For Me, This Is Huge....

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002274305

Got Some Time To Kill; Might As Well Blog....

My RSS feeds are getting a little out of hand; takes a long time to go through them. Time to purge. Will probably delete a lot of the indie rock sites - I've never heard of most of those bands, anyway.

Note to Chris from "American Idol": You blew it big time, dude. Creed is quite possibly one of the worst bands of all time. And you didn't even sing it very well. What's next, Chris? Nickelback? 3 Doors Down? I may have to switch my allegiance to the Kelly Clarkson clone.

I'm very late with this, but thanks to my loving wife for surprising me with Rolling Stones / Merle Haggard tickets. Merle was great (although not nearly loud enough) and the Stones....well, they were the Stones. I've seen them before so I didn't have the "need to see them before they die mindset." Watching Mick Jagger cavort around the stage, I thought to myself that I hope I have that kind of energy when I am in my late 60's.....but then, hell, I don't have that kind of energy now. Their best song was a Ray Charles cover where the back-up singer, Lisa Fisher, stole the show.

Caught up on a lot of movies lately.... Walk The Line and Cinderella Man are really good movies; Pride and Prejudice is okay; and Just Like Heaven....not so good. I was, of course, kidding about Larry The Cable Guy - Health Inspector --- it was a very, very, very bad movie.

Experienced karma of the "My Name is Earl" variety: my very nice tax refund was approximately just enough to cover our sudden need for extensive plumbing work.

Perfection

Every so often you see a film that actually changes your life. I had that experience yesterday with the sublime Larry The Cable Guy - Health Inspector. You can have your Crash, your Brokeback Mountain - even your Casablanca or your Citizen Kane. This film impacted me on a much deeper and visceral level than any film I have seen in a long time.

The direction, the cinematography, the script -- they were all superb. All of the audience sat enraptured through the entire 89 minute experience. At the end, we all stood teary-eyed and applauded. We all actually had to be asked to leave the theater because we all desperately wanted to stay for another viewing. I was so proud that I had accompanied my son to this cinematic tour-de-force.

Easily comparable to Godard's Breathless or any of the other films of the late 60's new wave of French cinema, this film will haunt me for a long, long time.

Next February, I predict that a certain genius in a cut-off flannel shirt and baseball cap will be standing on stage at the Oscars accepting a "Best Actor" statue. I can't imagine anyone surpassing this performance.

It seems like a lot of my (admittedly infrequent) posts lately have been to say goodbye to some celebrity who meant something to me. This one is no different.

Buck Owens is the first singer that I idolized. Most people only remember him from "Hee Haw", which actually probably tarnished his image somewhat. I remember him before "Hee Haw" when he had his own half-hour program. It usually came on on Saturday afternoons and it consisted only of Buck, his band, and guest stars singing. No cornfields. No haystacks. Buck's guitarist, the great Don Rich, was another hero of mine.

When I would try to sing, it was Buck whom I would try to imitate. For some reason, I have fairly strong memories of trying to imitate Buck doing his cover version of the Coasters' "Along Came Jones."

I was pleased when Dwight Yoakam brought Buck back to the forefront in the late 80's by publicly proclaiming his influence and his greatness. I have a great download of the Derailers, with Buck sitting in, on a song called "Play Me The Waltz Of Matilda." I also have a vinyl box set of Buck and the Buckaroos, and Buck's Christmas album is one of my all time favorite Christmas releases (second only to Brave Combo's Christmas album).

Buck, I'm playing again on April 22 and you can bet that at some point, I'll play a Buck Owens song as a tribute. Hell, I might even spray paint my guitar red, white, and blue.

Oscar

Cool! For once, I've actually seen Oscar's Best Picture of the Year before the ceremony. Crash is a helluva good movie that had me thinking about it for several days after I watched it. Highly recommended. Hustle & Flow is good, too.

Best moment? Semi-obscure Memphis rappers Three Six Mafia won an Oscar for "It's Hard In Here For A Pimp."

Query

In the game of basketball, why does one yell the name of a feminine hygiene product when someone makes a "nothing but net" basket? ("Douche!")

More Signs Of The Apocalypse....

I checked on Billboard's Top Ten Albums for the week. The number one album in the country is the soundtrack to a Disney Channel show, "High School Musical." The number two album in the country is Kidz Bop 9.

Barry Manilow is in there, too.

On top of all that, all of the "cool" indie music websites seem to be engaging in revisionist musical history by proclaiming Air Supply to have been a "cool" band. This happened several years ago to the Carpenters, too. I noticed that Air Supply was scheduled to be on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" a few days ago, even. They sure as hell weren't cool when I was in high school; they were the epitome of "wimp rock." Plus, that guy kind of looked like Conway Twitty.

Sigh. I guess our band needs to start working on a cover version of "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All." I vaguely remember a parody we would sing in high school of their song "All Out Of Love": "I'm all out of drugs, I can't do without them...."

Still waiting on the Shaun Cassidy revival.