Glee's back - and I thought ...

Some months ago, I wrote in this cyberspace about discovering my new favorite TV show Glee. So now that the show has returned for a second season, I figure I ought to write about rediscovering it - and I'll try to make a habit of these recaps.

So as far as Tuesday's show went, I was very, very impressed, for the most part. Since there were so few flaws, let me get those out of the way first.

Good idea: Introducing a rival for Rachel in the person of Sunshine, a Filipino student played by pop star Charice. Really, really BAD idea: Subjecting their vocals to obvious audio processing. I suppose that's to make it sound like the existing recording, but it's inappropriate in this setting.  This is supposed to be a show about kids who can sign naturally, live, at the drop of a dime. Vocal processing/auto-tuning severely negates the spirit of that idea. I don't expect the cast to sing live, but vocal processing reminds pulls me out of the reverie and reminds me it's NOT real. Not to mention it's completely unnecessary for singers as good as Charice and Lea Michele.

And this might be just a matter of preference, as I'm not really much of a rap/R&B  fan, but I wasn't into the "Empire State of Mind" number. The Glee kids are just too ... suburban to pull the genre off convincingly. Maybe that's kind of the point, but I wish they'd quit trying.

But that same number segues into what's good about this show. It was well directed, and I liked the sly camera asides to the new cast members before they had their big scenes.

Mrs. Bieste made for a great new addition as the new football coach/rival for Sue. I was about to call her a sort of butch Julia Child or a swaggering Susan Boyle, but I realize that to do so would play into stereotypes her female jock embodies. Dot Jones played her very well, showing both tough and tender sides - and making both convincing.

Finally, there's Rachel, my personal favorite character. Glee has always walked a very fine line with her, making her flaws all too aggravating - but at the same time making her much more of a human being. Her maneuvering against Sunshine was particularly cold, even for Rachel - yet at the same time I did understand her feeling threatened, even though I did not condone her methods at all. And it's very easy to forgive her when she sings "What I Did for Love" that spectacularly. Scuse me, I think I hear iTunes calling me ...

My take on ebooks vs. real books

Most anyone who has recently been within earshot of me (or able to read my Facebook or emails) knows that I have recently fallen in love - with the iPod touch. I may not be a very typical guy, but I do love my electronic stuff.

In addition to placing 6,417 songs in the palm of my hand, the iPod Touch serves another useful function - as an e-reader. (Never mind that I'm already an e-reader myself). I had been debating getting a Kindle or a Nook and was delighted to discover that the Touch can be either one. Versatile little device.

Now, some people consider ebooks an anathema. They just have to have that tactile experience. They have to feel the paper. And I can understand that. There's a romanticism to books.  Roger Ebert recently pointed out that you couldn't find money left inside an ebook - although I hasten to point out I've never so much as found $1 in a book. And who would be dumb enough to use money for a bookmark anyway?

Being the Libra that I am, I find myself straddling the fence on this issue. I think that those who decry e-readers wholesale are being a bit narrow-minded, because ebooks do have quite a few advantages.

The ebook advantage

You can carry several at once without requiring a visit to the chiropractor. - If you're feeling indecisive, your e-reader can give you a whole range of options. No more stuffing three or four books into your bag. And heck, even one big, fat volume, like, say, The Lord of The Rings, can be cumbersome to lug around. I just bought a great new movie book called George Lucas' Blockbusting, and it's a hefty tome, weighing in at 976 pages.

No more dog-ears or other damage: I tend to be a bit destructive with books. I'm one of those people who stresses out when I just bought a nice new paperback, then  I accidentally sit on it and put a big 'ol crease in the cover. Or sometimes I've been known to bring a book with me when I go out to eat. Then I'm goofy enough to try to read while I'm eating. and then I splatter food juice onto the pages. One time I was eating some chicken wings, and the sauce dripped onto a book that I had open and the pages got stuck together. With ebooks, all these worries evaporate. And  let me tell you, wing sauce sure doesn't.

