Roundtable: And You Are?

In a continuation of what has been a rather fascinating (if uber-meta) series of Roundtable entries, Metaphor Voodoo's Sereena X (no relation to Malcolm, I'm gonna bet) now asks, in typically glib fashion, "why should you be listened to, period?"

This, coming on the heels of RW's "What makes you think the people want your opinion?", and Atul's "what earns your respect?", is in reaction to a question that came from within the group a few weeks back: Considering the modern age's propensity for binary heated flame wars, are heavy topics best left untouched?

While we've yet to reach the core matter here, I find these tangentially related posts helpful. And today's entry has the added benefit of being funny, as Sereena challenges all and sundry to state their case in 50 words or less.

Quit being shy! Head over, read, and let your voice be heard, damn it!

Roundtable: Show Some Respect, Kid

Atul, over at Things I've Noticed, wonders what your criteria is that helps you determine whether to give someone your respect.

I respect this forum too much to just come up with some pithy nonsense half-assedly, so, instead I'll give you the lyrics to the Staple Singers' Respect Yourself, as made popular by "Bruno", Bruce Willis' singing alter ego.

---------
If you disrespect everybody
That you run into
How in the world do you think
Anybody s'posed to respect you
If you dont give a heck about
The man with a bible in his hand
Just get out the way and let
The gentleman do his thing

You're the kind of gentleman
That wants everything their way
Take the sheet off your face boy
It's a brand new day

Chorus
Respect yourself
Respect yourself
If you don't respect yourself
Ain't nobody gonna give a good
Ca-hoot na na na oh oh
Respect yourself

If you're walking around thinking
That the world owes you something
'Cause you're here
You're going out the world backward
Like you did when you first came here
Keep talking about the president
Won't stop air pollution
Put your hand over your mouth
When you cough
That'll help the solution

You cuss around women folk
You don't even know their name
Then you're dumb enough to think
That it makes you a big ol' man

Chorus
Respect yourself
Respect yourself
If you don't respect yourself
Ain't nobody gonna give a good
Ca-hoot na na na oh oh
Respect yourself
-----------

Now, go talk to Atul.

RIP - Larry "Bud" Melman, aka Calvert Deforest

Wow, 85 years old...I've always known him as Larry "Bud" Melman, and will continue to refer to him as such, and I mean absolutely no disrespect by this.

As you're probably aware, I'm a huge Letterman fan, and Melman was part and parcel with that package during the early years on NBC through to the beginning of Letterman's CBS run.

I loved the guy, mostly for his being so genuine. There was no way you could act the way Melman did, you couldn't put that on and be able to get away with it without winking to the audience. No, "Bud" was exactly who he was.

My favorite Melman series of moments took place when Letterman was still on NBC.

They'd gotten an RV and the first generation of video phones, and sent Melman on a trip from NYC down through Central America, South America, all the way to the tip of Peru. 'Round about Louisina, he started feeling homesick, and he made it mid-way through Mexico, before he begged to be brought back home.

Seriously, his reports were so depressed and melancholy by that time, you couldn't help but feel sorry even while you were laughing.

"It's not funny, David. I'm serious."

I wonder if Letterman will give a tribute this evening. Or whenever he returns.

Goodbye, sir, and thank you for your service in the name of entertainment.

*cheers*

Under Construction

yeah, this li'l corner of the bloggiverse will be undergoing renovations over the next six months...A sort of expansion, if you will, an umbrella for this and a couple of the other blogs I'm writing (including an exclusive blog for the sports, so that my readers aren't "bothered" by anything I wish to write along those lines)...

It won't be happening overnight, it'll be a very slow process.

But, the reason I mention this is that one of the new features is already up and running!

Current Mixes

It so happens that quite regularly I get a hair up my ass, and I must create a new mix. Then would come the promises that I'd get them out to everybody, and well, you know, burning CDs can be kinda time consuming...next thing you know, it's months down the line, and only a handful of folks have received it, and the rest have blissfully forgotten about them.

No more!

Yup, I will be making the most recent of these available online, eventually...for the moment, however, I do have two new mixes to offer.

NOTE - These are .m4a files, which means that if you've got iTunes, you're golden. If you want them all mp3tastic, you'll need to convert them yourself...(Won't be an issue for long, however).

Driving Speed - Music for driving it like you stole it (either IRL or in VidGame Style)
MP3s
iTunes Friendly

Women v Men IV: Joe Luvvah Mix - Whether you're in the act of, or just thinking about trysts, try this on as a meager substitute for that old Al Green album you've played 180 times over.
iTunes Friendly

Plastic Continues To Suck

Well, a lot has happened since I wrote this little screed; which turned out to be the last squealings of a particularly bratty mindset of mine.

Not that I've completely turned around on some of the rantings; hell, I still espouse a good number of those beliefs...It's just that I can't have 280 movies in my Netflix queue without a bank account. Thus far, I've kept the little spending monkey in check (it has been a few months since I joined the ranks of People Who Pretend To Be Grown Up).

It'll still be a few years before I start getting credit card applications in the mail (HA!), but if and when they start coming, I'll at least be able to read these thoughts several times over before I decide to cave in. Granted, this couldn't be more of an "if" situation if it tried.

I will also probably own a DVD copy of the movie discussed here, which goes a long way towards proving that my earlier rantings are not completely baseless. Give it a read, perhaps it'll give you the same sense of "no shit, Sherlock" I experienced.

