If I only had a brain

I seriously WANT this shirt.

Six things: Madonna Live

I never in a million years thought that I would ever see Madonna live once, let alone the four times that I have actually seen her live. I always figured that my shot at seeing Madonna would be when she was reduced to playing the Iowa State Fair Grandstand. Really, I've been very lucky to have seen as many great live performances in person and not just on DVD. This got me to thinking about the best of best, and I thought, what the hell. As usual, in no particular order.

Six Best Madonna Live Performances (that I've actually seen live)

1) "Music Inferno" (Confessions Tour, 2006)
Brilliantly mashing up "Music" with The Trammps "Disco Inferno", I will never forget the massive shot of adrenaline that those opening notes gave the show, after nearly screeching to a halt under "Paradise (Not For Me)". It's nearly a full 3 minutes before Madonna comes on, but this arrangement is just fantastic. Extra credit to the "All right boys and girls, it's time to get your dance shoes on! You're listening to KUNT - it's all Madonna, all the time" spoken intro.



2) "Nobody Knows Me" (Re-Invention Tour, 2004)
The greatness of this performance was THE big surprise of the Re-Invention Tour. I had always been kind of "meh" on the song until I saw it performed live. Actually, using the word "live" is a bit of a stretch because she is at least being heavily supported with a backing track, if not out-and-out lip syncing. The choreography for this was simple and understated but fit the song perfectly. I think it's something about Madonna in boots that gets me. (see "Like It Or Not" on this list)



3) "Candy Shop" (Sticky & Sweet Tour, 2008)
Admittedly, this song is not one of Madonna's high points. But it works so well as an opener for the tour, (shown below complete with the "Welcome to the Candy Shop" opener) that I had to put it on the list. I love the look Madonna has on her face when she comes around on the revolving platform, kind of "Yeah, I'm here. What of it?" Still not my favorite tour opening (that would be this one) but, like the song, I love it in spite of myself.



4) "Frozen" (Drowned World Tour, 2001)
Since Drowned World Tour was my first Madonna tour, I was under a self-imposed media blackout re: everything about the tour. I was mostly successful - I only knew a few songs from the set list prior to going. I had two songs I really wanted to see live - "Frozen" and "Secret" and by God, both were performed. I love how bigger than life this performance of "Frozen" is, the long sleeves, the "ho-ha!" martial arts moves, and she is in fine vocal form.



5) "Like it or Not" (Confessions Tour, 2006)
I have always loved this song, although Jeff feels like it is tacked onto Confessions, and was glad that she performed it live. I love everything about this performance - the outfit, the choreography and especially the chair. For me, it's the chair that cinches the performance. There is something about Madonna performing with a chair (see "Open Your Heart", Girlie Show's "Bye Bye Baby") that is VERY appealing. My favorite part? Dragging the chair down the catwalk to the "no, no you know."



6) "Holiday" (Drowned World Tour, 2001)
After an hour and a half of album tracks and latter day hits (save "La Isla Bonita" naturally), the lights came up for the last segment of the show and the familiar opening notes to "Holiday" played and the crowd went WILD. I will never forget how the crowd just came to life for that song. And to think she almost didn't sing it on that tour! It is arguably my favorite live version of "Holiday" (Blond Ambition's version is a very close second).



Surely I have left some off, but those are the ones that really stick out in my memory.

Seems that the world's got a role for me

I wasn't going to post anything on the death of Michael Jackson. I didn't really feel like I had anything to contribute to what has already been said and it has been years since I really actively cared about his music.

But then last night, while trying to fall asleep, I listened to "Will You Be There". Yes, the song from Free Willy. Shut up - don't judge.



This is one of those lesser known Michael Jackson songs, although it was probably the 75th single from Dangerous, each charting lower than the previous one, but this one managed to hit the top 10 and stop the bleeding. It was popular in the late summer/early fall of 1993, which is kind of amazing as the Dangerous album came out in the spring of 1991. I was back in college, living in an apartment/townhouse with two fellow classmates and really looking for my own footing. I remember those days well - as if they were yesterday. There were so many songs from that time period that bring up those emotions and feelings, and "Will You Be There" is but one patch of that quilt.

I can't even really articulate it well - perhaps it's best left unarticulated, but ever since that time, I have had a very soft spot of "Will You Be There". I remember thinking it odd that Michael Jackson was having a radio hit again. Even then, the backlash had begun, and this was still pre-child abuse allegations, although those were about to come to light.

Much is made of the symbolism of Dangerous being knocked out of the number one slot by Nirvana's Nevermind. I think there is some validity to this, but in the final analysis, Dangerous is just so immensely inferior to Thriller and Bad, that it's not surprising the singles did not do as well. But we'll always have "Will You Be There".

One last thought on Michael Jackson's death - well, actually two. Boing Boing linked to an article this morning that very aptly described Michael Jackson's life as one in which his childhood and his old age were missed. Arguably, those are the two times in your life where you are truly able to be free. Secondly, from this blog comes this very telling quote, one that even as a Madonna fan, I see the truth in (emphasis mine).

His death does make me think about the superstars I grew up worshipping in the 80s, and looking back at many of them is just depressing now. Michael Jackson is the most obvious tragedy, but don't forget the downfalls and tribulations of artists like Prince, Axl Rose, Whitney Houston, George Michael, and Michael Hutchence. That decade ate its young. When Madonna is the most sane and rational of the bunch that's fucked up.

Being alive's her only crime

This is one of my all time favorite Olivia Newton-John songs, one that is sadly been mostly forgotten.



"Livin' In Desperate Times" is such a product of its time it's not even funny. Those cheesy 80s synths, her incredibly large hair, and odds are good that there are some shoulder pads underneath that blue coat. But oddly enough, I think it plays very well now, probably due to the fact that it was not overplayed like "Physical" (which I can only really listen to in its - as Olivia refers to it now - "age appropriate version.") and some of her other more popular songs. I have particularly been enjoying the extended remix (which I have as a vinyl rip) because the version from the CD release of the soundtrack of Two of a Kind is heinously edited.

