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7.31.2004

Curiosa Festival and Rush 30th Anniversary Tour

10 hours of music within 5 days of each other... Well, I've done worse, but never spent so much money on it. All thanks to the brand spankin' new Ford Amphitheatre

Kicked things off a week ago at the Curiosa Festival, headlined by (obviously) the Cure. They were out in tour of their new self-titled album, which is surprisingly good. Also on the bill were Head Automatica, Mogwai, The Rapture, Interpol and Thursday.

I was looking forward to seeing Head Automatica, a collaboration between Dan "The Automator" Nakamura and Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw. Unfortunately, they were left with a 20 minute set to kick off the show, which I managed to miss.

Luckily I made it just as Mogwai was tuning up. Mogwai was left with only 30 minutes to perform, into which they were only able to squeeze in two songs. Luckily, that was enough to piss off everyone in the Ford Amphitheatre with their loud, monotonous music.

I love Mogwai. It's the same riff over and over, getting progressively louder, and then after the peak, it softens out. Every song. They closed their show out by getting all kinds of obnoxious feedback from all of their instruments off the speakers (three guitarists and a bassist) before they eventually just left their instruments propped up against the speakers and walked off stage. After a good five minutes of nothing but obnoxiously loud eardrum-piercing noise to make everyone's ears bleed, the guys all came back out and cut off their instruments at the same moment.

I had never listened to the Rapture before that evening, but they were decent, with a spiffy dancing cowbell/sax player. Interpol and Thursday were also subjected to thirty minute sets just like Mogwai, then The Cure took the stage for nearly two hours.

Robert Smith & Co. put on a good show, with a good mix of the hits and stuff from the new album. A few bigger hits were left out of the lineup, like "Friday I'm in Love" and "Killing an Arab." I can do without the former, but I would have loved to have heard the latter considering the political climate of today. The Cure rocked out pretty good in front of legions of thirtysomethings who undoubtedly attempted to kill themselves to the very same Cure songs 15 years ago.

Friday night was Rush, who took the stage at the Amphitheatre at 7:30. A video of Jerry Stiller and a retrospective of album covers of the past 30 years of Rush kicked off the festivities, before the trio hit the stage with the appropriately chosen "Finding My Way." The crowd was definitely a sellout, much larger than I saw at The Cure.

As was expected, Rush played their asses off. They went from 7:30 to 9:00 before a 30 minute intermission. Then they wrapped things up from 9:30 till just after 11:00, totaling over three hours of nothing but Rush goodness. It was a great mix of songs from the past 30 years, ranging all the way from "Working Man" to "Roll the Bones" to "One Little Victory." They also played quite a few tracks off their new album "Feedback," a collection of covers, which included "Crossroads" and the WWE SummerSlam theme "Summertime Blues."

Of course the night wouldn't be complete without an ungodly 15 minute drum solo from the legend that is Neil Peart. Neil rocked the shit out of his kit before rolling into a jazz finish. Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee then played an acoustic rendition of "Resist" while Neil went backstage to recharge and try to get his soul back from Satan in exchange for his musical talent.

Great show, good stuff, and I'm sure that Rush will be back here doing the same thing on life support 30 years from now.

7.25.2004

Marty St. Louis: Cover Boy

Sega's 2K series of hockey games has been my favorite brand since its inception on the Dreamcast in 2000. The series has grown in leaps and bounds since then, and last year's addition of the ESPN brand and style in ESPN NHL Hockey was fantastic, as I've stated here before.

martySo it's a pleasant surprise that league MVP, Hart Trophy winner, Stanley Cup champion and Tampa Bay Lightning superstar Martin St. Louis was announced as the cover boy for ESPN NHL 2K5.

NHL 2K5 and the recently-released ESPN NFL 2K5 both carry a nice, low $20 price tag. Presumably, this is to compete with the EA Sports juggernaut, since EA consistently outsells Sega, even though Sega's products are often perceived as superior by a majority of the serious gaming community. Regardless of how much of a dent the lower price makes in the EA Sports monopoly, people everywhere will still ask each other "YOU GOT DAT MADDEN?!"

Here's hoping that the lower price tag doesn't mean lower quality for this year's hockey game. I was really impressed with last year's offering, and online play via Xbox Live was just the icing on the cake.

ESPN NHL 2K5 comes out September 15th, and if you're even midly curious about the title or you enjoy hockey games, it will undoubtedly be worth at least $20, so you should pick it up. In the meantime, ESPNHockey.net is the best spot to get your fix of news regarding this year's title.

