redpillbox

I always only read the last paragraph of any review (if I haven't seen the film yet). I don't want to have the plot spoiled and the reviewer always summarizes his or her thoughts in the most concise, clear way possible in that paragraph.

I saw him pitch in 1987, in the back end of a Astros-Mets doubleheader. I was glad to have witnessed him, but he was not that great that day. The two men's peaks did not really overlap, but Bob Gibson I suspect was feared more than Ryan.

 

Edit: Oops, a quick check of Retrosheet indicates that Ryan pitched in the front end of that 7/24/87 twinbill.

I saw Nolan Ryan's last game in our beloved Kingdome in Seattle. He was hurt with a couple of weeks (?) left in the season and had to be taken out early, everyone knew he would probably never pitch again, so we gave him a standing ovation, he tipped his cap and that was it. It was a moment.

As an autograph hound in my earlier years, I can say that Nolan Ryan is one of the classiest individuals I ever met. The same cannot be said for Reggie Jackson...there was a spitting incident.

Kind of off-topic: Did anyone ever hear that episode of 'This American Life' about the guy who tried to scientifically create the most annoying and most pleasing songs ever, by polling people about what they liked/hated most in songs and then built songs around those things. Turned out the "most annoying" song was infinitely more interesting. Couldn't find the link to the actual episode, but I found this, which I think references the same project:

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/a-scientific-at.html

MP3: Scientific Attempt To Create Most Annoying Song Ever

By Eliot Van Buskirk April 18, 2008 | 10:32:48 AMCategories: Free Download, MP3s and Music Reviews

An online poll conducted in the '90s set Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid and David Soldier on a quest to create the most annoying song ever. After gathering data about people's least favorite music and lyrical subjects, they did the unthinkable: they combined them into a single monstrosity, specifically engineered to sound unpleasant to the maximum percentage of listeners. The song is not new, but it resurfaced on Dial "M" for Musicology.

Amazingly, this "most unwanted music" contains little dissonance -- that would have been too easy. For the most part, they seem to have tried to assemble these elements in a listenable way.

Komar & Melamid and David Soldier's list of undesirable elements included holiday music, bagpipes, pipe organ, a children's chorus and the concept of children in general (really?), Wal-Mart, cowboys, political jingoism, George Stephanopoulos, Coca Cola, bossanova synths, banjo ferocity, harp glissandos, oompah-ing tubas and much, much more. It's actually a fascinating listen, worthwhile for the opera rapping alone. (We didn't think that was possible either.)

UPDATE: Ok...found the link and coincidentally, it's actually up for free download this week (for 3 more days) as it happened to have reaired this last week (that's crazy):

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=88

My vote is "Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band...

Song is completely necessary for this reason:

"Cruel Summer"

I like "Cruel Summer"...I'll say it.

I have to add hollerback (hollaback?) girl by the no doubt singer

 

bleck.

I think it's ok to fun with music every once in a while.

Here's my vote:

In all seriousness though...as someone in the other thread said...I think it HAS to be "Hotel California." The Duder and I agree.

Last night "Window In The Skies" was the best song ever.

Definitely my favorite video of all time. That video perfectly captures the euphoria I feel whenever I hear great music.

Numero Uno would have to be Madame George by Van Morrison.

Love that song!! Definitely in my top 5.

It's kind of cheating to just keep throwing out great songs though isn't it? Part of what makes this such a great question is having to make the choice itself. I recognize it changes...

That being said, I'll just go ahead and throw my non-rock n' roll selection out there...kind of a curve-ball, but "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is my choice. Not to be confused with "The Rainbow Connection" of Muppet fame. I think it's a tribute to the strength of the song that there have been so many great renditions. I'll go ahead and put my masculinity on the line and say it. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"--Greatest. Song. Ever.

I really hated it. I mean, it wasn't a bad book per se, I guess, but it wasn't at all like I would've expected a book that's in that series to be. The author approached the album from a very religious perspective, looking at it as a narrative about man and woman's departure from Eden into the so-called "City of Man," all slick neon and sin. While that in and of itself isn't too unbelievable (though it's not how I've interpreted Achtung Baby, I can see where he's coming from), he drowns his analysis in quotes from the bible, philosophers, and religious scholars and doesn't include a single lyric from a single song. I'm guessing there was a problem securing copyright permission, but it still felt like something was missing. Overall, it seems like the author had an agenda, where with the other books I've read in the series, it seems like the authors let the story of each album unfold naturally. I didn't come away from the book knowing anything I didn't already about the album. Besides YHF, it's my favorite album, so I was really looking forward to it, but it was a big disappointment.