While the song is great, the movie it comes from is pretty horrible. Two of a Kind was the hotly anticipated on-screen reunion with John Travolta, but the storyline involving an angry God bent on destroying the world unless angels portrayed by Scatman Crothers, Beatrice Straight and Charles Durning can find two honest souls is just God-awful. The dialogue is horrible and while they do their best with what they have, this is not a high point for either Travolta or Olivia. But do you think that stopped me? Heck no. I saw it at least twice in the theater and countless times on HBO.

This song was kind of the beginning of the end for Olivia. Her hitmaking days were at this point rapidly coming to a close. She'd squeak a top 20 hit out of "Soul Kiss" but nothing since then. And it hasn't been for lack of trying. In 1992, she released a retrospective with 4 new songs, fully intending to tour and make a comeback, only to be sidelined by breast cancer. "I Need Love" (to make the sex right) was one of those songs.



Fortunately, Olivia survived her brush with cancer and has toured extensively in recent years. She's a great live act and one I would see again in a heartbeat!

("Twist of Fate" was the bigger hit from this project for Olivia. Whenever I play it, Heidi gets it stuck in her head.)

Lessons

Every time I go on vacation or take any kind of extended time off work, I always have to undergo a certain amount of re-entry trauma. The transition from vacation-brain to real life-brain is sometimes not the easiest in the world, but you know, you can't stay on vacation forever. And really, who would want to? The reason that it's called a vacation (literally, from the Latin "vacare" which means "to be empty, void or free") is because it's not real life. While being on vacation was fun and not having to go into work was nice as well, there is something reassuring about routine and schedules and responsibilities. I think that even if I were independently wealthy, I'd find some way to work that into my life.

This time around has been the easiest re-entry I've ever done. I think part of the reason for that was because the vacation was SO different from what I do on a day-to-day basis. Coming back to the familiar and comfortable just felt right, even though all the problems and issues and what not that were present in my life when I left on vacation had not magically resolved. To expect that would be the height of naivete.

What this vacation did for me, in hindsight, was to help ramp me down from what was really an unsustainable level of overfunctioning and anxiety. When you get right down to it, I just needed to be rebooted, and I think the trip did just that. It was exhausting at times, and right around the time we left L.A., I was suffering from some serious vacation fatigue (give me my own bed damn it!) but surprisingly, upon arriving home - even after driving 14+ hours the last day - I did not feel like I needed a vacation from my vacation.

I did learn a few other things as well.

1) You can drive over 4000 miles around the country and NOT meet an untimely demise.
2) Space Mountain at Disneyland is worth a 2 hour wait in line.
3) L.A. is SO not the Midwest. I enjoyed it, but I am really and truly an Iowa boy.
4) Hollywood was more congested than Manhattan the night we were there (both from a traffic and pedestrian standpoint).
5) There is no such thing as cruise control when driving in the mountains.
6) I-70 between Glenwood Springs and Denver is a modern engineering marvel.

I worked yesterday but had today off (the one day stretch did me in) and while today was not as productive as I would have liked, I'll take what I can get.

And starring...as Alexis

Watch this all the way through to the end. It is so worth it, I promise.



OK, it's probably funny only to those that watched "Dynasty" and can separate the less obvious fakes from the people that were actually on the show. I have gone on record as saying that "Dynasty" has aged rather poorly and that it's hard to watch now. But back in its hey-day, nothing could keep me from it. Every Wednesday at 8pm when I was in junior high and early high school, there I was, watching "Dynasty." I also read Joan Collins' autobiography Past Imperfect in the 9th grade. Sad, but true.

I think the reason those types of shows play so poorly for me now is that I have a much lower tolerance for melodrama than I used to. I truly discovered this when I lost my taste for daytime soaps. I religiously watched "The Young & The Restless" from 1988 through about 1994 until such time that I realized the ridiculousness of it and gave up. It was like suddenly that Carly Simon lyric "now melodrama never makes me weep anymore" made perfect sense. That did not stop me from watching equally soapy shows like "Melrose Place" but even that tried my patience frequently.

Truthfully though, I can still watch "Dynasty" but its best watched with Jeff because his running commentary through the episodes has me doubled over in laughter 90% of the time. Perhaps we aren't meant to weep at the melodrama, but rather to laugh at it. Is your show a success or a failure when something that was supposed to be dramatic ends up funny? I suppose it depends on your perspective. I was listening to a podcast tonight about favorite comedies, and I think that I would have a hard time coming up with a list like of conventional comedies, because a lot of the things I find funny are unintentionally so and steeped in bathos or are such an integral part of my history that I find them funnier than they probably actually are.

Which is probably why I found the above alternate credits freaking hilarious.

Name game

I stumbled across this quite randomly this morning. It is basically, as the site name states, a baby namer, but the fun wrinkle that sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill baby name site is the "drawbacks" section. Basically, it looks at the name and lists all the annoying nickname variants that can be derived from it. I was unable to resist it, so I put in "Daniel" and here's what I got for drawbacks.

• Kneel
• Dandruff
• Fanny Danny
• Danube
• Dan, Dan the Garbage Man
• Dano
• Daniel San (from The Karate Kid)
• Dancy
• Dan the Man
• Lieutenant Dan (from "Forrest Gump")
• Dan L
• Danimal
• Ding Dong Dan
• Danny boy
• Daniel, Daniel, Cocker Spaniel
• Daniel Boone
• Daniel Paniel
• Danielle

OK, first off, I completely don't understand the first one. I suppose it's a riff on the "niel" section of the name, but still it's a stretch and certainly not worthy of the first drawback to the name! Reading through this list, I have actually been called many of these names, although most have not been used to refer to me since high school. The music director at my high school frequently referred to me as "Dan L" (pronounced "dan-el"). A kid in elementary school called me the cocker spaniel one (only with kind of an R-rated bend - I was a spaniel with a very large something). "Book 'em, Dano" has been used more than I would like to admit when people talk to me, even now. "Dan The Man" and "Daniel-san" are in use by many people to this day when referring to me.