7.19.2004

Whoopi's Bush

whoopi does it againThe following conversation took place recently:

God: So Neil, what would you like more than anything else in the whole wide world for your birthday this year?
Me: Wow God, that's a tough one. I don't know.
God: I could strike Dave Coulier down with a bolt of lightning.
Me: No, no...
God: How about I ruin Whoopi Goldberg's life even more?
Me: Yeah, that's the ticket!

My hatred of the Whoopster is nothing new, but imagine my delight when I heard the best job she's had going for her since Sister Act II was unceremoniously taken away from her. Fantastic.

It seems Whoopi, at a star-studded John Kerry fundraiser, said a joke comparing George W. Bush to her own bush-y pubic hair. The joke, which Whoopi must have had written by her excellent team of fifth graders, was especially enjoyed by Senator Kerry, who concluded that night's event by saying that the celebrities in attendance (Whoopi included) "conveyed the heart and soul of America."

Apparently some Slim Fast customers disagreed with what the Whoopster had to say, as the corporation was hit with a barrage of complaints from rednecks looking to shed off the pounds and become "Big Losers" in the way Whoopi promised them they would. In response to the complaints, Slim Fast (whose owner has donated large sums of money to the Democratic Party) fired Whoopi.

lookin good whoopsterWhoopi apparently doesn't realize that as a spokesperson for a company, your job is to make people want to use the product you are promoting. When you offend a large portion of the customer base, a corporation has to do something to protect the integrity of its product and keep its customers. In some cases, if the problem is solely you, the spokesperson, they will can your ass.

Regardless, Whoopi had the following to say about the ordeal:

"I only wish that the Republican re-election committee would spend as much time working on the economy as they seem to be spending to harm my pocketbook."

I only hope that in Whoopi's universe, where the entire Republican party apparently gives a shit what she and she alone has to say, she can also manage to find a new job. And we all feel really fucking bad for your diminished pocketbook.

Best of luck, Whoopi!

7.14.2004

G4 Blows

One of the few things I could look forward to when coming home was the fact that we got TechTV on the tube (I've shared my love of TechTV before). If there's anything better than hot chicks talking about technology, it's Patrick Norton and Leo Laporte talking about technology.

So TechTV went up for sale earlier this year as a pretty big network - I read somewhere that it's in 26 million households in the United States. Comcast Cable's videogame upstart network, G4, was failing, on less than 5 million TVs, and with good reason. I had never seen G4 prior to a few weeks ago and was intrigued, but nothing could prepare me for the awfulness.

Comcast bought TechTV and saw it as a way to expand and turn its G4 network into a success. Comcast merged the stations to form G4techTV. However, Comcast failed to realize that there's a reason that TechTV was successful: its programming was good. As seems to be the thought process in most of corporate America, Comcast gave no regard to what the people want, and made the new station heavy on the G4 and very lite on the TechTV.

The result? One big fucking train wreck. When the station isn't showing "celebrities" like the Barenaked Ladies or Vince Neil acting like they play videogames on a regular basis to get some TV time and free exposure, it has average nerdy kids sitting around and playing videogames.

I mean, come on, is that really exciting? You wanna see average nerdy kids playing videogames all day? Put a camera in my fucking room, you'll get plenty of "entertainment."

Although that's not fair, there are other programs. A show called "Pulse" has a weekly news recap on videogames, but it's pretty worthless since the news is a week old by the time it hits the air. There's also a show called "G4tv.com" with two hot chicks and some lame dude in a call-in radio show style format debating videogame subjects. It's probably the best that G4 has to offer, but that's not saying much.

As for TechTV's programming, the only regulars are "X-Play" (which needed some work in the first place), "Unscrewed" with Martin Sargent, and "The Screen Savers." Leo Laporte's "Call For Help" was canned, as was Leo, for the most part. He gives daily tech tips on "The Screen Savers." But the oldest remaining TSS hosts, Patrick Norton and Yoshi, are leaving the network. All the TechTV original programming, which is filmed in San Francisco, is being moved to G4 headquarters in Los Angeles.

And so now TechTV will die a slow death. It's only inevitable that they soon remove the "tech" portion of the network altogether and G4 is back where it started: a heaping pile of shitty TV.

7.05.2004

Telephone Abuse

Hi, this is Neil calling with Talk America. How are you doing today?
Where are you calling from?
I'm calling from Talk America. How are you doing today ma'am?
South America?
No, TALK America. Like we're TALKing right now.
I don't know anyone from South America. Goodbye.
CLICK

That's right. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson after working last summer at Talk America, selling local and long distance service to people, but here I am, back for more. Money talks, unfortunately, and finding a job for 6 weeks is difficult without lying to the company straight-faced when you apply to the company, unless you take a shit job, which is precisely what I'm doing.