Easy to research: I read mostly non-fiction, and with those, e-readers can be especially handy. If I want to know about a particular fact from Blockbusting, all I have to do is search for the phrase with my e-reader, and boom - it's right there.

No more losing bookmarks: I never buy nice bookmarks because I'm always losing the damn things. Instead, I rely on a random collection of receipts, expired membership cars or movie tickets. None of that anymore.

But, on the other page ....

The ebook disadvantage

Faulty fonts: I have discovered that certain ebooks don't read very well. I tried to read a copy of The Lovely Bones, but whoever imported it failed to notice that it didn't port over any quotation marks or apostrophes. Made it too hard to follow, so I gave up.

How can you READ this? There's no pictures: Yes, I know e-readers can have digital pictures, but the effect just isn't the same as it is on paper. Particularly if it's glossy, slick paper. One of my favorite Beatle books is a volume called Recording the Beatles, filled with all kinds of geeky technical info about recording equipment. It's a lavish book that costs about $100. Just look at the pages:

I defy any e-reader to look THAT snazzy.

Library loyalty: My first job was working in a library. There's something to be said for wandering among the stacks. 

Autograph hound:  I'm lucky enough to own four autographed books: One by Judy Garland authority John Fricke, one by film historian Leonard Maltin, one by TCM host Robert Osborne, and one by actress Janet Leigh. You can't really sign a Kindle, can you?

I'm not ALL Beatles/Beach Boys!

Since I got a promotion at work (I am now the A&E editor for the Cox Ohio Southwest Group of Newspapers) I have been feeling newly energized and prolific. So I bring you the first of a multi-part series that will dive and delve into my musical catalog.

A little background - most people know me as a Beach Boys fan and particularly as a Beatlemaniac. So obviously, my MP3 player (a Toshiba Gigabeat) is loaded with their music. Some time back, however, I was having trouble with the player, and, heeding appallingly bad advice, I reformatted the player and erased everything. 

After panicking (and then growing my hair back) I restored the tracks and  began rebuilding my playlist of my very favorite songs. At that time, I was about to see a friend, who, for some unfathomable reason, is not a particular fan of either the Beatles or the Beach Boys. Strange, as she has such good taste in everything except 60s rock, but I adore her nonetheless.

That being the case, I decided to reload my favorites playlist with everything EXCEPT the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I never completely rebuilt the list, as it was quite immense, but, this should still give you some idea of what songs I like that did not appear on the Capitol label in the 1960s and start with "Bea."

I'll break the list up into about 12 tracks a piece. They appear in the random order my player sorted them into after my reformat. 

"Be My Baby"  by The Ronettes -   Screw saving the best for last. This is probably my favorite song of all time that is NOT by the Beatles or Beach Boys. That opening precussive THUMP jolts me every single time. Doesn't hurt that the song also helped launch my favorite director Martin Scorsese's career, via its opening of Mean Streets.

"Beautiful City/Day By Day" by  Laura Benanti: A Godspell mashup from a Stephen Schwartz compilation sung by Laura Benanti, whom I believe was only 19 at the time. Hell of  a set of pipes. 

"Falling Slowly"  by Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova - So justly won the 2008 Best Song Oscar, from one of my very favorite films of the year, Once. Achingly lovely. 

"God Give Me Strength" by  Elvis Costello - Another movie song, co-written by Burt Bacharach, this one is from the very underrated film Grace of My Heart, which is a mashup (I like that word) of Brian Wilson/Carole King types. Should have been Oscar nominated. I only wish the soundtrack also included the version in the film sung by Kristen Vigard, who I learned later was one of the original Annies (as in Little Orphan).

"Hung Up" by Madonna - How do you make ABBA tolerable outside of Dancing Queen? This girl knows.

"Let Yourself Go" by Kristin Chenoweth - My second favorite Broadway actress let's 'er rip on this Irving Berlin classic. Tap dances, too. 

"Like a Prayer" by Madonna - My favorite Madge song. Most people don't pay attention to bass lines, but as a former bassist, I would LOVE to be able to play this groove. 