This list did leave off what I consider to be the worst permutation of my name. My driver's ed teacher in high school took to referring to me as "Dandy." *shudder*

That's the thing with nicknames - they are frequently assigned without consulting with the person getting the nickname. Believe me, there was no part of my 15-year-old self that wanted to be referred to as Dandy. Even "Danny" has been a bit of a persona non grata in my life. A history teacher in high school has been one of the few people that called me that and got away with it. For some reason, it was okay coming from him. A person at work calls me Danny every now and then, and it is just so jarring, I can't bear to correct her. Fortunately, I don't have much contact with her so it doesn't happen all that often.

As a kid, I was militant about being called Daniel. But as I meandered through my adolescence, I became Dan (much to my mother's chagrin) and it just has kind of stuck.

The funny thing about all those drawbacks is that my last name really does have the perfect drawback. If I had a nickel for every time someone has said "Hey Culligan Man!" I could retire more than comfortably. What's even funnier is that every time someone says that, they act like they're the first person to ever come up with that. Yep, never heard that one before!

(via)

Four states in one day

Unfortunately, though, it was not lying in the depths of your imagination. We trekked nearly 600 miles across Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Colorado today after spending the night at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas (for 35 bucks!!) on Tuesday night, finally arriving at our destination of Glenwood Springs, CO at around 10pm tonight. Here's the route we took.

As Mary would say, I simply couldn't stop thinking about my ass for the last 100 miles of the trip. Google Maps says 8 hours and some-odd minutes, but it was closer to 10 hours after you factor in our bazillion bathroom breaks and some significant time lost in the mountains of central Utah. It was up and down the mountains in the rain - just what I was wanting to do today! Mountain driving is challenging as it is, and when you throw rain into the mix, it is even more difficult. The only way it could have been worse was if the road had been under construction as well.

I am very glad to be stationary for a couple days. The only thing on the agenda for tomorrow is a trail ride about an hour from here. We might, if we are crazy enough, try to push on to home on Friday. Google Maps says 12 hours from here to home, so we may have a date with a hotel in Grand Island, NE.

And if there is any one thing I have learned about myself on this trip, it is that I am more of a wuss than I thought. I got all the way up to the top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas and could not go through with riding the Big Shot. Propelled at 45 mph to a height of 1149 feet above the Strip? Fuck that shit. Seriously, I don't need that kind of stress in my life!

They wanna make it in the neighborhood

No trip to L.A. is complete without heading up to Hollywood - and that's exactly what we did last night. Say what you will, but I am kind of a sucker for the touristy stuff.

We saw the Hollywood sign (from quite a distance, I might add) and walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard on the famous Walk of Fame. We also hit Grauman's Chinese Theater and some of the souvenir shops up and down Hollywood Boulevard.

Somehow or another, we hit evidence of many MANY gay icons on the way. It was as if we were drawn to them. Photographic evidence below:

Joan Crawford - outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. "May this cement our friendship!"

Going down the stoney end, I never wanted to go!

With the star of my first celebrity crush!

Oddly, the only Golden Girl with a star.
Judy Garland's cement block at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

We also managed to find Joan Crawford's star - it took us quite a while to find it (with the help of a star map which cost 6 bucks!) but it was totally worth it for this photo which Anna took.

Album cover

We hit Manhattan Beach today, and I snapped this picture.

When I got to looking at it the end of the day today, I realized that it was actually quite similar to this album cover (albeit from a much greater distance).

So even if life does not always imitate art, you can be certain that it can sometimes imitate a great early Streisand album.

Pacifically speaking

It only took 37 years, but I've finally been to both U.S. coastlines.

By the time I get to Phoenix

Much in the style of XO's mixtape posts, here's a bunch of random catch-up bits and pieces.

Heidi did a great wrap-up-so-far of the trip here. Much like Madonna, you know they try to imitate her, but they just can't duplicate her, so I'll just link to it. She has also uploaded all of the photos we have taken so far (minus the bad ones) to Picasa. Those pictures can be found here.

We have been in Chandler, AZ for the last couple days. We arrived Tuesday night and have spent two days mostly recharging and relaxing at the home of my brother and his wife. It's been a much-needed rest after 4 days of being on the road. Don't misinterpret that, however. For all the nervousness I had in the run-up to the trip that it would exhaust me and that I would need a vacation from vacation, the driving hasn't been so bad. I also added up my gas receipts, and counting the gas I bought today in anticipation of the drive to L.A. tomorrow, I have only spent 190 dollars! To put it in perspective, that is not even one airfare to and from Phoenix.

This afternoon, my brother Ryan put Heidi's crown on her implant. This has been two years in the making, with the implant being placed in October of 2007, the impression of her mouth to prep the crown done at my parents' house at Christmas last year, and now, the process is complete. I have the best brother ever because he refuses to take any of my money for this. Seriously, him doing this saved me probably a 800 bucks. As I said - best. brother. ever. He has a brand new practice that he just opened this year - check out his website here.

I finished The Mysteries of Pittsburgh last night. After finishing it, I read about the movie and can totally see why it was panned. I don't ever need to see it. Leaving out main characters is just never a good idea! Apparently, the screenwriter and director also de-gayed it significantly, which significantly alters the original story.

Consequently, I am on to Aliens: Nightmare Asylum. Total trash. I'm also 2/3rds of the way through it and I started today.

I drove my sister-in-law's Mazda Miata convertible the other day. I had never driven a convertible before and everything you assume about how fun it is to drive them is true. You just try not to think about the certain death that would befall you were there an accident.

Casey Stratton has an amazing new project out that has started to serve as the soundtrack for this trip. With Altered States: Remixes Vol. 1, Casey took some of his best known songs and remixed them himself. Mostly, these are trancy -club remixes, but a few are not, especially the ballads which seem to be "rearranged." In any event, the result is fantastic. I am hoping that the Vol. 1 moniker means that there are more to come. In an ideal world, what I would really like to see is him apply this arrangement to a whole album of new songs, aimed squarely at the dance floor. But I never tell a man how to run his business (and I can't for the life of me remember what movie that is from!). Anyway, pick it up because it is excellent, excellent, excellent. Now if only he'd do a bit more touring, then life would truly be good.

We are missing Capital City Pride next weekend. It is sad because it has the potential to be the best Pride ever because of the marriage equality decision rendered by the Iowa Supreme Court in April. While we will not be there in body, we will be there very much in spirit.