So even though I remember the whole spiel and how to work the computers and such, I opted to go through a week's worth of training, since it's essentially $400 to sit in a classroom for a week. We're talking pretty basic stuff here, like teaching people who have never used computers how to point and click. Easy money.

Needless to say that a telemarketing job brings all kinds of weirdos out of the woodwork. Upon my first day of training I encountered a whole host of interesting folks. Sitting next to me in the classroom was a pathological liar who claimed he worked at a tattoo parlor. He certainly had the tattoos to back up his story, but it was pretty obvious that 90% of the shit that came out of this dude's mouth was made up.

In front of me was the thirtysomething comic book nerd. Not five minutes into entering the classroom, he was busy telling everyone about how he used to own a comic book store and how him and two buddies just got a copyright for their pen-and-paper RPG that they're working on. With three kids and no social graces, it's a wonder how this guy ever got laid. Some people shouldn't breed.

There was a guy in his 50s named Chuck. Chuck had a bit of a problem with reading the English language. Now I understand that some people stumble and stutter when reading aloud, but Chuck had a real problem. He had the uncanny ability to remove entire sentences from paragraphs and make up entirely new ones that had nothing to do with what he was reading. Needless to say, he wasn't cut out for the job. He mysteriously disappeared during one lunch break, never to return again. Godspeed Chuck. We barely knew ye.

Rounding out the highlights of the class was the redneck neo-Nazi who sat to my right. On his right forearm was a tattoo of a swastika with Aryan lightning bolts below it. One day on break he told me that he did 6 months for hitting a black guy with his car once. But he's changed, he says. Regardless, I think he may have had some influence in the fact that the only three black people in the training class quit before the week was over. Just maybe.

To kick off the first day of class, my trainer Anthony (a pretty good guy) decided to try to give everyone an optimistic attitude. "Do you know how many people there are in the United States?" he asked rhetorically. "Do you know how many households there are? BILLIONS!"

Damn, if our census is that far off, I'd hate to see how many people really live in China and India.

In my second day in class, while we were on break, a woman in front of me took out an envelope and removed a note and a photograph from it. To my trainer Anthony she said "Can you believe my husband used to weigh 130 pounds?"

"Wow," Anthony replied while looking at the picture. "He looks pretty strong. What does he weigh now?"

"185 pounds," she responded. "I guess that's what happens when you're in jail and you have nothing else to do."

"How long is he in there for?" asked Anthony.

"20 years," she responded. "He killed somebody."

A few days into training, I was outside with the class on break and everyone was chatting and smoking. Everyone in this job smokes, mind you. Myself and my buddy John are literally the only non-smokers out of about 100 workers in the entire establishment. I guess it's impossible to do the job without some sort of mind-altering substance in your system. The pathological liar and the comic book nerd were talking about comic book movies.

"Did you see Van Helsing?" asked the pathological liar to the comic book nerd. "I thought it sucked," he said. "I liked the comic book a lot better."

Now I didn't even see Van Helsing, nor was I even part of the conversation, but I know enough about fucking horrible ass movies to chime in on this one.

"Van Helsing was not based on a comic," I said to the pathological liar. "It was written and directed by Stephen Sommers, the writer/director of the Mummy and its sequels. Universal Pictures saw the movie as an opportunity to revitalize the rights to the classic monster movies the company owned, like Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and the Werewolf."

"No," said the pathological liar. "There was a comic book in the 80s. That's what the movie was based on."

Surely at this moment the comic book nerd would back me up, right? I mean, after all, he did own a comic book store. He is writing a pen-and-paper RPG. He does play the MMORPG City of Heroes on his PC. He'd have my back. Right? RIGHT?!

And so he gave his input. "Actually, there WAS a Van Helsing comic in the 80s, but the movie was not based on the comic."

What the fuck? Am I on another planet? Have I lost my mind? I quickly bit my tongue and bowed out of the conversation in order to prevent my head from exploding. But yet, the rest of the day, it bothered me. Was I wrong? Was it actually based on a comic? Was I just letting these people creep into my head?

Of course I got online when I got home and looked it up, and sure enough Van Helsing was not based on a comic. All was still right with the world, for the most part.

And so life continues at the real life circus side-show that is Talk America. As my boss tries to instill a false sense of confidence in me with slogans like "Pitch 'em and switch 'em!" and "Let's make some Illi-NOISE!" while people yell obscenities at me for disturbing them while they're watching Hard Copy, I'll try my best to keep what's left of my sanity intact.

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2003 - 2005
Reverend Hughes