Nerdgasm (w/ a sneaky Dylan reference... bonus points if you find it)

OK
Here's the thing...
Over the last few months, I've been rewatching Lost w/ Solstice & Aiden. We're on Season 3 @ the moment. I've since restarted Season 1 w/ Sara as she has never seen it before. Watching her watch it for the first time reminds me of that scene in Freaks & Geeks when Lindsey is carrying American Beauty through the cafeteria & the Dead Head says, "I wish I'd never heard it before so I could here it again for the first time." Lost is sooooo good!

To make matters worse, I'm waiting for the Dish Network dude/dudette to come and fix the connection in the bedroom. At the moment, the TV screen is snowy. It spent the last day and a half showing just the "Starting Up..." screen, & I spent an hour on Saturday talking through the problems w/ a rather unhelpful Dish Network Help Desk person. I honestly don't watch a lot of TV in bed so it would normally be no big deal, but I wanted to watch the new Kevin Smith show, Comic Book Men in there last night. Seeing as I couldn't do that, I recorded it & in its stead, I read a new Batman trade paperback... it's a collection of Grant Morrison comics about Bruce Wayne finding his way back to the 21st century after being hurled back in time by Darkside.

While waiting, I've spent the last hour catching up on recent episodes of The Office, How I Met Your Mother, & The Big Bang Theory instead of reading 1984 for my Science Fiction class tomorrow. I've also been battling w/ my Internet connection so as to be able to blog about the whole situation. None of this bodes well for my status as a Schwartzernegerian manly man.

Following this train of thought all the way down its nasty spiral, my real concern is that all of this is really just killing time before I see Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D this afternoon. In fact, like, the Dead Head on Freaks & Geeks (& like the trailer for the Episodes 4-6 Special Edition releases in 1998, I get to see The Phantom Menace again... for the first time! (I'd like to take a moment to appologize for the fact that I've always been been a George Lucas appologist. Some people have The Lord of the Rings, others, have Harry Potter, still others have Star Trek... I have Star Wars... deal w/ it.)

Deal w/ it? Right! Easier said than done. I'm not dealing w/ it very well @ the moment. I feel like I may need to come to terms w/ an aspect of my life that I have been keeping hidden for lo these many years. I feel that perhaps I'm not the muscle-bound jock I see myself as, but rather something else entirely. I've spent all this time, since middle school in fact, trying to convince myself that this isn't the case. I look at boobs (although I kind of giggle), I've never read a young adult book (but then again even geekdom has its limits), I watch sports (albeit, soccer), & I have what I think is a a decent sense of humor (but who can really judge ones own sense of humor?).

I fear that after all this time, it's time to admit the truth. This is my coming-out narrative so you best enjoy it. The truth is that I may be a nerd. I'd write more, but I need to check on the chickens & look into getting ducks. There's nothing nerdy there... not at all. The only saving grace is that most of you can completely relate. We're all nerds, babe, it's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

Lady Gaga's Sax Player?

I've seen Bruce Springsteen twice: once during a solo acoustic performance @ an Obama rally & once w/ the E-Street Band @ the Palace when selling books for Nicola's about a year & a half ago. (Here's the old Visions of Ypsi post about that night to refresh your memory... & mine.) That night, the book on hand was Big Man by the big man, Clarence Clemons. I never got to meet him but his people were really nice... & the show was fantastic (if a little canned). Along w/ playing w/ Springsteen & appearing in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure & on an episode of Diff'rent Strokes, he plays on a couple songs on Gaga's newest album, apparently. However, I'm not certain that that's enough to have the MTV article about his stroke (he suffered a stroke yesterday) mention Gaga before Springsteen. That's ridiculous. Do their fans/readers really know so little about music that they need to open w/ Lady Gaga? Give me a break. Now, I've never been a huge E Street Band fan, but let's give respect where it's due.

Speaking of music (although this band hasn't suffered any strokes recently, knock on wood) Deep Space is playing @ the Crossroads Bar & Grill again this weekend. It would behoove y'all to come out & see them. My first Deep Space Six show was in March of 1996. Maybe yours should be in June of 2011... better late than never. We'll keep the Slayrides flowing for you. Oh, & in other non-stroke related music news, Dylan is playing Meadowbrook on August 7th... he only sounds like he had a stroke. Who's in?