What it doesn't address, however, are some of my more paranoid notions, and what is done with that information. Oh, well, there's still time, I guess.

Roundtable: Shut Up Shutting Up

RW is apparently talking to you. Yeah, you!

Or, at least, those of you who like to go on and on about whatever it is you're pontificating on *cough*JJ*cough*.

RW wonders what the hell makes you think he'd be interested in your prattle. Seriously, you go on too much. At least, according to RW. Frankly, RW believes that the world would be a better place without your incessant and insipid input, okay?

What, you got a problem with that? Tell it to him.

Attention Music Bloviators

PalDeni writes effusively about REM's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Which is all well and good, but right off the bat, dude starts casting aspersions over Radiohead's popularity and credibility as a music movement.

Well, you can guess how that goes over with me.

So, head on over there, and put your two cents in. Or start other fights, I'm sure Deni wouldn't mind.

Spring Forward Is Bullshit

Why post something new, when I've said all there is to say about it:

You Know What? Fuck Ben Franklin!

So Ben Franklin's all: "blah blah blah, penny saved is a penny earned. all cats are grey in the dark, work will make you free, right? so check it, if we turn the clock back in spring, we get an extra hour of daylight for the farmers to work with. which is all kinds of cool because then they can work that much more during the summer, and then, in the fall, when it gets dark earlier, we can go back to normal, and aren't I smart, blahdefuckingblah."

Shut the fuck up, Ben Franklin. You're dead. Deader than Rob and Amber's chances of winning and Michael Richard's career...

What may have been a pretty smart idea nearly two-hundred years ago, is only proving goddamn annoying these days. Why do we keep up with this shit? It's largely unnecessary, especially because the modern age? No. Longer. Agrarian. For fuck's sake.

And don't talk to me about kids catching busses in the dark. Are you gonna tell me that those kids who are in areas sketchy enough to be worried about are going to be in any less danger when it's light out? Where are their parents anyway? Huh? Exactly.

Fuck Daylight Savings. Right in the ear.

Roundtable: "You Can Lead A Horticulture...

...But you can't make her think." - Dorothy Parker, ORP (Original Roundtable Participant)

Yes, that's how Ms. Parker wanted to spell that word. She was asked to come up with a sentence using "horticulture" and...

Wait, this ain't no cultural lesson in events and personae that ran amok during the Flapper era in New York City, this is a plug for the latest Roundtable entry!

Right, so Deni, aka The Left Wing Nut, has soul-whoring on his mind, and he insists that we are all whores for, say, shopping at Walmart when we know their thriftiness is derived from the sweat of Laotian children hired for pennies per day. Here, he has a point, I believe. He also damns Michael Jordan for pimping himself out to McDonald's (for unhealthy eating), Nike (see child labor thing above), and Hane's (who wears tighty-whiteys anymore), and here I agree with him also. But then he gets into the gray area of unknown actors doing commercials for Westinghouse, and here things head into the gray zone...Well, for me, at least, not for Deni.

So, you know, head on over, read the bit, then speak your mind, y'all.

Roundtable: Celebrity Schadenfreude

Down the hall from my office, and around the corner, there is a coffee bistro which does pretty regular business. As such, they have a little boom box, which is eternally tuned to the local "Warm/Breeze/Lite Jazz" station...Regular readers of the 'Sives (aka, Siveheads...kidding) will be familiar with my take on jazz fusion; namely, it's a bunch of crap and it is best to simply run away.

Having been here for about 2.5 years, though, I've gotten pretty adept at ignoring whatever is being piped out by this blandly offensive radio station. However, I do occasionally get sucked in; usually, whenever they play Santana's "Oye Como Va" with the bass replaced by a synth and the lyrics played by whatever has substituted the monstrosity known as Kenny G.

Or is it still him? Whatever.

Anyway...I'm heading out of my office to head outside, taking a little breather, got my nicogum working and...

I sink like a stone that's been tossed in the ocean
My logic has drowned in a sea of emotion
Stop before you start
Be still my beating heart

Sting. At least it was from the last decent album this tantric putz put out, but this song is probably the first hint we got of where his career was gonna go.

Sting, man, you used to be the shit. The king of that whole jazz/ska/dub miasma The Police excelled in, and now what? You're the British Phil Collins (and yes, I know Collins is British, too...that's actually the point). Wotta waste.

Is this the natural order of things? Start out hot and then lose your soul for the max $$? Or is it that there is an internal "shark jumping" gene in our system?

Spade Cooley comes to mind, though this is a rather extreme example...Joan Crawford? Elvis, for sure, though his fan base would disagree.

Oh, I know! Paul McCartney* (long before that Pro-America pap from 9/11)! Mick Jagger (who else remembers the Harlem Shuffle?)!

Y'all probably thought this would be about the recent folderol involving the Spears, or the Smiths or summat. But y'know, these scandal-sheet items bore me (especially as I still want Hilton's head on a stick)...No no, give me Sean Young's brief stint as a promising starlet, or Val Kilmer's...whatever happened to Val Kilmer.

I'm sure I'm not alone with this preoccupation. What's yours?

*Strictly for the masochists: I dare you to sing The Wings "Silly Love Songs" during karaoke. The whole fuggin' thing.--TBO