"Mustang Sally" by The Commitments - The more I think about it, the more I think I should have placed this movie in my 1991 ten best list. Have a great time whenever I watch it. 

"My Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow - Favorite song of hers. Can't say I've had my own favorite mistake, but I can definitely relate to the feelings of fond regret that are in this song. Another nice bass line, and I think Sheryl plays it, actually. 

"Misirlou" by Dick Dale - From the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. This is one that made me wish I could play six strings as I once played four. 

"Singin' in the Rain" by Gene Kelly - Ya know, whenever I hear this, it actually sounds wrong without Gene's splashing. 

"Steve McQueen" by Sheryl Crow - Sheryl combines Beck and Steve Miller (and McQueen) to smashing effect. 

See? I'm not THAT shallow! To be continued ...

How to Train Your Mouth to be like a Dragon's

Remember that cartoon, Knighty-Knight Bugs, where there's a dragon who's been sneezing fire throughout? And then they end up in a room filled with explosives? Then the dragon makes like he's going to sneeze and Yosemite Sam says "Don't sneeze, ya stupid dragon - or you'll blow us to the moon!"

Sure enough, the dragon lets rip, the castle tower blows and takes off like a rocket, prompting Sam to grouse "Dragons iz so stupid!"

Well, I would be an excellent candidate to play that dragon now - because on Sunday, I survived The Weekend of Fire, which is essentially a hot sauce extravaganza at Jungle Jim's in Fairfield. See my newspapers' photo gallery here.

Now, those of you who know me might be surprised to learn I attended this. After all, bad experiences with hot food run in my family. I have told many people my dad's famous "Hot apple pie" story, when my grandma made an apple pie with cayenne instead of cinnamon. And then there was the time I was lame enough to handle a Szechuan pepper and then rub my eye with the same hand. That was in about 1992, and I think I only got the red out in about 2004.

So hot foods and the Robinettes have not always agreed with each other. But I decided to brave the Weekend of Fire,  because I just recently proved my mettle eating my way through the Broad Street Bash in Middletown, and I thought "Eric vs. Food, Episode II: Attack of the Spices" would be fun - except this time, the spices won.

My first stop was One Drop Barbeque Sauce, where I had about 4 or 5 drops of a sauce called Orange Blossom. Start slow and work my way up, I figured. It's an interesting mix of citrus and zing.

Stop 2 is sauces by Charcoal Buddy. Luckily, these are not lighter fluid. The one I try is a medium sauce that's vinegary and spicy - a mix I particularly like. Still, I had not run across anything truly hot yet.

The third stop offered a variety of sauces called 'Roid Rippin'. I sample one called Tapestry, which, befitting its name, is a mixture of different flavors. Can't identify them all, but here's where a trend starts: It goes down fine at first, then once I swallow, the ZING kicks in. The first beads of sweat start to drip from my brow. Now I'm cookin'.

Then, I come to a place about which I was truly curious. When I wrote my preview story about this event for the newspaper, I learned about Ghost Pepper Brownies, and the idea of combining sweet and hot intrigued me. I noticed that they didn't offer whole brownies for samples - just crumbs. I very quickly found out why. I tasted chocolate for about a second, then it felt like someone poured an entire pepper shaker down my gullet. YEOW! And this was all from just a crumb! NOW I'm cooking with gas! I immediately decide a drink is in order.

The next booth I visited was called Cajun Island, where I have a bourbon barbecue sauce with a smattering of chicken. This is NOT exactly what I had in mind when I said "drink," but luckily it's not hot at all.

Nearby were some sample of Mudflap Jones Chili  Mix. The name alone is catchy. If you put the word "Mudflap" in front of about anything, it sounds more interesting. It's good stuff. I taste brown sugar and hear the Rolling Stones in my head.

Being a salsa fan (the sauce, not the dance) I try a couple brands of Frontera. One is a double mustard. The other is a chipotle flavor that's labeled "hot" but it seems fairly mild to me - maybe the ghost pepper numbed me.

