Father Time

Has it really been almost 4 months since I posted last?  Wow... and so little has happened.  It's pretty interesting to reflect on where the time has gone and why I stopped any form of banter that I spew on this page.  After said reflection, I can honestly say that nothing happened.  Just life.

Summer came and went.  Kids home bored, kids at camp, me bored, wife works...

 Things of note include watching both seasons of The Walking Dead and Both seasons of Boardwalk Empire.  I really love TV and love the fact that you can download (legally) these programs.  Of course, now I hate waiting a week for the next episode.

Music:  Nothing new.  New music pretty much sucks.  Rediscover old records and realize how much music sucks today.  Justin Bieber thew up on stage while the track of him singing kept playing, which made him run off stage.  This of course, made me think of Milli Vanilli on the Club MTV tour, where their hit "Girl You Know It's True" skipped win the middle of the show "Girl you know its, Girl you know its, girl you know its..." where Rob Milli (or was it Rob Vanilli) then ran off stage.

All these hacks are the same... I feel like Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Lester Bangs in Almost Famous now.  Is this a sign of age? bitterness? or truth?  Perhaps a bit of all...

Anyway... I hope to get back to this blog on a regular, because even if nobody reads it, It's a nice outlet to just talk about nothing.


Speaking of talking about nothing, Jerry Seinfeld has an amazing web series called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee... It's great.  My personal favorite is the Ricky Gervais episode.

Fuck art. Let's dance

Being a stay at home dad, you find yourself to be really busy doing chores, housework, running errands and being a chauffeur. 

I mentioned earlier that the saving grace are headphones. 

I spend a lot of time listening to music.  I try to check out new bands, but I swear, a lot of them suck.  There are some standouts, but the majority suck.  I feel like labels and bands have gone to do things like Facebook.  If you don't refresh fast enough, you are forgotten or you move on to the next "big" thing.

That's why I find myself back to the classics or albums I grew up on and making playlists of those songs.

I always loved the labels that created a scene.  Labels that when they put things out, you bought it because there was a trust between you and the label.  There are some that still try that, but I don't trust them as I would others.  Third Man (in theory) would be a modern version of that kind of label, but I feel like I just don't care about a lot of the releases and that it's more about Jack White and what he does than the artists.

When I look back, I think of labels like 2 Tone, Def Jam, Sire, IRS, Sub Pop , Creation even Fat Wreck Chords and Epitaph and Hellcat for a while... These labels were such a trusted brand, fans were proud to wear T Shirts , Jackets and buttons of the LABEL.  The label was as big a star as the artists on it.  I love that.

I recently saw a documentary about one of my favorites Stiff Records.  They were so great for the diversity in what they released.  It didn't have to sound like everything else, sometimes it sucked, but I trusted them.  I saw they tried to recently revive it and it was retarded.

I see a lot of these names getting revived and hope to see them make it work.  It would be nice to go to places for substance and build that trust again.

If I ever get a chance to do something again, it would be to create and build that kind of label.

Here's the Stiff Documentary in pieces...

It's a Smilin' Saturday Morning

In the 70's (and the 80's), Saturday Morning Cartoons were a special block of time dedicated to kids. 

These days, I think it's mostly crappy news shows and you can hardly find a cartoon.  Not that kids should be plopped in front of the TV, but there was nothing wrong with having "our time" on Saturdays. 

The shows were a lot more fun and were geared to age groups.  Today, you need to watch Nick Jr for preschool programming, Nick for grammar school and TeenNick for more mature kids...of course there is Nick at Nite for us old folks. 

If it wasn't for Nickelodeon, there would be very little for kids to watch.  I'm not just saying that because I almost got a job there.  Missed it by that much.  I would still love to work there at some point in my career, it's true.  I love their shows.  As a dad, they are a relief.

But, back to the 70's and 80's.  All the networks focused on Saturday Morning TV.  You would see ads in comic books, their would be previews and the shows would be featured in scholastic magazines like Bananas.  There were shows like Battle of the Network Stars, Happy Days, Wonderama and School House Rock...

 Every year on the eve of the debut of the the new Saturday Morning line up, there would be a sneak preview on prime time.  I remember how much I couldn't wait for this.  I was looking for a particular show I loved that very few recall called Kids from C.A.P.E.R. and came upon the 1976 preview.  I wonder how high Freddie Prinze was.

I had just moved back with my family from 2 years living in Pakistan.  This was amazing to me.  For the last two years, I had no TV and my only connection to the US was comic books (that were 6 months behind) and the Sunday comics we would get from the US newspaper.  I have no idea what paper or if this is true...i might be making that part up, but it sounds right.

Watching these clips, took me back to the excitement of being able to watch these shows for the first time and only time.  No VCR, no Tivo... You watched it and it was over.  You would then spend the rest of the week at school talking about what you saw with your friends.

These days, I hate to wait for anything, but I wish the anticipation and excitement still could be achieved.  It was a special feeling.

The Kids are saying "Spank"

One of my favorite shows of the last 10 years was a show called Grounded For Life.

It's a show about A Thirty-something couple from Staten Island.  After having their 1st daughter out of high school,  the two young parents deal with their three children as well as a judgmental father and his laid back brother.

The character of the brother, Eddie, was played by indie film star Kevin Corrigan.  This character is hilarious.  He's everything you wish you could be.  Irresponsible, womanizing, shady and just carefree.

This is an example of Eddie.  I think they still air the show on ABC Family.  Which amazes me based on the content and theme of this show with ABC Family being a Disney channel.  I'll assume nobody ever watched it over there and needed to fill in space on the schedule.