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Hello … Zip Codes …

Wayne Knight CRUSHES IT.

From The A.V. Club …

If the ad seems funnier than it has any right to in this context, that’s because it was written by Seinfeld alum (and Veep showrunner) David Mandel, no stranger to the tics that made Newman so memorable. According to Entertainment Weekly, it was Mandel who convinced a reluctant Knight to reprise the role.

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Subverting Expectations Is Tight

Thanks for the heads-up on this guy, Monkeystador. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Game of Thrones is one of the most popular TV dramas of all time, and fans were pumped to see what the creators had in store for its final season. However after a few episodes, GoT fans started to have some questions about the way D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were wrapping up their favorite show. Like what’s up with Daenerys becoming pure evil so quickly? Why isn’t anyone talking about Jon being the rightful heir to the throne? Was that really the end of the Night King? Are scorpions more powerful, or are dragons?

To answer all these questions and more, step inside the pitch meeting that led to Game of Thrones Season 8! It’s super easy, barely an inconvenience!

FRIDAY BONUS:

Every Marvel pitch meeting in order of MCU Timeline, because you aren’t actually going to work today, are you?

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Sorry.

Beneath the mayhem and incompetence, this is a good song with a great hook in the chorus.  And the lyrics are as true as any.  According to Wikipedia, Terry Adams of NRBQ likened their melodies to Ornette Coleman.  I hear what he’s getting at.  The long melodic lines appear to meander, but then they resolve into a nutty coherence.  But I dunno that they remind me that much of Ornette Coleman.  Since none of you can throw a beer at me for being a pretentious ass (today, at least), I’ll go ahead and submit that their melodic lines remind me of Hector Berlioz.

Love ’em or hate ’em, the Shaggs are a genuine enigma, and those are always interesting.

If you happen to run across an original pressing (you won’t), snap it up.  They’e very rare and worth thousands.

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This Is Not As Funny As I Think It Is

In my humble-yet-accurate opinion, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a glitchy fiasco, and its gameplay can generously be described as clunky. I bought into the hype upon its release (How bad can it be with a 97 on Metacritic?) and was almost immediately disappointed. It’s beautiful and open-ended, yes, but I found it boring. And the AI sucks. Anyway, enjoy these deaths or don’t. You prolly won’t, you sumbitch.

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Exhibit B

Makerbot recently posted a Terry Bozzio video.  Here is further support for what research has proven time and again: that non-sociopathic drummers use their spare time to acquire too many drums, which they then overplay.  In some ways the above video is a more disturbing example.  For where Mr. Bozzio employed instruments in a range of pitches (therefore demonstrating some higher-order thinking), this character for some reason has about 50 of the same crash cymbal,  and seems intent on hitting them all.  A drummer with only basic skills could do the same thing with two.  WTF?

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And now for some REAL dancin’

I’m not much of a Joy Division fan, as I can only take so much post-industrial Midlands desolation.  But this one’s pretty good, and Ian Curtis’s stage gestures are interesting to say the least, especially when he really cuts loose at around 3:00.

You bastards might know way more about these guys, so my apologies if what follows is common knowledge.  It’s pretty widely known that Ian Curtis hanged himself of the eve of what would have been their first tour of the U.S.  Beyond that, I’ve picked up a few interesting facts over the years:

-They formed after seeing the Sex Pistols perform in Manchester.  That same gig also inspired the formation of The Buzzcocks and The Smiths.

-Their bass player developed his style of playing in the upper register because when they started out, his amp was so shitty that it wouldn’t reproduce lower notes without sputtering.

-Ian Curtis had epilepsy and based his stage moves on his seizures, to the point that his bandmates could not tell when he was having a real one.  This predictably led to some disatrous gigs.

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Terry Bozzio Needs More Drums

His entire set is a bathroom break. It could be worse, though.

He could be a bass player.

Terry Bozzio’s drumming for Frank Zappa, Missing Persons, Jeff Beck and a host of today’s top artists has become legendary. His solo concerts have been acclaimed around the world as entertaining and inspiring. His incredible drum set includes 26 tom-toms, 8 bass drums, 53 cymbals and 22 pedals.

And now you can see and hear Terry as you’ve never seen or heard him before by streaming his “Reality Tour” performance video. Drum Channel members automatically get 20% off the “Reality Tour” video download and everything else on the DC site!

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Actual Clockwork Orange Filming Locations

Compared to most of Kubrick’s other films, A Clockwork Orange was down and dirty, shot on the cheap. Here are actual locations and a few other goodies. This YouTuber really does his research.

How do you make a futuristic sci-fi movie without building a bunch of crazy sets? In this episode, we take a look at the real futuristic locations and artwork that Stanley Kubrick used for the production design of 1971’s A Clockwork Orange as well as some of the new technology Kubrick used in shooting and recording sound on-location.