Next I spy a brand called Sweet and Saucy - and again, befitting their name, these are more sugary than spicy, but they are awfully nice. I try Peanut Butter Fudge, Chipotle Fudge (which is a lot like dishes I've tasted in authentic Mexican joints) and Cinnamon Caramel. The last, especially, is delectable, as I am a great fan of both cinnamon and caramel.

By this point, I am feeling a distinct lack of heat, and that's a problem at an event called The Weekend of Fire.  I come upon the DEFCON booth. You might say with a name like that, I'm asking for it, and you would be right.

It starts inauspiciously enough. I try the mild sauce, thinking even that's going to burn me, but I'm just fine with it. The guy behind the counter indicates a much tinier bottle and says "The smaller the bottle, the spicier it is." I detect a mischievous glint in his eye. The bottle says "Competition Wing Sauce." The sample cup has just a couple of drops.

"How bad can it be?" I muse - then I take a sip.

For maybe about .0001 seconds, I taste wing sauce. Then, an intense wave of heat erupts in my mouth, which EXPLODES like Mount Krakatoa. Then the fumes start to burn my nostrils. And no, I am NOT exaggerating. All I can think of is "H." Not "HOT." Just "H." I think maybe I meant to say HELP! This makes the Szechuan pepper in the eye feel like a tickle by comparison. Without question, this is the hottest substance I have ever ingested.

And all this from such a minuscule amount! I shudder to think what an entire chicken wing would be like, but I can say this much - once you get done with that, you'll do an excellent impression of a chicken, as you will not have any lips left!

Finally, I try one more item: Queen City Cayenne Ice Cream by Jeni's from Columbus. Blessedly, the stuff is not like my grandma's hot apple pie, but is more like chocolate ice cream with a mild kick to it. Having had my dessert, I decided if I knew what was good for me, I would beat it out of there. But I had to anyway. Had to get my 4th kick from Inception at the IMAX nearby!

Uncle Eric the linguist

So here I am writing again in this blog spot (or blogspot even) twice in one month. Twice in a few days, even!
What's the world coming to?

Well, it's coming down to the fact that I don't have enough energy to write something longer, like the half-year movie ten best list I'll do later this week. But I DO have enough energy to make a few additions to something already out there.

My friend Cathy sent me an impossibly adorable video of her baby laughing. I also spent some time recently with my "niece" Marta, who is about 17 months old. When she's not busy walking back and forth, handing me everything she owns (and sometimes things her parents own), she's quite the chatterbox.

These two young-uns brought to mind a Life in Hell comic by Simpsons creator Matt Groening. It's called "How to Understand Your Baby's Gibberish."

Yeah, I know, it's kinda small. But here's an enlarged version. (As far as I know, Groening never actually made a part two.) 

So I thought it might be fun for me to make a handful of additions/embellishments to this list. 

Ha-ha. 1. Funny. 2. Noisy panting. 3. Mommy and/or daddy and/or whoever is making weird faces at me sure are goobers. 

'Kay  - Abbreviation, short for "OK." 1. Yes. 2. Sure! 3. Affirmative.  4. Sir, yes sir! 5. I don't know what you're talking about, but whatever you say, mom/dad. Note - "O" is not short for "OK." 

Hi-yum. 1. Greetings! 2. Salutations! 3. Hey there! 4. How's it hanging? 5. I am garbling the Jewish phrase that means "To life!" 

No. - 1. Negative. 2. Nothin' doin. 3. Yuck! Who can eat this glop? 4. You have GOT to be kidding me! 5. I say this just to mess with your head when you ask me if I love you.

Num, num, num, NUM!  1. I'm hungry. 2. Feed me, damn you! 3. I want whatever you're eating, even if it is grossly inappropriate for me. e.g. Jalapeño poppers.

Wah! 1. Ow! 2. YEOWTCH! 3. Feed me, I said! 4. I can no longer tolerate this wet/soiled disposable absorbent device! 4. Get away! 5. I hate mommy and/or daddy! 6. $#$^@*&!!!! 7. Don't you know the world is a foul sty?

