FilteringCraig

Prior to the Indy 500, the largest sporting even I had ever attended was Ohio State vs. Michigan during OSU’s championship season. (Eat your heart out Skip Bayless.) As a result of that event, I feel like I have experience with drunken party-like sporting event atmospheres. What could possibly say “party” more than a crowd getting pepper sprayed while trying to take down the field goal posts after the game?

The thing is that OSU seats just over 100,000 people and the seating surrounding the 2.6 mile track in Indianapolis seats somewhere between 250,000 and 350,000 depending on the number of people in the infield.

Here are some of my thoughts and observations on the Indy 500 from this weekend. Some of it was funny. Some of it was really amazing. All of it was fun. I wouldn’t consider myself a race fan just yet, but I think I could definitely make time for the Indy 500 every year. On with the list.

• Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) needs to be there singing “Welcome Home to Indiana.” The song is called something like that, anyway. I think I was the only one in the stands who didn’t know the words and wasn’t singing along.
• You can’t have a party without Florence Henderson warbling “God Bless America” (with entirely too long of a prelude, which guarantees at least 2 minutes of vocal histrionics while waiting for the familiar opening line.)
  

• You also need a flyover from the Stealth Bomber.
  

• Apparently you can’t have a party without real A-List celebrities like Richard Karn (Al from Tool-Time on Tim Allen’s Home Improvement.) Other celebs included Chester Bennington (Linkin Park,) Russell Crowe, some chick from one of the Home Improvement Shows, Cheech Marin (sans Chong,)
  

• Oh, and you need a Miss America sighting, as if anyone knows her name.
• You need a parade of candidates for “Miss Indy 500″ (some homecoming queen type of deal?) including 27 girls from Butler which I believe is about 37% of the female population that matriculates at the school.
• You need 174 guys waiting in line to get to the “bathroom” (troughs) during a yellow flag warning on the track after a crash, and at least 10 of the guys need to be mimicking Larry The Cable Guy’s catchphrase “Get Er Done!” while encouraging their drunken compatriots to make room at the trough so they can attempt to retain at least a small portion of their remaining dignity by not peeing themselves.
• You need to have a strategy session on the best way to get to and from the Speedway, along with strategies for parking and getting your cooler the last mile from parking lot to gate.
• Sunscreen, Sunscreen, Sunscreen and Sunscreen. Apparently, the running joke is that most times you will need an umbrella, but this year there was perfect weather for the entire race.
• You need a compelling story line. Danica Patrick was hyped up for this race, and I would say that the majority of the crowd was totally behind her. For whatever reason, I would have thought race fans would be especially resistant to a female driver invading their territory, but not in this case.
  

• In a race with this many drivers there has to be more than one crowd favorite and it was easy to see that the crowd was also behind Sam Hornisch Jr. as they collectively groaned when he wiped out against the wall just over half way through the race.
• Earplugs are an essential part of an event with high powered engines propelling vehicles north of 200 MPH. We were sitting on the third turn, and I can’t really tell you how loud it was. Just make sure you have ear plugs.
• Oh, and the mullets. You can’t have race day without the mullets. Be sure to click through and check out some of the mullet pictures I got. They weren’t outstanding, but I am still proud of the one I got below with the mullet and the racecar all in the same frame.
  

That is all I can really think of for now. I am sure more will come to me. Thanks to Jen’s family for all their hospitality this weekend. And thanks to Jen’s dad for the ticket. These were our seats for the event in turn number three.

Capturing the moment. The mullet. The high speed race car. There is none higher in the world of mullet photography.

…Stay tuned for more on my trip to the Indy 500 this weekend.

Finch is a band that is tough to figure out in hindsight. I liked their last album “What It is to Burn” but only to a point. The songs are never bad, but never outstanding either, with a few exceptions like the title track. On top of that, the style of screaming/singing emo/screamo or whatever you want to call it had become quite tired and formulaic by the time their album was hitting it big. With that in mind, I was curious to see what the band would do on their upcoming release.

It is a pleasant surprise so far. They haven’t abandoned any parts of what they did to get them to where they are. They still have the same amount of passion, energy and some of the best technical ability of anybody playing in their genre. Now, in order to push the envelope, they seem to have embraced a little more of their ambition and really gone after something a little different.

