He's so great. He's another example. There's actors that you love, that you've seen in great movies, and they're just living in New York City, and they're so happy to work. And it's so much a better process to just call New York actors and pay them just a ... check to come in and really work hard for a day.

The full interview

Watch Louie on Hulu (DPK's episode is #4 -- should be uploaded some time within the week)

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-07-20T09:35:00.001-05:00

Waterfall

Blog

This Blog Got 200,000 Hits About I-Don't-Give-A-Shit-How-Long Ago

2010-07-19T23:13:00.005-05:00

So, this blog got 200,000 hits at some point.

It's at around 201,000 now. I'd do a screenshot of my Sitecounter, but who really gives a goddamn?

I used to look at my stats a lot. Now, not so much.

These days I mostly get hits from people doing image searches, usually finding something on one of my Unconnected Tuesdays posts. Visits generally don't last long. Oh, except for the Googlebot. Always with the fucking Googlebot.

I'm past fretting about hits, comparing the hits of one month to the previous month, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

No, I haven't become serene and calm, free of attachments.

Now I wonder when the hell Rosanne Cash is going to realize how awesome I am and start following me on the Twitter.

Priorities...

Webcams As Cameras, Webcams As Mirrors

2010-07-19T22:41:00.003-05:00

So, do the majority of webcams display an image of you as if you are having your picture taken, or do they show you as if you are looking in the mirror?

I have seen people use webcam pics on their websites, as their avatar, etc. Often times when there's writing in the picture, it's horizontally flipped. This ANNOYS me.

Despite my annoyance, I'm genuinely unqualified to make a judgment regarding what looks "right" and "wrong". What's more natural? To see one's self as a camera does, or as in a mirror?

Let's throw out the obvious flipped nature of mirrored text. What is more natural to you? If you spend a fair amount of time talking to others via your webcam, wouldn't the webcam-as-camera be more natural to them? Do they care either way?

Is a mirrored webcam a tool of the ego? Am I crazy?

This beat-up old Dell laptop I am using has a checkbox by which you can choose to flip the webcam image horizontally. I think it defaults to *not* flipping the image, but I'm not entirely sure. That's what it was when I first went into its settings.

I have no doubt that most webcams give you control over the mirror/camera nature of the picture.

From what I have seen, Mac laptops display a mirror image by default. Are Mac users more narcissitic? OF COURSE. THEY ARE MAC USERS.

Splotchy learns something in the midst of making this post

I was looking at myself in the webcam and moving around a bit. The webcam was set as a camera, not a mirror. When I went left, my image went right. I went right, my image went left. It was disconcerting! Okay, I can see why people might want to have the webcam be a mirror image. When they are obsessively looking into their own eyes, preening, making kissy-faces, it can be helpful to see the image move the same direction.

Now what you've been waiting for, but didn't know it - a terrible camera filter

I have played around with the preset webcam filters on a Mac laptop. It has some nice effects (stretchy stuff, sepia, comic book, etc.).

When I was playing around with the webcam for this post, I noticed this Dell laptop *also* has some "nice" effects. I would be remiss if I didn't at least give you one sample. It's called "ArtyFarty" under the "Fashionista" category. YES, REALLY.

Note, the playing card isn't part of the filter -- that's me. The sneer is all me. But the beret, luxurious hair and sexy glasses? Filter. ALL filter.

Happy birthday, Internet!

Name That Face: Round 4 Prizes

2010-07-19T11:13:00.000-05:00

UPDATE:
***********************************

@glitterlips24k gets the Fellini book!
@pie_maker gets the Batman mug!
@bondfool gets the Corn Butterers!
@wolfsothern gets the Super 8 movies!
@ladyjerky gets the Police Academy cardgame!

Thanks to everyone who played. You can pick up your participation award(s) here.

***********************************

With another round of Name That Face comes another round of prizes. The current round is scheduled to end on Friday, July 16th, at which time the five highest point-earners will be awarded prizes.

The highest point-earner gets to choose a prize out of the five available. The next highest point-winner will choose from the four remaining prizes, etc. until the 5th place winner has to take the last remaining prize.

Here are the prizes for Round 4, in no particular order.

Fellini's Faces, a collection of faces from the photo archives of Federico Fellini!

A wicked Batman coffee mug!