Yay. 1. I like this. 2. I wholeheartedly approve. 3. Nice! 4. Hooray! 5. A movie? Cool! (No, seriously, Marta does this whenever a movie comes on. My kinda kid!) 

Feel free to make your own additions in the comments! 

A tribute to an editor I knew only a little, but much admired

When Lisa Warren, the editor of the newspapers for which I write, passed away Friday, I felt surprised.

Not at her passing - she had been battling cancer for years, and recently the news had not been good. She fought valiantly, but she was admitted to hospice some weeks ago, and the writing on the wall was all too clear.

What did surprise me was how affected I felt by it. And that struck me, because I cannot claim to have known Lisa well. She and I had very little interaction. For many years, I worked for the Middletown Journal, while she was the editor of the Hamilton JournalNews. Around the time she became Middletown's editor as well,  in 2007, cancer had struck, and she ended up spending relatively little time where I worked.

So why was I so moved when she died? Part of it, I'm sure, was because I felt sad for my colleagues who did know her well. They had not just lost a boss, or even a mentor - they had lost a friend. And the fact that her death was imminent did not make their  loss any easier. I would imagine it made it even more trying.

And yet the few interactions I had with her were memorable. I can remember only two meetings I had with her. But they stand out for very different reasons.

A couple of years ago, when I was covering one of the small towns around Middletown, I was trying to report on a crime. The police were not being very forthcoming about it, and I kept after them, with call after call, trying to get SOME useful information from them, to little avail.

So when Lisa called me into her office, I was nervous. I always am at these sorts of meetings, but since I didn't know Lisa well, I wasn't sure what was in store.

She told me she had heard from the police and the city manager that I was being "unpleasantly aggressive."

She must have seen the expression on my face, because she gave me kind of a knowing look. Anyone who knows me at at all knows that the idea of me being "unpleasantly aggressive" is laughable. Sure, I can be persistent. But unpleasant? Unpleasantly AGGRESSIVE? Ridiculous.

She said she told them,  "That doesn't sound like the Eric I know." And I liked the way she phrased that. She and I barely knew each other, but she still had a good understanding of me. She said she would never have any problem with me being aggressive in my reporting, but since the perception was out there, I should meet with the officials and smooth over the ruffled feathers.

She was right, of course. I had the meeting and everything turned out fine. And how she dealt with the situation always stayed with me - she was eminently reasonable and fair.

The only other meeting I had with her was of much smaller consequence, but it still had a marked impact on me. She asked me to cover the Talawanda school district, in and around Oxford. I thought that was very strange, because I worked in Hamilton, and that was way out of my way. Still, I did it, and that decision was what made me get a GPS. I didn't want to follow Mapquest directions in the dark on those winding country roads and end up in a ditch somewhere.

And my use of a GPS has led to a lot of laughs for me. I call my GPS Glinda - the Navigator of the South, the East, the West AND the North. Sometimes I rely on her so heavily that one of my friends cracked "You use her to get HOME, don't you?"

That may seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it DID all stem from that meeting with Lisa!

But she did impact me in larger ways, partly because of what I didn't get to experience with her. When I heard her say that my profile of a local resident impacted by the economy was a model of what to follow, that was golden to me, because I knew how high her standards were. I wish I had more moments like that.

I also felt a sense of loss because I knew how hard she fought her illness. She went through chemo after chemo, some of which were experimental or radical. She hung tough longer than many people would have, I'm sure.

Not too long before the end, she gave a pretty dramatic demonstration of her battle that really put things in perspecitve. She said through it all, she found three kinds of trouble, and lowering her hand, she put it like this:

HOLOCAUST



                                                         Cancer

your problem.

If we all faced our battles like Lisa faced hers, we would have a cure for cancer by now. That's why I don't like to read that Lisa "lost her battle with cancer." It's a pretty common phrase in obituary stories, and I suppose it is true, in a sense. But death meets us all in the end, no matter who we are. In NO way was Kira Lisa Warren a loser. And I knew her just well enough to be absolutely certain of that. 