Dylan Week Day 7: This Post Will Not Be Televised

Before we get to the RIP of the day (they seem to be coming fast & think lately), we need to cap off Dylan's b-day week w/ a list. Rolling Stone compiled a top 70 songs list, but I have neither the time, nor the interest to do that. Instead, I'm gonna list my top 20 Dylan B-sides & album tracks (ie: songs that were not released as singles or at least songs I've never personally heard on the radio). This means that we aren't going to be mired in whether "Like a Rolling Stone" is better than "Mr. Tambourine Man." As Amiri Baraka said, "I don't want to go out on that kind of limb." So w/o further ado, we're off!

20) "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" A really funny song about imperialism. Because there's nothing as funny as imperialism.
19) "Highlands" The longest song on the list & one I quoted a few months ago on Facebook. That quote got all sorts of people mad at me... as if I really believed it. Ridiculous.
18) "Romance in Durango" A cool murder ballad as only Dylan could write one.
17) "Thunder on the Mountain" The newest song on this list, it was released in the fall of 2006. It has some random references to Alicia Keyes. I don't know why.
16) "Percy's Song" I first heard this as a cover version on an Arlo Guthrie album. It's so pure & traditional sounding, it comes across as an old spiritual. It's really amazing.
15) "Chimes of Freedom" Awesome!
14) "With God on Our Side" Another of his great indictments of the military.
13) "From a Buick 6" I must have heard this for the first time when I first heard Highway 61 as a whole. It's loud & raucous & way out there.
12) "Isis" A cool adventure song about love & trust... & death & betrayal.
11) "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" Only Dylan could turn some Cubist math equation into a song title. It took me years to figure out how to say the title. I don't know what it means, but it's a great tune.
10) "Gates of Eden" Another one that I was first turned on to this by Arlo Guthrie's cover version. It's an amazing blend of darkness & light, of optimism & anger. It's cool.
9) "Idiot Wind" It's just fantastic. I remember when I first heard it. It just hit me. Who could write such an out-there song & keep it so focused at the same time? Dylan.
8) "When the Ship Comes In" I've never really gotten this song, but I really dig it. Supposedly, it's about a moment in a hotel, but there's other weird stuff happening too. It's dark... & strange.
7) "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" ripped from the headlines, we have a great look at the American system of privilege & aristocracy.
6) "Masters of War" A great tune that cuts to the heart of the military industrial complex. It never points fingers at soldiers or generals, but at the people who make money from them. He seemed to realize, in a way his contemporaries missed, that they were the ones in control.
5) "Buckets of Rain" It has such cool, simple images. It doesn't feel like a Dylan song which is why Neko Case's cover works so well, I think.
4) "Absolutely Sweet Marie" I'm sure I must have heard this one when I was in high school & checked a vinyl copy Blonde on Blonde out from the library when I was a Junior in high school. It was George Harrison's cover at the Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert that opened my eyes to it's awesomeness though.
3) "Blind Willie McTell" I first heard this when the Bootleg Series Volumes I-III came out, but it was later that I really got into it. A great song.
2) "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" A super-fun song w/ some weird-ass lyrics. I first heard it either when I got Highway 61 on CD or when Phil covered it w/ The GD... I don't know which version I heard first, but it's awesome.
1) "Visions of Johanna" I first heard this when I checked that vinyl copy of Blonde on Blonde out of the library too. It wasn't until the a few years later that I really got into it though. His use of time & the compression of the moment is really interesting & seems to foreshadow what he did w/ similar ideas on "Tangled Up in Blue."In other news, Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it here. Besides, it seems fitting since he has apparently been called "The Black Dylan." i don't see it, but I'll go w/ it for the sake of the post. Here's the NY Times article about him form this morning. I've taught "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" in African American Lit many times.

Along w/ influencing the development of Hip Hop, he also appeared w/ a slew of artists including Dylan & Kurtis Blow in Artists United Against Apartheid. With this in mind, I'll leave you w/ a sweet Kurtis Blow tune from his 1986 album, Kingdom Blow. What might this have to do w/ Dylan? Ahhhh... see, he raps on this song... check it out!