The sound of “Say Hello to Sunshine” appears to be a matured version of their style. That isn’t to say that the hooks and pop sensibilities are gone, but they are willing to push past the standard structures that make material in the emo/screamo genre so familiar and comfortable. For example, the band mentions Faith No More in its influences and that is readily apparent on this album.

But that isn’t all of it. For example, on “A Piece of Mind” I hear some deceptively heavy and simple riffs that recall Helmet, although only for moments at a time. On “Ink” I hear a song that sounds like Finch, but it is more boisterous and full, like the kind of song that Incubus wishes they had written for their last album. It is just a great combination of syncopation and the kind of guitar riffage that would have an entire floor of kids bouncing.

That isn’t to say there aren’t some songs that fall below the mark. “A Man Alone” is an experiment into some weird kind of psycho-punk rockabilly. Can’t fault them for originality, but it doesn’t totally work for me.

But, I don’t want to dwell too much on the negatives, because overall this is a very good album. “Bitemarks and Bloodstains” is one of the highlights to be sure, along with the aforementioned “Ink” and “Revelation: Song” which sounds like a front-runner for a video on Much Music or MTV2.

So, if you are a fan of Finch, you should enjoy this album. If you are a bit tired of the screaming/singing formula that peppers too many albums then you will probably be ready to jump on the Finch bandwagon.

Purevolume advanced listen for “Brother Bleed Brother”

MTV Video for “What it is to Burn”

This was also posted at Blogcritics.org

We recently recorded five songs in the studio (C-Town Sound with John Guggy Guggenheim.) Check it out and leave some feedback in the comments. Even if you think it sucks. Thanks.

Download, burn, share, repeat.

(right-click, save-as to download the MP3’s)

1. Fall Away

Visit The Company Line Rocks dot Com

I found these two on the Blogdex.

The first was truly cracking me up because the idea is so ludicrous. The site is called Crying While Eating and it features 30 second videos of (SURPRISE!) people crying while they are eating. The site tells you what they are eating and why they are crying. It was just pretty funny, until I ran across the following video, which changed my assessment to hilarious.

The next site that I was laughing at had pictures of fan costumes for Star Wars called the Parade of Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes. Most of you know how I feel about Halloween so you can probably guess that I am not down with the Star Wars costumes either. Although I enjoy the movies, I think that I enjoy what little dignity I have a little bit more. Maybe if I met Natalie Portman or Carrie Fisher (circa 1977 of course) and the only way they would date me was if I dressed up, then I would make an exception.

Or, I guess if I could make it absolutely hilarious like this guy. I hope he didn’t go to opening night because sitting in the seats would be difficult.

Friday Five - Thinkin about Celebs - If you want to participate, answer the questions on your own site, or in the comments. Just make sure you let me know where you answered them and link back to here. I miss the Friday Five sometimes, so here it is.

1. If you could find out that one celebrity wets the bed, and you get to inform the world, which celebrity would it be?

I would love it if Brendan Fraser wet the bed. Especially since he basically only makes kids movies now. George of the Jungle, Looney Toons Live in Action, etc. I thought Fraser was going to be one of the best (School Ties anyone?) but instead he has continually stunk. He might as well not have the ability to control his bladder like a school child.

2. You get to take over for one celebrity, thus making him/her disappear forever, because frankly, you can just do their job better than they can. Who would it be?

I don’t even watch the show, but I am going with Ryan Seacrest from American Idol and that failed TRL ripoff that he tried to do. I don’t have too many delusions about being able to do celeb jobs better than many of them, but I know damn well that this moron can’t hold a candle to me in any department other than looking innocuous. If getting a show cancelled on The WB is part of the job description, I am a natural for this job.

3. If you could use a time machine to go and change one moment in celebrity (or a celebrity’s) history what would it be?

I am going to go back and take all the drugs away from Chris Farley. I know that Belushi was first and everything, but Farley was my generation’s Belushi and I want to see what he would have done, had he not O.D’d. Ok well maybe I will let him keep his bag of herb, but I am definitely taking the coke away from him.