Mother's Day Music in my catalog

This being Mother's Day and all, I thought it would be fun to rummage through my music catalog and see what songs pertained to moms.

Songs with the word "Mom" in the title

Wow. Out of the 6,933 tracks (no, really, I counted) in my library, I find a grand total of ZERO with the word "mom" in the title. The closest thing I've got is "Momma Miss America," a scrappy little instrumental from Paul McCartney's debut album that makes me wish I could play drums, guitar and piano.

Songs with the word "Mommy" in the title

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" - And underneath the mistletoe last night, no less. This was originally recorded by the Ronettes for Phil Spector's Christmas record, but I also have a version of the Beach Boys' kids singing it, with Brian Wilson banging away on piano. 

Songs with the word "Mama" in the title

Now we're gettin' somewhere. This more extensive list includes: 

"Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Told Me)" - Wonderfully swingy, torchy song. My version is one of Judy Garland's early Decca recordings, made during her MGM years. 

"Don't Tell Mama" - An, um, eye opening number from the Broadway show "Cabaret." If any of you saw the revival from the 90s, you KNOW what I mean! 

"Goose-Step Mama" A track by the Beatles parody Band the Rutles. Not meant to ape any specific song, I 

believe, but a good representation of their early clubbing days. Probably the zaniest "mom" title in my catalog. 

"I Don't Want to Be a Soldier Mama" - Cacophonous track from John Lennon's Imagine album. Cool sound to the song, but I always thought it was laborious and clunky compared to the rest of the album.

"Mama Says" - Strange little a capella track from the Beach Boys' Wild Honey LP that had been part of the version of "Vega-Tables" from the aborted Smile album. Never be lazy .... POOF!

"Mama Yo Quiero" - Another goofball track, from the Babes on Broadway soundtrack, with Mickey Rooney hamming it up as usual. And in the movie he does it dressed up like Carmen Miranda!

"Mama's Little Girl" - One of Paul McCartney's most charming obscure tunes, this went unreleased for years until he threw it on the B-side of "Put It There." A lovely, lilting mother/daughter song.

"Mama I'm a Big Girl Now" - This song from "Hairsrpay" wasn't used in the movie itself, but played over the end credits sung by all three girls who had played Tracy: Ricki Lake, Marisa Jaret Winokur and Nikki Bonsky. (Movie geek note: Marisa is the girl who works the drive through window in American Beauty and tells  Annette Bening, "You are so busted.") 

"Only Mama Knows" - One of my favorite tracks from Paul McCartney's last studio album released under his own name, Memory Almost Full. ROCKS! 

That's All Right (Mama) - I do not have the recording that launched Elvis' career in my collection, but I do have two versions sung by Paul McCartney - a scratchy Beatles BBC recording and a solo version from his 1987 oldies sessions. 

"When You're Good to Mama" - Show-stopper from the Chicago OCR/OST.  Queen Latifah knocked it out of the prison complex. 

Songs with the word "mother" in the title

"Getting Into Shape/Listen You Screwheads/Gun Play/Dear Father and Mother/The Card." - From the Taxi Driver soundtrack. I hereby retract my earlier statement about "Goose-Step Mama." 

"Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow" - The Stones. Cool just for its distorted guitar opening. 

"Mother"  - John Lennon's tormented opus. People go on about how he shredded his voice on "Twist and Shout" - that's NOTHING compared to the wringer he puts his larynx through here. 

"Mother" - by The Police. NOT a cover of Lennon's song, but, to the best of my knowledge, Andy Summers' lone solo writing credit with the group. A rather noisy song From Synchronicity. 

"Mother Nature's Son" - "Sit beside a mountain stream, see her waters rise. Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies. Do do do do do do do, do-do, do-do, do ...."

"Mother's Little Helper" - Ah, the Stones' gentle ode to pharmaceuticals. 

"The Mothership" - Do-do-do-do-dooooooo. WAH-WAAAAAAAH (Window shatters) 

And sort of ending as I began, "Your Mother Should Know."