Dylan Week Day 5: From Woodstock to Woking

Along w/ Dylan's 70th this week, we also have Levon Helm's 71st today. Here's his band doing a nice job on "I Shall Be Released" w/ Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, & Warren Haynes:

Yesterday, saw the 53rd b-day of Woking's own Paul Weller. Here's his fantastic cover of "All Along the Watchtower:"

In other Woking news... 2 Woking related points in 1 post? Maybe, but we might actually get 3. Hold on to your hat, we're getting crazy... I started reading War of the Worlds the other day. I think I'm gonna teach it in my super-sweet sci/fi class next winter. It's fun... & the Martians land in Woking. I've seen the 1950s film many times (it's shit) & I watched the Tom Cruise/Spielberg version a couple weeks ago (it's not shit, but it can see the litter box from where it is), & yesterday I learned there's a crummy, Ed Woodesque version that came out a few years ago which is actually set in the original time period. I suppose I'll have to see that too.

I know what you're thinking though. You're thinking, "Hey, Woking is just outside of London; shouldn't there be some sort of soccer related aspect to this post?" Yep, there should. And here it is, the 3rd Woking related point in this post. When I was a kid, maybe 11 years old or so, my dad's friend who lives in Sault St. Marie & is connected to the Canadian Soccer Association, hosted a tour of a school team from Woking. They played some games in Northern Ontario & then came down to Petoskey to play the teams my dad was coaching. I remember it was over Father's Day weekend, & I remember we took them to Sleeping Bear Dunes in the belief that "Hey they came all this way, we best show them some weird shit." I remember it was super hot, I got some weird cut on my tongue, & that night there was an awesome Northern Lights which we watched over Harbor Springs from our deck. Those kids from Woking ended up going on to do something in the Football League. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I think it had to do w/ a strong Woking FC run in the FA Cup. For more specifics, you'd probably need to speak to my dad, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is already more specific than you'd like. So much so, that I bet no one reads this far down to learn that the comment password for today is Surrey. I'll check the comments section later to see if anyone puts it there for an extra 10 comment points.

Dylan Week: Day 3: The B-Day (w/ Arsenal Goals of the Year)

For the big 70th birthday, I was going link y'all to some footage from Renaldo & Clara, but the only footage I could find sucks... of course, some would say that I may have found the entire film. I was able to find the Dylan/Dead rehearsals I promised though, so be sure to listen to them all today...all 4 1/2 hours of them! I'm listening to them now for the first time in years. I wish they'd done "Absolutely Sweet Marie" though. That songs seems tailor made for a Dylan/Dead collaboration. All in all, the rehearsals are just as hit or miss as I remember, but you need to listen to them anyway.

Speaking of Dylan memories, I distinctly remember sitting in Mr. Bean's (the teacher @ my high school, not the British comic character) English class looking @ his copy of Rolling Stone which was announcing Dylan's 50th b-day. The article was about how rock music was getting old & stately & I was thinking about how old 50 seemed to be. Now here we are 20 years later & he's still rocking out all year every year & still writing great stuff. The problem w/ this little memory is that I can't find any proof of that RS issue anywhere. I looked for it last night for a 1/2 hour... no dice. Maybe it wasn't a Rolling Stone after all. It's funny how I spent the last 20 years so certain that I'd read about his 50th in a RS; now I think I've been wrong. I wonder what other memories I have that are just plain incorrect. I mean, of course they're all open to interpretation, but flat out remembering things that didn't happen @ all is scary. What if everything I remember is wrong.

Maybe, in 20 years, when I look back on the Arsenal 2010/2011 season & remember that they came close to winning everything, but in actuality won naught, I'll be able to take comfort in the fact that my memories could be incorrect. It was a frustrating seas, over all. They finished 4th again (3rd the last couple years, but 4th has become their spot lately). The made it to the League Cup finals, they beat Barcelona in the 1st leg of their Champion's League tie, but then they lost the cup, were eliminated from the FA Cup & the Champion's League in the same week, & took a nose dive in the league... just as I predicted. They did score some crackers though, & here's the official Goals of the Season highlight reel. Enjoy... I'm sure Dylan is enjoying this today as he kicks back, blows out his candles, & watches Arsenal highlights.