 

Want my copy?

Thanks for the heads up. With as much as I love that album, and considering how much I've studied the history surrounding it, I think I would probably dislike the book as well.

This week I've read the 33 1/3 books on...U2's Achtung Baby...

What did you think about this? Was it worth the read?

http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=5164

"So could he sum up the album in three words for the fans who have yet to get the pleasure? 'It's very long,' he said with a laugh.

'My favourite song is a song called 'Moment of Surrender' and the first track is 150 BPM, the fastest song we've ever recorded,' he said..."

Nice.

Ok...now THIS has me psyched: (read the Larry comments about cutting down on the Bono-isms/if you get Larry saying good things, you know they have to be pretty excited, because he doesn't b.s.):

Q Magazine Previews New U2 Record

December 26, 2008

Editors

I tend to completly agree with this statement about concert films

Which is fine...I just found it interesting that they treated it like a commonly held pervasive view/criticism, when I had never really that heard before.

[quote name='bb

From the 'Q' Exclusive:

Q has had a world exclusive preview of the forthcoming new U2 album, provisionally titled No Line On The Horizon.

Sessions for the long awaited album were completed at a feverish pace at Olympic Studios in West London throughout November. However, recording actually began in October 2006, with U2 teaming up once more with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois after first exploring the idea of working with Rick Rubin. Between them, Lanois and Eno worked on the key triptych of U2 records - The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.

"We learned a lot from Rick," says Bono. "He's head over heels in love with the concept of the song. But our feeling was, you don't go to rock'n'roll just for the songs. We wanted songs that would take us into a different world.

"And because Brian and Dan are experimental in their niches, the opportunity to bring some experimentation into the pop consciousness is so exciting to them. And to us."

By the time U2 arrived at Olympic Studios, Eno was shepherding the album to a conclusion with various other producers being called in to mix specific tracks - long-time cohort Steve Lillywhite and Black Eyed Peas man Will.I.Am among them. As has become customary for U2 records, tracks were being re-worked - and in some cases completely overhauled - right up to the final deadline.

Q initially heard previews of seven tracks at various stages of completion as the band were winding up. First impressions were that, while the two most recent U2 albums (2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind and 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb) marked a return to basics, No Line On The Horizon is more in keeping with the spirit of 1991's Achtung Baby: which is to say, a bolder, more testing collection.

The material itself runs a gamut from the classic U2-isms of Magnificent, which echoes The Unforgettable Fire's opening track A Sort Of Homecoming in its atmospheric sweep, to the straight up pop of Crazy Tonight (the track Will.I.Am was taking a pass at) and the swaggering Stand Up, wherein U2 get in touch with their, hitherto unheard, funky selves - albeit propelled by some coruscating Edge guitar work, a signature feature of a number of the tracks. The latter track is also home to the knowing Bono lyric, "Stand up to rock stars/Napoleon is in high heels/Be careful of small men with big ideas."

Among other instantly striking tracks are Get Your Boots On, a heaving electro-rocker that may mark the destination point the band had been seeking on Pop; Winter, featuring a fine Bono lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone, surrounded by a deceptively simple rhythm track and an evocative string arrangement courtesy of Eno; and the stately Unknown Caller, which was recorded in Fez and opens with the sounds of birdsong taped by Eno during a Moroccan dawn.

At Olympic, particular excitement was reserved for two tracks: Moment Of Surrender and Breathe. A strident seven-minute epic recorded in a single take, the first of these sounds like a Great U2 Moment in the spirit of One, while Eno suggests the latter (at the time still a work in progress) is potentially both the best song the band had written and that he had worked on.

A week after the Olympic playback, Bono treated Q to a private audience of two further unfinished tracks - playing both on his car stereo at teeth-rattling volume whilst being piloted through London's rush-hour traffic. Two versions of the title track were extant: the first is another Unforgettable Fire-esque slow burner that builds to a euphoric coda, the second a punk-y Pixies/Buzzcocks homage that proceeds at a breathless pace.