Finally, I am a bit nervous about L.A. traffic tomorrow. A guy I was talking to at my brother's office who had me seriously freaked out about rush hour traffic. The plan is to leave as close to 8AM tomorrow so that we can avoid the worst of it. We have to drive through 4-5 hours worth of desert, so I picked up an extra thing of coolant, which guarantees we won't need it. Minor aside: my Mazda 626 has performed beyond my wildest expectations on this trip.

Till next update. Next stop - California.

Mountain passes

Today we navigated our way down from Denver to Cortez, CO by way of US Highway 285. It was not the way I was planning on going, but I will say that it was a beautiful drive. It took us from the an elevation of around 5000 feet to all the way up to some 10,000 feet at the Kenosha Pass. Let me tell you, you can feel every little bit of that 5000 foot rise in elevation. The roads are winding, the up and down is incredible and there is no such thing as cruise control while you're driving this route.

We also managed to find ourselves on the Wolf Creek Pass in southwest Colorado. This route has absolutely nothing on Kenosha. It is beautiful country, but some of the curves through the mountain are no-shit 25 mph and they mean business. There were several corkscrew turns and at least two complete U-turns. Heidi about had heart failure. It's a good thing she wasn't driving.

But apparently, the mother of all mountain passes in Colorado is the Red Mountain Pass. Looking at this picture, holy crap, I don't think I'll be attempting it EVER. At least Wolf Creek Pass was 4 lanes!

Some of our own pictures (not of Wolf Creek) coming in the next few days.

We're ready

Or as ready as we're going to get. And, as usual, we have Heidi to thank. Thanks to her inner Virgo, she has organized us over the last couple of days better than I could have over a couple hundred years. But she is a Virgo, after all, and Virgos are at their sexiest when they are organizing.

I'm kind of past my apprehensiveness of last night's post and am ready to just do it. Last night, as I was trying to sleep, all I could think of was how it was just our luck for gas to jump by about a dollar a gallon in the run-up to our trip. This epitomizes my mindset of late and the stupid things I have chosen to be anxious about. Yes, the timing of that sucks, but really, what the hell are you going to do about it? So why waste precious energy fretting about it?

In the meantime, I've packed 4 books to read while on the trip. I harbor no illusions that I will finish them off, but I figure too many is better than not enough. Here they are - they're a bit eclectic but I guess that kind of stands to reason:



























A well-regarded debut novel, a trashy sci-fi pulp, a zombie book and a gay book. I nearly chose Larry Kramer's Faggots over the latter, but I am kind of sucker of Andrew Holleran, even though he can be insanely depressing.

So there we go. 6249 songs on the now unsynced iPod. And now, I must sleep. Tomorrow starts sooner than we'd like to think.

Westward ho

It's hard to believe that in about 32 hours, we will be leaving Iowa's comfortable confines and headed to Arizona and California (via Nebraska, Colorado and Utah) for two weeks. It seems like we aren't even close to ready, even though I know we are doing better than either of us are willing to admit. What I will admit to is a bit of apprehensiveness, but as someone pointed out to me today, driving vacations can be so much fun, because it is the thrill of the open road. This, not surprisingly, made me think of the Gary Barlow song of the same name.

But she is right. I haven't driven this far EVER, and haven't been on this kind of driving vacation since the early 90s. Our ultimate destinations are Phoenix (where my brother will finish Heidi's implant) and L.A. (where my sister is now living, after spending the last several years in the frozen Arctic of Northwest Territories, Canada.) Along the way, we're planning to hit a couple tourist stops, not the least of which is the Grand Canyon which I have not seen since 1986. I doubt it has changed much save the skywalk that has been built, but there is no way I'm paying 70 bucks a person to walk on that thing.

I am nervous about driving in L.A. but I have driven in Chicago so I figure it's not like I'm completely incompetent. I have never been to California before, so I'm looking forward to it. I feel like it's a crime to get all the way out there and not see the big trees but you just can't do everything. Anna is going to get to go to Disneyland, which is much less expensive than I was anticipating and I am looking forward to spending a large amount of time on the beach.

There may be some blogger meet-ups while I am out west - the logistics of which remain to be worked out so we'll see. I will be blogging from the road as well as uploading stuff to Facebook. I'm not sure how many updates there will be. It'll kind of depend on how worn out from driving we are and how much is worth reporting. I promise nothing but to endeavor to do my best.

Vacations of this sort kind of stress me out a bit, but the stress is completely self-manufactured. I am nervous that I will come back more tired than before I left. I still worry a bit about money, but that has been worked out as best it can. The thing I'm going to try to do is not get attached to outcomes. Rather, each day will be a new adventure and whatever happens will be part of that adventure.

So it will be fun and regardless of what happens, it will be memorable.

Gently remove your tampon

I met up with my friend Matt last night to go to see I Love You, Man at the dollar theater. It had been quite a while since we had been to see a cheap movie there - I think the last one was Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I Love You, Man was kind of one of those movies that I really wanted to go see, but just couldn't justify paying 8 bucks for when it was playing in the first-run theater.

Many of my friends saw this movie, and it was universally declared that this movie would be right up my alley. Jeff went so far as to say, "Dan, you need to see this movie. It is a movie that was made for guys like us." He was, along with the rest of the people that recommended the movie to me, correct. For those that don't know, the movie's basic plot is probably appropriate for a Tweet, because I'm not sure it would take 140 characters to do it. Paul Rudd is about to get married, finds he has no male friends from which to choose a best man. He tries to find friends, meets Jason Segel, and the unlikely duo become fast friends. Typical romantic comedy insanity ensues.

This movie is very much in the vein of Rudd's previous comedy, Role Models - complete with bawdy jokes, funny physical gags and the kind of irreverent humor that straddles the line between funny and offensive. Unlike in Role Models which I found balanced that line less adeptly, I found pretty much all the humor in I Love You, Man to fall on the funny side. I also found it odd that for basically being a "buddy movie", the relationship between Rudd and Segel hit all the typical romantic comedy plot points like clockwork. This is not a bad thing - it has been years since Hollywood cranked out a really good romantic comedy. What was interesting was how this formula was applied to the platonic relationship between the two male leads. The semi-awkward dance of the first "dates", the giddiness of the new relationship, the faux breakup and eventual reconciliation - all these turning points were present to drive the narrative along.