Do you miss the shenanigans of the Policy Academy animated series? Well, here they are again, in playing card form! I am not sure if they're normal playing cards, or are they are a card game all their own. Oh, I almost forgot. The cards are probably in Spanish.

Exciting and potentially lurid exploitative romps on two pulse-pounding reels of vivid Super-8 film!

Just what every house needs -- a Corn Butterer! (Set of 4!)

Thanks a lot for playing.

XOXOXO
Splotchy

Abandoned Things

2010-07-19T10:14:00.006-05:00

I love things that have been forgotten or disregarded. Hooker motels, for example.

Why do I like them? Because they are old? Because they are fragile? Because no one loves them? A little bit of all that, I suppose.

This blog is now somewhat abandoned. My original website is *woefully* abandoned. I abandoned them both. It was me that did this, and no one else.

I am on Facebook, but only in a very vague and superficial way. I post a stupid status update, and link to a song, mostly on M-F.

These days my online presence is mostly on Twitter.

Twitter is insidious. My naked need for being liked/accepted/validated has never been stronger than it is on Twitter. People "follow" you. Or once following you they decide to "unfollow" you. Several people have unfollowed me and it has really hurt my feelings. Many more have unfollowed me than these few, but you'll be relieved to know not *every* unfollow is like a cold knife through my psyche.

I think the limitation of 140 chars per tweet actually might be having a negative effect on my thought processes. I don't know what kind of effect, but it seems unnatural having to reduce thoughts to a limited number of characters. Unnatural and stupid.

I was going to try and stop using Twitter for 30 days, while I am blogging. I haven't stopped yet. I might not, I don't know. We'll see. But I will blog more.

Here I think in paragraphs, not just single bursts of long sentences. Here I can write. Here I can revise, even after I publish.

So, I am going to try and love this abandoned blog, at least for a little bit. I love you, abandoned blog. I love you.

30 Days Of Blogging

2010-07-19T09:34:00.005-05:00

Fellow blogger Chris is doing rundown of all the people on his blogroll. It was inspired in part by the decline Chris saw in posting/participation/etc. in the blogosphere (for example, I am probably the first person in six months who has typed the word "blogosphere".)

Chris says a side benefit of his blogroll retrospective is that it might draw some bloggers out of seclusion. Well, I have been weakly blogging for a looong time, but I am using Chris' listing of my blog as a motivator to get me to blog *something* for each of the next 30 days.

Thanks, Chris, for the kick in the pants.

Humor From The Twitter

2010-07-16T13:36:00.004-05:00

Last week, I was having a conversation with some people on the Twitter as I have been known to do.

The Twilight Zone came up. For some reason, I got an idea in my head that it would be funny to accentuate the twist one often finds at the end of an episode with a sad trombone sound effect.

Shortly after, one of my Twitter pals (@unsupervised) made up this delightful video.

In the same conversation, another person said "Yakety Sax" (aka the Benny Hill show theme song) would be a nice addition to to the ending of another Twilight Zone episode, for which @unsupervised immediately created the following clip.

Thanks, Twitter! Thanks, @unsupervised!

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-07-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

Wind Turbine

Flannel Shirt

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-07-06T11:18:00.001-05:00

Pimple

Fire Truck

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-06-29T23:11:00.001-05:00

Valley

Baseball

Name That Face, Round 4: Return Of The Silver Surfer

2010-06-29T12:31:00.019-05:00

Round 4 of Name That Face is underway!

Your goal is to be the first to identify the face in the photo. Sometimes there will be bonus points given for additional information.

To play this game, just start following Name That Face on the Twitter (you'll of course have to get a Twitter account).

I'll keep a running tally of everyone's scores, and store it on this post.

Here is the first picture of Round 4:

I am giving an extra point if you tell me what movie this still is from.

Remember, don't name the face here. Name it in a reply to my NameThatFace account on the Twitter.

ROUND 4 HAS ENDED!

FINAL TALLY:
@glitterlips24k - 77 points
@pie_maker - 56 points
@bondfool - 32 points
@wolfsothern - 27 points
@ladyjerky - 23 points
@Janie16 - 19 points
@ReelQuinn - 18 points
@SnapTheJap - 18 points
@glands - 16 points
@Nyen_van_Toc - 16 points
@stevesaragossi - 8 points
@WadeThatFace - 4 points
@BrandonMLytle - 3 points
@ranielle - 3 points
@AndeeD - 2 points
@Goose - 1 point
@johndstearns - 1 point
@amanjo - 1 point
@ajonathancox - 1 point
@pickleops - 1 point
@msbetsymorgan - 1 point

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-06-22T09:14:00.001-05:00

Faultline

Ice Cream

The Water Bottle Story

2010-06-21T13:27:00.006-05:00

I was out for a walk last night. It was around 10pm, clear skies, reasonably cool.