"We recorded the second version just last night," explained the singer whilst enthusiastically air drumming along to it. "I'm very excited by that one,"

Q begged to differ, casting a vote for the more layered earlier version.

One other track, Every Breaking Wave, was beginning to take shape around an emotive Bono vocal and an appropriately grand swell of a climax. "We might be on to something special there," noted Bono.

And within the U2 camp, this is the general consensus around the album as a whole. A clearly excited Eno told Q No Line On The Horizon could be the band's greatest album, a view also echoed by the Edge.

"We've learnt a few things over the years," said the guitarist. "So I think (the album) could be a bringing-to-bear of all those eureka moments from the past."

No Line On The Horizon is set for release on March 2. And you can read more about the album in Q magazine's world exclusive U2 cover feature from December 31.

That lyric scares me a bit as it's typical Bono these days, talking about "rock stars" and "Big Ideas" but I like the fact that they appear, at least, to be pushing the envelope with this one.

What kind of idiot goes and commits a crime knowing full well that he is under the microscope.

Caught on the wire........Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit!!

The solo Beatles ones count because that's their solo debut. It counts.

In that case, Lauryn Hill, "Miseducation..." anyone?

heh!

 

That guy was so pathetic I actually felt a tiny bit embarrassed and sorry for him.

I just watched this movie as well and I have to admit, I got REALLY worked up about the injustice of the whole thing and all acolytes of that one dude, running around kissing his a**.

In similar, but related news I was glad to see that Steve Wiebe was in "Four Christmases" which was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. All the guys from "Swingers" were in that movie in one way or another (took me a while to recognize "Sue") and the kid from "A Christmas Story" was in there as well.

these are just TV shows, right?

"...it's [all] life, and life only."

Re: Entourage, I feel like a lot of the fun was lost this season. It feels like the writers are really struggling to introduce some "hardship to overcome" into the storyline. It doesn't seem in keeping with their characters.

i wish you would have referenced the show before you did that, as it spoiled it for me, even though it was in the spoiler font.

Agreed. That's pretty F'd. I've just got to season 3, he's my favorite character on the show...I can understand a slip, but after the accidental slips earlier...that's pretty douchey. Intentionally douchey.

I know what you are trying to say..."True Blood" has become horrible so quickly that I've stopped watching. Just stopped watching "Entourage" and "Californication" as well. The same thing happened in the past with "Six Feet Under" which started amazingly well, but became so bleak by about season 3 or 4 that I had to stop watching. I'm of the opinion that there has to be SOME redemption to at least one of the characters in a show to keep watching.

I'm still with "Lost."

You got any gum?

I don't get it, unless it's a vomit joke.

the "...heat pipes just cough" line from "Johanna" is one of my favorites as well...

Then there's this one:

And turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice

Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion

I may be right or wrong

You'll find them both

In the Grand Canyon

At sundown

And then there's this one:

When you wake up in the mornin', baby, look inside your mirror.

You know I won't be next to you, you know I won't be near.

I'd just be curious to know if you can see yourself as clear

As someone who has had you on his mind.

Whitey Ashburn is not amused.

 

Either is this guy:

Quite a resemblance. And he introduced the Rays lineup last night. Coincidence?

Why do interesting topics for discussion always devolve into a battle of taste? I mean, I understand that there was an element of this implied in the topic, but, must it always go down the road of...this band sucks, no they don't, yes they do, no they don't. Eh...whatever...I'll just go tilt at windmills.

I'm usually not one for audiobooks, but I do like to hear writers read their own work. I'll check him out.

Me either, but he's got a rhythm to his readings that hypnotize and highten his prose.

Recently finished:

 

 

 

 

Almost done with the Tobias Wolff!

LOVE Tobias Wolff. If you've never heard him read his stuff, I strongly recommend it.

I read somewhere on the interweb that Marky Mark was actually quite pissed about the Talks to the Animals skit.

He came on the show this Saturday and, I thought, was very funny...very good-humored about the whole thing and even told a donkey to say hello to his mother for him...Sarah Palin on the other hand, looked painfully uncomfortable.