Not surprisingly, I found this movie not only funny, but also kind of sweet. Rudd's Peter Klaven is a caricature for certain - I don't think anyone is that socially inept at the male code - but I found his earnestness in trying to find a friend charming and a little bit cute. He and Sydney (no less a caricature than Peter) are a bit of an odd couple, but Sydney brute machoness serves as a good foil to Peter's macho-not-so-much. There were times in the movie where the chemistry between the two of them didn't really work for me. I couldn't believe that someone like Peter would want to hang out with someone like Sydney. I think that had Sydney been painted a little less broadly it would have been a little more believable. I say that, but truthfully, as a man, I will say that you never know with whom you are going to bond and that sometimes its the differences that cement the friendship rather than the similarities.

Watching the movie, I obviously connected much more with Peter than I did Sydney, even though there were things that Peter did that were truly cringeworthy. I think I recognized a bit more than a sliver of myself in him, as the not-as-masculine guy who has always had "girl friends" as opposed to the kind of buddyship portrayed in this movie. I am always a bit jealous of those types of friendships, but looking back on my own life, it's not like I had any trouble filling up my wedding party nor do I lack for people in my life right now. Additionally, my own experience tells me that the depiction of the relationship between Peter & Sydney was also unrealistic on a few levels, not the least of which was the speed at which they became such close friends. The thing I've learned about those kinds of friendships is that they are simultaneously born out of an organic reaction that you can't force and then cultivated by hard work. You can't force it, you don't dare force it, and sometimes, it takes years. Granted, that was not going to happen in a 90 minute comedy, but still.

I have written on this blog before and will continue to maintain to my last breath that while wives and girlfriends are undeniably important in our path as men, we cannot and should not underestimate what we have to offer to each other. We need each other, for sometimes we just need to be guys. No matter how hard women work to do that, they are not a substitute and are limited by their experience as women in how much they can relate to our experiences as men. I feel like I Love You, Man, while undeniably a farce, showed the truth that our friendships with each other can be as intense and as necessary as our marriages.

May we all be as fortunate as Peter and Sydney.

The previews at the movie last night have led Matt and me to three more movies to see at the dollar theater: Star Trek, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Friday the 13th. Check, check, and check.

Neurons firing

Nabbed from Boy Culture:



I usually am hard pressed to watch YouTube videos longer than 90 seconds, but this one had me for the entire 6 minutes. Watching this reminds me of why I have been a Madonna fan for 25 years - just look at the body of work she has behind her. Each image fires off neurons in different sections of my brain all at once. Images from the "La Isla Bonita video" set my 14 year-old brain to memories of standing in P.E. talking to Jeff about the video (and amazed I knew someone else who shared my obsession). Flickering shots of from Sex remind my 20 year-old brain listening to Erotica in solitude. Even Madonna eras I'm not terribly fond of have something positive to give - the "4 Minutes" video will forever be linked to my first time in New York City.

I have taken my fair share of shit over the years for being a Madonna fan, but it is not an experience I would trade for anything in the world. As Matt Rettenmund said in his post - she *is* me, well, sort of. But these images are something that all Madonna fans share. I'm not sure where she's going these days (hell, I'm not sure that even she knows where she's going) but the fans really do share in this body of work.

The past catches up with you

My father sent me this picture this morning. That little tyke is yours truly.


The funny part of this is I have never once seen this picture in my entire life. It makes me wonder where in the world he found it.

Mumbo jumbo jive

On my walk to work this morning, I rather unexpectedly put on the soundtrack from the 1992 Dolly Parton comedy Straight Talk. It is, as romantic comedies go, not the greatest. As Dolly Parton movies go, it is probably at about a 6, with 9 to 5 naturally representing the high end of the scale, and Rhinestone serving as the bottom - seriously, who thought Sly Stallone as a country singer was a good idea?

Although the critics pretty much universally hated it, I am actually very fond of Straight Talk, both the movie and the soundtrack. The basic premise is that Dolly is Shirlee Kenyon, a country girl from Flat River, Arkansas with a loser of a boyfriend (played by Michael Madsen) who has just lost her job as a dance instructor. So she packs her bags and heads to Chicago where, through a series of completely improbable events, she is mistaken for the new radio psychologist at radio station WNDY. Put on the air with no prep, the audience, of course, loves her because she is so down to earth and well, it's DOLLY PARTON giving out advice. The radio station gives her a contract, as long as she agrees to call herself "Dr. Shirlee." Enter James Woods as an investigative reporter who thinks the whole thing smells fishy. In trying to uncover the scam, he falls in love with her.

The movie is nothing if not completely predictable, and Dolly is pretty much playing herself. There are a bunch of good one liners courtesy of Patricia Resnick (who also had a hand in 9 to 5), my favorite being Dolly's declaration that she went to Screw U when asked where she received her medical training. (Check it out in the video below - it's at about the 8 minute mark.)



Some of the one liners in the movie remind me quite a bit of Dolly's stage show, where she at times cracks herself up more than she does the audience, but she's Dolly so we forgive her. Also of note in the movie is Griffin Dunne, playing another neurotically nerdy character, although to me he will always be David Naughton's decaying best friend Jack in An American Werewolf in London.

I remember buying this soundtrack before I ever saw the movie. Comprised entirely of Dolly Parton originals, it was also the first Dolly Parton CD I bought completely on faith. During my first couple years of college I played the Dolly Parton's Greatest Hits cassette tape on my Walkman until it was practically shredded, and had checked out Eagle When She Flies from the library quite frequently. But up till then, I had not really purchased a whole lot of Dolly, especially if it was music I had not heard. I took the leap with the Straight Talk soundtrack; it was VERY much an impulse purchase.