I got to the train tracks in the middle of town. I planned to cross the tracks, then continue on for about a two mile walk in a roundabout way back to my house.

A freight train was going by. A man and a woman were on the sidewalk, sitting on their bicycles, also waiting. The man took a final swig from his bottled water. He set it down on the ground next to his foot.

"Is he going to leave the bottle?" I thought. I didn't see a backpack on him, or a saddlebag on his bike, but he must have had the bottle with him, carrying it around. It would have been heavier before he emptied it of liquid, so I knew he was capable of taking an empty bottle.

Maybe he would stoop down to pick it up before he rode off. I looked at the graffiti on the passing freight cars. Nothing too amazing, a few bubble-letter tags, not even that colorful.

The freight train finally went by and the gates went up. The cyclist put his feet on the pedals, and rode across the tracks. The empty water bottle fell down as he brushed against it. He and the woman turned a corner and were gone.

So now, it's me and the empty water bottle. What should I do? I picked it up. There was a garbage can by the train station. Maybe there was also a recycling can? I reached the train station and saw there was only a garbage can.

I couldn't put it in the garbage. It should be recycled! So, I placed it on top of the garbage can. I started back on my walk.

What did I just do? How was I any better than the littering cyclist? I was leaving this bottle as someone else's problem. Would people realize that by putting the bottle on the garbage can, I was saying to them, "Look. I know this shouldn't go in the garbage. But I'm done with it. I would put the bottle in a recycling can if I could, but none were available. Please understand I tried my best."

Noticed that I thought "But I'm done with it." I have a relationship with the bottle. I never used it. It never helped me carry anything, or quenched my thirst. But now it is mine. I'm responsible for it.

I walked away from the garbage can and the bottle. I thought about the bottle. It probably wouldn't stay on the can. It would get blown off with the slightest breeze. And then what would people think? "Stupid litterer, throwing his trash all over the ground." That wasn't me. It wasn't. But I kept on walking.

I crossed the tracks, another street, and came to a corner. There was a garbage can there. Improbably, there was also a recycling can. This was right outside a bar. Perhaps that's why it was there. I stopped. I thought for a few seconds.

I turned back, crossed the street, crossed the tracks, went back and got the bottle, which still stood where I had placed it. I crossed the tracks again, crossed the street and threw the bottle in the recycling can.

"That's done", I thought. But what if this bottle doesn't actually make it to a recycling center? What if it lazily gets tossed in with unrecyclable garbage? What if it's dropped in a landfill?

I don't know. I hope the bottle gets to where it needs to be. That's all I can do.

THE END

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-06-15T08:31:00.000-05:00

Radar Antenna

Snaps

Is One Of Those Kids Yours?

2010-06-14T10:58:00.006-05:00

We're watching a little puppet show at Andersonville's annual street festival yesterday.

I give my kids the few singles I have in my wallet to give to the little cat puppets, who entertainingly take the money and parade around.

A small crowd of kids is laughing right under the puppet show stage, jumping and having a good time.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, a man I don't know. "Is one of those kids yours?" he asks.

He hands me a dollar bill. I give the dollar to my youngest son, who knocks on a tiny door below the main stage. A scarlet macaw pops out and takes the bill from him.

He's In My Emails

2010-06-14T10:54:00.003-05:00

Sitting at a McDonald's PlayPlace. A woman ignores her happily running and screaming two children (ages 8-11 or so), focusing intently on her pink, beglittered Blackberry.

I get my kids to go, come back to throw away some trash.

The woman is standing, talking on the phone now.

"He's gotten into all my email accounts. He's in my emails."

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-06-08T19:48:00.000-05:00

Battle

Twig

Splotchy's Contribution To The Food & Drink Mix

2010-06-07T15:05:00.003-05:00

Here's a discussion of my selections for Food & Drink, Volume 20 of the Green Monkey Music Project.