Dylan Week: Day 1 (w/ CWCON wrap-up)

As Bob Dylan will be turning 70 on Tuesday, I figured we should celebrate it properly... w/ a week of blog posts! Before we get there though, it also seems like a quick overview of this weekend's Computers & Writing Conference @ UofM. It was fantastic. The Sweetland Center for Writing knows how to host a conference! I went to a few of the sessions on Saturday plus the luncheon/Keynote address. They were all really interesting & will clearly influence my classroom stuff in the very near future.

* I think I may go back to using blogs in the class room again. It didn't go over too well the last time, but w/ a few new ideas, I think I've got a better handle on it.
* I also think I way go paperless this fall. I'm kind of afraid of this idea, but it sounds pretty fun. Maybe not in lit classes, but probably in comp classes.

To top it off, our panel was awesome. Steve had a timer w/ an elephant noise that went off @ 3 minutes. I was the only douche to go over the time. I knew it would happen, but I was able to cut back on a bit of what I posted in the previous post. Everyone was great, & while the size of the room seemed a bit much when I walked in, there was a great crowd & they all stayed passed the 9:45 cut off time. There was a great conversation & most were backchanneling which was then noticed by people in other sessions who started talking about what we were doing. We kind of hi-jacked their stuff, I suppose, but it was fun. Then, @ lunch, people were asking what I'd done, & when they heard which panel I was on, they were saying things like "Oh, I heard about that one... I wish I could have been there."

There's already been a lot of talk about expanding it for another time. it should be great. It'd been a while since my last conference; I so glad I went.

* Here's Steve's reaction
* Here's Bradley Dilger's reaction
* Here's Virginia Kuhn's reaction

And now... drum roll... Dylan's b-day post 1:
In celebration, I made a fancy Dylan Bio display @ Nicola's today. We'll see if anyone actually buys any of them. As a side note, he's the only person in the whole store w/ enough bios to fill an entire display by himself other than a few presidents (Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Reagan, GWB, & Obama). There are a lot of books about Jesus, Muhammad, & Buddha, but I wouldn't call them bios, necessarily. We also listened to the 1st 5 discs of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series (of course, there was nothing selfish about pushing that on everyone). The 1st three came out in 1991 & include out-takes & alternate versions of his songs spanning the entirety of his career until that point. The next 2 discs were released in 1998 & highlight his tour of England from 1965 (the 1st disc is solo & acoustic; the 2nd disc is electric w/ The Band). Stay tuned for reflections on the rest of this week's celebration which should include viewings of his 4 main films (Don't Look Back, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Renaldo & Clara, & Masked & Anonymous). I also plan to listen to more of his stuff, & I think I'll post a link to some of his rehearsals... namely the ones w/ The grateful Dead from 1987... be sure to check out their jumbled version of "Boy in the Bubble"... it's hilarious. I may also start up "Lookin' to Get Silly" again. I haven't posted there since February. I kind of got tired of making dick jokes, but some new ones have presented themselves today after listening to so much lately.

The Rise of the Machines...

... or, if you prefer the binary code,

0101001001101001011100110110010100100000011011110110011000100000011101000110100001100101001000000110110101100001011000110110100001101001011011100110010101110011


We have not 1, not 2, but 3 tech stories to bring you today. None of them signals the growth or power of SkyNet or even the eventual development of Cyberdyne Systems. Neither even suggests HAL 9000, but we best be wary. On Jeopardy this evening, a 3 part contest will begin between Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter (the 2 winningest contestants), & a computer named Watson. An obvious homage to the Holmes stories, this will give Jennings & Rutter plenty of opportunities to reference A Study in Scarlett.

What is the novel in which Holmes & Watson meet?

Here's a fun little BBC article for you to peruse if you're in to that kind of thing... & I know you are. Apparently, the toughest thing, as we all assumed it would be, for the computer to do is understand the nuances of the language. When a computer beat Kasparov in a 6 game chess match (cue the clip from Wargames) in 1997, people said it was down to the mathematics of the game. They claimed that any computer that was programmed properly could beat a human. Of course, we all know that the computer Mikhail plays on Lost may actually cheat, but that's a whole different issue. Tonight we get to see if the computer can adjust to the language & actually beat people in a contest that isn't as mathematical as chess. I don't know if I'll actually watch, but if I do, you can count on a follow-up in post afterwards.