And as impulse purchases go, it has served me quite well. Yes, the songs are, as my friend Caryle might say, pure processed pastuerized cheese product. But, as my sister Wendy would say (and I would heartily agree), cheese is ALWAYS better than crap. You can tell that Dolly set out to write songs that were relevant to the movie, although she did recycle "Light Of A Clear Blue Morning" from one of her 70s albums. The production is very 90s country-pop, but I just can't help but like it. The title song is classic Dolly cornpone, with references to Oprah and Donahue. Frustratingly for me, the video is not embeddable. Watch it here. Another highlight is "Livin' A Lie" which has the most cliched lyrics ever, but once again, it's Dolly so we forgive her.



What I can't get over is how much more natural Dolly looks in this movie. It has to be at least 3 facelifts ago. Of course, the movie is getting close to 20 years old, which just makes me feel as old as Methuselah.

The movie is on DVD, full screen format only sadly, but it is certainly worth a watch. The CD is out of print, but used copies abound on Amazon. Both play like early 90s nostalgia, and sometimes that is just what the doctor ordered.

5 oldies

I was making a new playlist for my iPod the other day and deliberately did not put some of the more frequently played songs on there. With the help of Genius playlist, I managed to get some oldies in there and consequently, I have been listening to some songs that have not gotten play in a damn long time. Since I'm all about embarrassing myself from the standpoint of what trash I'm listening to at the moment, here is a sampling.

1) The Way I Am / Eminem
Not at all into the new Eminem stuff, but I do have a soft spot for just about everything else. A little Eminem goes such a long way for me, but as I have said before, it is probably as melodic as rap is going to get. I find myself extremely conflicted listening to Eminem as the subject matter of pretty much everything he does seems to be contrary to core values I have, but there it is.

2) Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave) / Roxette
I couldn't believe that this was not in my iTunes. I really disliked the song "Joyride", but I really liked this when it came out. When I first met Heidi, Roxette was pretty much the only pop music she listened to (favoring new-age and instrumental music for lack of a better description.) Upon discovering Sunday that this song was not on my computer, you better believe I remedied that in a big hurry!

3) Total Eclipse of the Heart / Nikki French
I remember when this remake came out roughly 1994ish. I was in college and completely opposed to it just on principle. How dare they take a classic 80s song and bastardize it with a techno beat and some no-name singer singing a monotone through the whole song? I resisted it for a terribly long time, but eventually was won over. What was I thinking? This song rules!



4) Spice Up Your Life / Spice Girls
Honestly, there really are better Spice Girls songs out there. "Stop" being one of them (which was played ad nauseum at a pharmacy where I worked in the late 90s). But this one is really hitting the spot. One of two Spice Girls songs on the playlist ("Say You'll Be There") being the other, it has made me think that it was a good thing that they milked the Spice Girls for all they were worth back in the late 90s/early 00s because looking at them now, it's clear their shelf life was limited.



5) Family Man / Fleetwood Mac
My favorite track off of Tango In The Night - this should make Matt happy because of his love of Lindsey Buckingham. But what I really love about this song is the breakdown right around 2:24 with Stevie warbling "am what I am what I am what I am what I am." Why is it not surprising that my favorite part of a Lindsey song would be Stevie's appearance? Anyway, cool guitar playing and an underrated song.

Honorable Mention: Celine Dion / When The Wrong One Loves You Right
An album track from A New Day Has Come, Heidi summed it up best: "Ah Celine, making adultery cool." As Paul said a while back, there are a handful of really good Celine Dion songs and I would submit that this is one of them. Here she is singing it with Destiny's Child.



I may do five more - we'll see.

Sticky & sweet, now with real sugar!

I have managed, for the most part, to eliminate regular pop (that's what we call it here, as opposed to soda or Coke) from my diet over the last several years. It really is nothing more than liquid candy. This switch has been made all the easier thanks to Diet Mountain Dew, which really is nectar from the gods. The Diet Dew dispenser at work is out of order at least 40% of the time. I think it's because we're all addicts.

Anyway, someone at work mentioned Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback to me the other night, singing their praises and how "they taste like Pepsi and Mountain Dew used to taste when they were in glass bottles." Now this I had to try. The idea behind both Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback is that they are sweetened with REAL SUGAR vs. the high-fructose corn syrup that has sweetened soft drinks since the mid 80s and has been implicated in obesity and the health problems that come as a result.

You wouldn't think that it would make a difference, but it does. I had a Pepsi Throwback today and it tastes like Pepsi should and also does not result in the "oh my God, I have to brush my teeth NOW" feeling after drinking it. It is no less caloric than the HFCS sweetend variety, but hey, if I'm going to have the calories, it might as well taste better.

I don't envision myself going back to regular pop because of this, but I do believe I'll buy a case of this. It's only going to be on the market till mid June (at least according to Wikipedia) so it might vanish just as quickly as it appeared.

(image via - which has a good FAQ as well)

He who frets loses the night

I got that line stuck in my head at work tonight. I haven't heard that Diana Krall song ("Devil May Care") in an age and thankfully it was on my iPod so that I could listen to it on the way home. That line is also apropos these days as my sleep has been fraught with difficulties of that sort.

The other line I love in that song is "he who is wise never tries to revise what's past and gone."



It's too bad that Diana Krall has such a cold demeanor. I have no idea if she is nice person or not, but she does not seem like it in most interviews. However, she can sure play a mean jazz piano! But, as predicted, her new album is not good at all (apart from the cover of Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By").

For sale

Next weekend, we are having a garage sale - the one at which the MAD magazines are 99.99999% certain to be for sale. I honestly didn't think we would be having it in May, at least not May of 2009. Just a few weeks ago, the stuff was scattered about the basement in nearly complete disarray, some of it still bearing the tags from the last garage sale. When Heidi announced a month or so ago that she wanted to have the garage sale before we left on on our Phoenix/L.A. trip in June, I thought that I would be amazed if it actually happened.

Well, believe it. Because it's going to happen. I have to give it up to Heidi because a lot of it has been her doing. She tagged almost all the clothes and toys and various sundry items. I did a lot of the heavy lifting and cleaning up of yard toys and electronic equipment. I hauled more books than you care to think about. But it really is going to happen next weekend, rain or shine.

There are two types of garage sales. There are the ones at which you set out to make money. These are almost always folly because you just can't make tons when most things are priced below a dollar (although we did make about $500 on our last one.) Then there are the ones designed to move the crap. We are aiming for the last one, but will settle for some crossover.