Bucket of Grease - Les McCann
Okay, so I start out with a song that is stretching the mix's theme, I know (unless you routinely sit down and ingest a large container of grease). In my defense, look at the album cover. They are standing in front of a fast food joint. So, "Bucket of Grease" CLEARLY refers to food, yes? I think the album cover pic might be of a place on Maxwell Street in Chicago. I think I might have eaten there, actually. This song has a great start -- a 1-2-3-4 count-off that leads into a killer piano riff. It's a great way to start a mix.

Lady Marmalade - Labelle
You might be more familiar with this song as "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)". A great, funky song. It holds up after repeated listenings.

Hold All The Butter - The Bats
A nice, cheery song from the New Zealand band The Bats. Maybe a little too cheery. DEAL WITH IT.

Have A Cuppa Tea - Kinks
A nice little slice of homespun British pop. From the record Muswell Hillbillies.

You Left The Water Running - Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett is awesome. He has one of the best voices ever.

Hooch - The Melvins
Not sure if this works in the mix. It might be too jarring a transition from Wilson Pickett. I had thought about replacing the previous song with "Tropical Hot Dog Night" by Captain Beefheart, but... I didn't. I have no idea what this song is supposed to be about. I don't think I am supposed to know.

Champagne and Misery - The Clean
Some more New Zealand pop, this time from one of my favorite bands, The Clean. The word "Misery" is in the song title, so I hope it reduces some of the cheeriness of "Hold All The Butter" for you, Dr. Gloomypants.

Potato Chips - Slim Gaillard
I first became aware of Slim Gaillard through Jack Kerouac's book On The Road. His music has a nice, playful silliness. And he loves potato chips!

Presenting The Food & Drink Mix!

2010-06-06T11:14:00.010-05:00

Volume 20 of the Green Monkey Music Project is completed and available for download!

If the participants of this mix want to discuss their own selections, please feel free to do so! I'll put a pointer on this post if you end up posting about it on your own blog (or you could always just add comments here, I suppose).

============================
FOOD & DRINK
============================

Rules and Theme Details

The Participants Discuss Their Selections:
Nelson!
Andy!
Dena!
Zippy! (see Monty49 comment below)
Splotchy!

The Songs:
All of Splotchy's songs!
All of Nelson's songs!
All of Flannery's songs!
All of EBlair's songs!
All of Dena's songs!
All of Zippy's songs!
All of Andy's songs!

Track Listing
01 - Bucket of Grease - Les McCann [splotchy]
02 - Lady Marmalade - Labelle [splotchy]
03 - Hold All The Butter - The Bats [splotchy]
04 - Have A Cuppa Tea - Kinks [splotchy]
05 - You Left The Water Running - Wilson Pickett [splotchy]
06 - Hooch - The Melvins [splotchy]
07 - Champagne and Misery - The Clean [splotchy]
08 - Potato Chips - Slim Gaillard [splotchy]
09 - Salty Candy - Adam Green [nelson]
10 - Gold for Bread - Blitzen Trapper [nelson]
11 - Mint Car - The Cure [nelson]
12 - One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer - George Thorogood [nelson]
13 - Jesus and Tequila - Minutemen [nelson]
14 - Beer - Reel Big Fish [nelson]
15 - Mince Meat - Dangerdoom [nelson]
16 - Nugget - Cake [nelson]
17 - Coffee and T.V. - Blur [eblair]
18 - Ice Cream Man - Tom Waits [eblair]
19 - Glass Onion - The Beatles [eblair]
20 - Underneath the Bottle - Lou Reed [eblair]
21 - Slow Like Honey - Fiona Apple [eblair]
22 - Pigs on the Wing (Part One) - Pink Floyd [eblair]
23 - Fuckin With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock) - Beck [eblair]
24 - Fruit Tree - Nick Drake [eblair]
25 - Cherry Pie - Warrant [flannery]
26 - Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine - Tom T. Hall [flannery]
27 - Boat Drinks - Jimmy Buffett [flannery]
28 - Orange Crush - REM [flannery]
29 - I Love Rocky Road - Weird Al Yankovic [flannery]
30 - A Taste of Honey - The Beatles [flannery]
31 - Hot Potato - The Wiggles [flannery]
32 - Heinz Baked Beans - The Who [dena]
33 - Party in My Tummy - Yo Gabba Gabba [dena]
34 - Brown Mushrooms - Shonen Knife [dena]
35 - Butterbean - The B-52s [dena]
36 - White Lightning - George Jones [dena]
37 - Mars Bars - The Undertones [dena]
38 - Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright [dena]
39 - Orange Juice Blues - The Band [zippy]
40 - Orange Appled - Cocteau Twins [zippy]
41 - Hot Cake - The Fall [zippy]
42 - Candy and a Currant Bun - Pink Floyd [zippy]
43 - Cheap Wine - Rain Parade [zippy]
44 - Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab [zippy]
45 - Eggs and Sausage (in a Cadillac with Susan Michelson) - Tom Waits [zippy]
46 - Orange Song - Yo La Tengo [zippy]
47 - Hot Chocolate Boy - Beat Happening [andy]
48 - Red Vines - Aimee Mann [andy]
49 - Cheese & Onions - The Rutles [andy]
50 - Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles [andy]
51 - Sprout and the Bean - Joanna Newsom [andy]
52 - Apples in the Trees - Mirah [andy]
53 - Ginger Snaps - Dean & Britta [andy]
54 - The Man Who Loved Beer - Lambchop [andy]