In other tech news, we get to reference Deep Ellum, Texas. If you go down there, put not only your money, but also your old 8-tracks in your shoes because there's a man down there who'll give a man the blues... oh sweet mama, my 8-track's got them Deep Ellum blues. Bucks Burnett, the man in question, has recently opened the first 8-Track museum. And if there's 1 thing the world needed, it was an 8-Track Museum. There are plenty of articles about this situation, but this 1 was written by a guy named Steve Guttenberg so obviously, that's the 1 you're getting here.In tech issue part the third, Dylan performed an interesting rendition of "Maggie's Farm" @ the Grammys last night. "They say 'Sing while you slave & I just get bored.'" On the positive side, this seems like a fitting comment in the face of the music industry. On the other hand, his voice is getting even rougher. This is where we get the tech part. He sounds kind of like a gruff robot w/ limited vocal abilities. I still loved it, & his body language was fantastic. He's even dancing a bit. Perhaps some day the music industry will create a robot that can write like him. That'll be a nice change of pace from the drivel those robots are writing now. Here's the video for your viewing pleasure.

Holiday Post #11: Elections, Links, & Tests; Oh My... & a Happy New Year

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Holiday Post #1: Robin Hood, Whitey, & Christmas Songs

I watched the Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe Robin Hood the other night. I'd been wanting to see is since it came out, but for one reason or another, I'd put it off a while. Before I go further, it must be known that I'm a fanatic for Robin Hood films. I've posted before about Zorro, Pirates, Sci/Fi, well, here's the obligatory Robin Hood post... because the people asked for it... don't ask which people; those who asked, know who they are.

As far as Robin Hood movies go, the new one is pretty good. I still stand behind the Kevin Costner one though. He does a ridiculous job, but the writing is good, & that cast is fantastic. The worst part of the Costner one is that shit song by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting. Of course, the Errol Flynn one is the best, the Daffy Duck one is good, but let's not forget the Disney one w/ the fox. The BBC did a new series a few years ago which was fun, but no one would ever mistake it for something w/ any semblance of period accuracy. The emo hair was silly & the black leather trench coats made the Columbine shooters more than a tad envious.

*Keira Knightly made a tv Disney one called Princess of Thieves... news flash: it sucks.
*I watched a few scenes from Boobs in the Woods on youtube. It's not bad. It's a fun pantomime stage show w/ some pretty silly bits.
*Men in Tights is funny, but I have to admit, I'm not a huge Mel Brooks fan.
*The same year as the Mel Brooks and the Kevin Costner, there was a version w/ Patrick Bergen & Uma Thurman. Sip it.
*Robin of Sherwood was a period-accurate BBC series in the mid-1980s. My biggest problems w/ it is its picture quality. It needs a nice restoration to brighten up the colors a bit. Maybe it's just the reality of filming in England that makes things look constantly rainy.
*Robin & Marion is a fun little movie w/ Sean Connery & Katherine Hepburn. If you haven't seen it, check it out.
*Robin & the Seven Hoods: You get the Chairman of the Board as a 1930s style gangster version of Robin Hood in Chicago... complete w/ musical numbers. don't check it out.
*A 1950s TV version from the BBC is alright. The sets/budget/acting/writing suck, but that's the fun.
*Ivanhoe w/ Robert Taylor & Elizabeth Taylor is fun. I saw it as a kid & still watch it whenever it's on.
*The Douglass Fairbanks silent one is good, but it's not often that one watches a silent movie.

So there you go. Those are the ones I've seen. There are plenty of other, some that I am putting in my queue tonight. I doubt I'll get to them any time soon, but I'm sure I'll get to them some time.

Moving on, The Whitey Morgan & the 78's show in Ypsi on Saturday has become the Whitey Morgan & the 78's show in Maumee, OH on Saturday. That means we won't be able to make it. They'll be in Detroit in a couple weeks though, so check them out there if you too can't make it south of the border.

what's this all have to do w/ Christmas? I'm glad you asked. We're going out to Matthes Evergreen Farm tomorrow to get a tree. In order to get ready, I brought the decorations up & Stephanie started decorating today. This also mean that we got the holiday CDs out, including Dylan's Christmas in the Heart. This also means that I started writing this year's new tune. keep coming back to see the new song soon. Spoiler alert: it deals w/ guns... lots & lots of guns!I still don't get the wig... weird