In the meantime, here's a shot of Bette and Joan getting ready for their garage sale. They are cussing out the early birds who arrived prior to the sale start time. (it always happens!!)

Cool mom

I'm here to tell you that Mother's Day lacks the really REALLY good line that I use year after year for Father's Day. After all, Nathan Grantham doesn't say "It's Mother's Day, Bedelia!!" Mother's Day does, however, have its requisite horror movie, which I have never seen but from the looks of it, appears to be a semi-retread of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in that it has a redneck family and unsuspecting teenagers stumbling onto their property. And how can one forget what is perhaps the most dysfunctional mother-son relationship of all in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho?

But this is post is not about all that. Yes, it is Mother's Day. But I don't want to talk about blood and guts and gore and crossdressing. I'm here to pay tribute to my own mom. A lot of my friends accuse me of having the coolest parents ever. And, well, it's all true. Look, she was even cool back in 1972 when posing for one of our first pictures together! (and looking at that picture, I am reminded that it is the Cullinan side to blame for the curly hair!)

No one ever thinks that their parents are cool when they're growing up. I think that if you don't go through a certain amount of rebellion against those who raised you, you've missed some essential part of development. Mine was certainly more subdued than others, but it still happened. I look back on my teenage years and sometimes I just shudder! But Mom was always there. Even at those times that I was pretty sure I didn't want her there, she was patient and helpful without being overly involved. That's one of the things I realize now, with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight. My mom and dad were always there for us, but they also had a healthy respect for boundaries.

One of my most vivid memories from those days was in 1988 and I had been invited to the prom by not one but two girls. I was a sophomore and both of the girls were juniors. While flattering, the bottom line was that, even at age 15, I really hadn't dated properly and, thanks to a self-esteem that was in the gutter and most likely undiagnosed depression (it was not the buzzword then that it is now), I didn't want to go with either or them. I was going to just ignore both and hope the problem went away, a pattern I still lapse into on my worst days. I was up in my room and my mom came up and gently but firmly that the situation was not going to go away and that other people and their feelings were involved. She gave me the courage that I needed to pull myself up out of my own mire and (yes) self-pity. My brain comes back to that conversation more than you might imagine. I wonder if Mom even remembers it.

Those kinds of life lessons carry forward, even now, at nearly 37 years of age. And my mom continues to be supportive in ways both big and small. They help us so much. They provide free child care frequently. They are going to babysit bad boy Blair while we are on vacation. But perhaps the best recent example was when things got really bad earlier this year and I needed to make a request of them, I knew that even though I was embarrassed to do so, that they would be there for us. And they were.

So here's to you Mom. I love you very much and, well, I guess I'll see you in a few hours!

Icicles in hell, Kylie in the U.S.

I am going to join just about every blogger I know in celebrating the announcement of Kylie Minogue's North American tour! (best headline ever in that link.) Well, if you can call a 6-date run a "tour." Anyway, we can hardly bitch because Kylie has never once during her entire 21 year career seen fit to tour in the U.S. And really, I can't blame her all that much. The U.S. has been very lukewarm to Kylie, "The Locomotion" and "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" notwithstanding.

Thankfully, one of the cities on the tour is Chicago. While not next door, it is still a relatively uncomplicated trip (see the Sticky & Sweet Tour.) I e-mailed Heidi with the news and she was instantly on board, also trying to talk our friends Jeff and Caryle into going as well. The show is October 7th, and tickets are "only" $75, which is still fully half of what I spent on my Sticky & Sweet ticket and about what I spent for Dolly Parton. If Heidi, Anna, and I all go, it will be a pricey night, but one that we will not soon forget.

But here's the thing...the venue, the Congress Theater, seats a mere 4000 people. Now, I know that Kylie does not have the draw of say Madonna or U2 or Coldplay, but 4000 seats? One show? I think they are SERIOUSLY underestimating Kylie's ability to sell tickets. There are probably 4000 people within the Chicago city limits that would be interested in those seats, leaving everyone else out of luck. Kylie's appeal within the gay community is tremendous and just because she has not had album sales in the U.S. to match her contemporaries, don't think for a minute that those seats will not sell out instantly. I would like to think they will add more dates, but there really isn't any time built into the tour schedule for that. My worry is that the seats will sell out during the weeklong presale for fan club members and American Express cardholders. Anyone out there have AmEx and willing to give me their number? I promise to pay you back!

I am going to try to go - who knows, it might be another 21 years before she heads back to the States. I want to at least give it a good, honest effort to make it to see her live for she is another of those artists on my short list of people to see live. I just never thought it would happen in the U.S.

Kylie puts on a hell of a show. Yes, she is kind of Madonna-lite, much to the dismay of some bloggers, but I daresay her KylieX2008 tour was at least as entertaining as Sticky & Sweet, and maybe just a little bit more because of Kylie's stubborn refusal to disavow her old songs, unlike Madonna who can't run away from some of her most crowd pleasing hits fast enough.

And as proof of this point, here's the closing number of KylieX2008 - her very first hit "I Should Be So Lucky."



I am always amazed at how little she is.

We should be so lucky. Wish us luck. We will need it.

Mad magazines coming out my ears

For the last 25 years, I have been lugging around boxes full of old MAD magazines that I collected as a kid. They run roughly from 1981-1986, but that is a damn lot of MAD magazines. MAD was such an essential part of my formative years that I have never been able to part with them. Consequently, they have stayed in the basement in boxes, barely ever looked at, but still there just in case.

About ten years ago, a CD-ROM set containing every issue of MAD was released. I bought it, but it is very cumbersome to use because you are constantly switching discs. Recently, that has been updated to every issue of MAD on one DVD, which I wouldn't mind buying but it seems like I am buying something twice, which Suze Orman will tell you is wasting money.

So I've put up a poll for those interested in helping me figure out what to do with thes albatrosses. It's at the top of the page and I would appreciate any input from the peanut gallery. There are three options, but anything else, you can put in the comments or e-mail me privately. I am having a hard time getting rid of them, but a part of me thinks that if I put them on the garage sale we're having in a few weeks, they might sell like hotcakes. Then I could put the money toward purchasing the DVD.