4. Name one or more “celebrities” that are really non-celebrities in your mind, that you would like to ban from the front of all the lines at the parties, because their “fame” shouldn’t buy them a damn thing.

I really like That 70’s Show, but I am going to have to go with Wilmer Valderama who plays Fez. This Zero goes to all the good parties. He ruins girls like Mandy Moore and Lindsay Lohan, and all he has ever done was rip off Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers. If Cousin Larry can’t be famous, then Balki can’t be either. Those are just the rules.

5. Alright, one nice question. If you could take one marginal celeb and pump them up to full-blown bangin-in-Paris-with-Tom-Cruise famous, who would it be?

I am going to go with Kristin Kreuk who plays Lana Lang on Smallville. She is a complete over-actor on this melodramatic show, but I just can’t stop watching. Plus there is something so exotic about the way she looks that I think she should be hugely famous kind of on the same path as a Catherine Zeta Jones before she became annoying with Cell Phone commercials.

CBS can thank Opie and Anthony for the fine that will be showing up courtesy of the FCC, as one of their reporters takes offense to one of O & A’s “Assaults on the Media” and subsequently swears on morning television.

This is a very funny video of a reporter who just loses his mind after finishing his report, but unfortunately for him, before they could take him off the air completely. He can be heard exclaiming “What the f*$% is your problem??!?!?”

By the way, Opie and Anthony are back on XM Satellite Radio, which is also currently killing Sirius Satellite Radio if you read the financial news.

Sometimes bad comedy ends up being the funniest. You know if you take an easy (and normally unfunny) line and make a big deal about saying it with fake exuberance, it can be downright hilarious. It just depends on who is around and whether they get this form of comedic reverse psychology.

For example, we could be talking about getting a car back from the body shop and the conversation could go like this.

Person: “Well hopefully they don’t run into any trouble.”

Me: with fake exuberance “Running into TROUBLE, is what caused them to be there in the first place. Zing!”

(Crickets)

At this point, trying to prove that I meant it to be cheesy and that the line wasn’t supposed to REALLY be funny would do me no good.

Maybe the world is just too used to people grabbing lines like that and using them seriously.

Maybe I have the comedic timing of Sinbad.

I was helping a friend get some tunes for their 25th High School Reunion party and these were the tracks that (s)he was looking for. I knew most of the tracks, but I thought it was a pretty funny list anyway. I might have to think up what this list will look like for my own 25th high school reunion in the year 2022.

Just for the record I found all these songs but two. I take no responsibility for the spellings as it isn’t my list either.

Atlanta Rhythm Section So Into You
Pat Benatar Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Elvin Bishop Fooled Aroud And Fell In Love
Jackson Brown Runnin on empty
Chic Everybody Dance
Rick Dees Disco Duck
Genesis Follow you Follow Me
Hall And Oates Rich Girl
Heart Barracuda
Joe jackson Is She Really Goin Out With Him
Billy Joel Only The Good Die Young
Journey Lovin Touchin Squeezin
M Pop Music
Manfred Mann Blinded By The Light
Steve Martin King Tut
Meatloaf Paradise By the dashboard light
Meatloaf 2 out of 3
Meatloaf Took the words
John Cougar mellencamp I need A Lover
Eddie Money 2 tickets to paradise
Eddie Money Baby Hold On
Randy Newman Short People
Ted Nugent Cat Scratch Fever
Peaches And Herb Reunited
Johnny Rivers Slow Dancin Swayin To The Music
Todd Rungren Can We Still Be friends
Bob Seeger night Moves
Paul Simon Slip Slidin Away
Styx Come Sail Away
Sugar Hill Gang Rappers Delight
Sweet Love Is Like oxygen
Talkin heads Take me To The River
Joe Tex Ain�t Gonna Bump No More
Joe Walsh Lifes Been Good
Bob Welch Sentimental Lady
Stevie Wonder Sir Duke
Warren Zevon Werewolves of London

I don’t think this quiz is anywhere near as good as some of the others. Just too much choosing between two distinct answers in non-black and white issues if you ask me. Give it a shot anyway, if you feel like. I don’t know why I find these things to be so much fun.