Unconnected Tuesdays

2010-06-01T20:39:00.001-05:00

Paisley

Serf

Green Monkey Mix: Food & Drink Track Listing

2010-05-26T13:45:00.003-05:00

I have a few people that I am waiting on selections from. I'll add them when I receive them.

01 - Bucket of Grease - Les McCann [splotchy]
02 - Lady Marmalade - Labelle [splotchy]
03 - Hold All The Butter - The Bats [splotchy]
04 - Have A Cuppa Tea - Kinks [splotchy]
05 - You Left The Water Running - Wilson Pickett [splotchy]
06 - Hooch - The Melvins [splotchy]
07 - Champagne and Misery - The Clean [splotchy]
08 - Potato Chips - Slim Gaillard [splotchy]
09 - Salty Candy - Adam Green [nelson]
10 - Gold for Bread - Blitzen Trapper [nelson]
11 - Mint Car - The Cure [nelson]
12 - One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer - George Thorogood [nelson]
13 - Jesus and Tequila - Minutemen [nelson]
14 - Beer - Reel Big Fish [nelson]
15 - Mince Meat - Dangerdoom [nelson]
16 - Nugget - Cake [nelson]
17 - Coffee and T.V. - Blur [eblair]
18 - Ice Cream Man - Tom Waits [eblair]
19 - Glass Onion - The Beatles [eblair]
20 - Underneath the Bottle - Lou Reed [eblair]
21 - Slow Like Honey - Fiona Apple [eblair]
22 - Pigs on the Wing (Part One) - Pink Floyd [eblair]
23 - Fuckin With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock) - Beck [eblair]
24 - Fruit Tree - Nick Drake [eblair]
25 - Cherry Pie - Warrant [flannery]
26 - Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine - Tom T. Hall [flannery]
27 - Boat Drinks - Jimmy Buffett [flannery]
28 - Orange Crush - REM [flannery]
29 - I Love Rocky Road - Weird Al Yankovic [flannery]
30 - A Taste of Honey - The Beatles [flannery]
31 - Hot Potato - The Wiggles [flannery]
32 - Heinz Baked Beans - The Who [dena]
33 - Party in My Tummy - Yo Gabba Gabba [dena]
34 - Brown Mushrooms - Shonen Knife [dena]
35 - Butterbean - The B-52s [dena]
36 - White Lightning - George Jones [dena]
37 - Mars Bars - The Undertones [dena]
38 - Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright [dena]
39 - Orange Juice Blues - The Band [zippy]
40 - Orange Appled - Cocteau Twins [zippy]
41 - Hot Cake - The Fall [zippy]
42 - Candy and a Currant Bun - Pink Floyd [zippy]
43 - Cheap Wine - Rain Parade [zippy]
44 - Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab [zippy]
45 - Eggs and Sausage (in a Cadillac with Susan Michelson) - Tom Waits [zippy]
46 - Orange Song - Yo La Tengo [zippy]
47 - Hot Chocolate Boy - Beat Happening [andy]
48 - Red Vines - Aimee Mann [andy]
49 - Cheese & Onions - The Rutles [andy]
50 - Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles [andy]
51 - Sprout and the Bean - Joanna Newsom [andy]
52 - Apples in the Trees - Mirah [andy]
53 - Ginger Snaps - Dean & Britta [andy]
54 - The Man Who Loved Beer - Lambchop [andy]