(that Yoda one is NOT - despite what I thought earlier - one of the many that I'm pondering junking, I started collecting with MAD #223 with J.R. Ewing on the cover.)

Edited summer

As a result of the residual effects of the daddy-daughter dance, I bought Donna Summer's "Last Dance" on iTunes last night. Now don't misunderstand me, it's not as if I didn't already have that song in my iTunes. But the version I had was the one from Endless Summer, the umpteenth collection of Donna Summer's work from the 70s through the early 90s. It contains a horrendously edited version of "Last Dance", whittling it down to a meager 3:22. When I was listening to it after thinking about it the other night, it just seemed so, well...short.

So the version I bought was the 12" version, which clocks in at a 8:11. I lingered over the 4:58 edit from On The Radio, but I thought that since they were both 99 cents, I was getting nearly twice as much "Last Dance" for the same amount of money going for the 12" version.

I have not been disappointed. Upon listening to it, I realized that the edit completely excised what is basically the bridge. It was as if it were lying dormant in my brain, because the instant I heard it, I realized just how crucial it is.

I can't be sure that you're the one for me
But all that I ask
Is that you dance with me, dance with me, dance with me.

The 12" version also works in 3 different key changes and at about the midpoint goes back to the slow opening. Now THAT is how the song is supposed to sound.

Really, if you get right down to it, the edits that go on most best-of collections are pretty bad. I realize that best-ofs are catering to a completely different type of music fan than studio albums are, but they just always sound so bad to me. GHV2 remains the only Madonna album I have not purchased, mostly because it is the single laziest Madonna release ever (no new songs) but the edits on there are particularly heinous. I can make my own version of GHV2 very well, thankyouverymuch. And it will be better than the one officially released by the label.

Those big mammoth disco epics of the 70s were meant to be experienced in their original form, not in a bite sized piece. And you just won't find those on the best-of sets.

Just dance

I just got back from what is probably the second best time I have ever had dancing - the best time being a tie between my wedding (which involved me drinking an entire bottle of wine and famously DJing my own wedding dance) and our trip to the Garden for Heidi's birthday (one of my most favorite posts on this blog if I may be so bold and conceited).

Tonight was the Daddy-Daughter dance at Anna's school. Attending it required some creative scheduling at work, but it was totally worth it. I knew that it would be, but I had no idea that I would have as much fun as we did. Put on by the Meeker PTO which is trying to raise money for new playground equipment, it was well organized, well attended and a total blast, even if it did take its name from that gag-o-rific "Butterfly Kisses" song. Held in the gym at Anna's elementary school, it brought back memories of school dances I attended 20 years ago. The girls were dressed to the nines and most of the dads were all dressed pretty spiffily too. I wore a tie for the first time in forever as well as my cool New York suit coat.

We got there just after it started, and already the gym was full of dads and their daughters. At first, I was a little self conscious, as I normally am when we go anywhere to dance. I'm one of those guys that secretly (or not so secretly) just loves to dance, but has a hard time breaking through my initial layer of inhibitions. Usually, there's a little bit of alcohol involved in getting past them, but that was obviously not an option tonight. Ultimately, I decided it was just like the beach or the pool. I always think I am going to be the worst looking, most out-of-shape person there. I am always wrong, and really, no one is looking so you might as well just have fun.

And have fun we did. We danced to all sorts of stuff. They mixed it up quite nicely so that there was something for the kids ("High School Musical" was pretty prominent) as well as the oldsters like me, with some Cyndi Lauper and other 80s night staples thrown in for good measure. They played some surprises - Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" and even a bit of Lady Gaga which has never sounded as good as it did tonight. It sounded so good, I actually downloaded "Just Dance" tonight after months and months of resisting it. Perhaps the oddest song played all night was "Rock and Roll All Night" by Kiss, which Anna knows from Guitar Hero. When I hear it, all I can think of is Role Models - rock and roll all night and part of every day.

Anna was hilarious tonight. She declared to me as we walked in the door "I put on extra deodorant, just in case." It was a good thing because the gym was kind of stinky by the end of the night. She was never quite able to decide if she wanted to be with me or with her friends. When we were dancing, it was hard to convince her that every song was not a chance for her to do a solo interpretive dance. But who am I to discourage? I just enjoyed being with her.

One of the most interesting aspects of the night was the wide array of fathers at the dance. We were all along the spectrum when it came to comfort level with being dancing fools. While I was probably somewhere in the high 70s/low 80s on the dancing fool scale (100 being the highest), there were some guys that cut the rug even more than me. Many were very stoic and did not really dance, which kind of begged the question why they were there at all. In the end, it was all about Anna, who just had a fantastic time, even though her shoes hurt her feet and her necklace, bracelet and scarf were in my pocket within the first hour.

When "Butterfly Kisses" was inevitably played at about the half way point, we had been having such a good time that I barely noticed. We danced around the floor a little bit, but what struck me is how little of a "Butterfly Kisses" relationship Anna and I have. Oh, sure we do in some respects - much of that is just what being the father to a daughter is. But our relationship is so much more than just the sappy stuff. It's about listening to the Guitar Hero playlist on my iPod (even though I was caught off guard for the "Dad, what does 'talk dirty to me' mean?" question). It is about watching Meerkat Manor on the Netflix box and playing the Titanic song as a piano duet. In fact, during the song, while most of the dads were doing the slow dance with their daughters, mine was off being the free spirit that she is, occasionally bouncing back to me to do a spin or a twirl. Hopefully, the way that I am parenting her is fostering that free spirit rather than squashing it.

For all the greatness that was the dance, I will say they totally blew the last song. It was Etta James' "At Last." If it had been me in charge of the music, it totally would have been Donna Summer's "Last Dance." Not to mention there would have been at least one Madonna song. There are some that are appropriate for kids! It is not a dance without either "Vogue" or "Into The Groove."

What a great night. On the way home, we couldn't stop talking about how much fun we had. It makes the coming weekend of work just that much more palatable. Because no matter what tomorrow deals me, tonight I am happy.

Here's some pictures of us before we left for the dance.