Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Why do network execs hate me?
I was crushed when I read that Vincent D'Onofrio is leaving Criminal Intent to pursue other roles. Jeff Goldblum is the only current cast member who will return for Season 9. USA wants to "retool" the show to make it "lighter". This is their attempt to replace Monk, which ends its run this season.
I suppose I should be grateful to USA for saving the series after NBC dumped it. But now USA is ruining one of the best crime dramas on the air! I understand it will be different without VDO, but "lighter"? Not interested.
Why are all my favorite shows going off the air now that I finally can watch them static free??? Soon every show on the air will be a cheap, unintelligent reality show, and I will have to resort to reading!
Farewell Goren & Eames.
RIP (See you on DVD)
King of the Hill
LO:CI
Scrubs
Samantha Who
My Name is Earl
The Starter Wife
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
You've been warned, Comcast!
My attempt to order the $10/12 months Limited Basic Cable promo was foiled this evening. When I got the to the customer rep. to confirm my setup appointment, the rep. told me the deal was for 6 months. When I corrected him, I was told that they can only process offers from the website. Right now, the only deal he could see was the Digital package for $29.99/mon. He asked where I had seen the offer. I told him it was a mailer, which I did not have in front of me (of course). While he "tried to get my help from customer service", he proceeded to offer me the Triple Play offer package, for a mere $114.99/mon. "Would you like to sign up for that?" Isn't that like walking into a car dealer and having the salesman say, "I know you are looking for a Focus, but would you like a Lamborghini instead?" DUH! If I could afford the $115 a month, WHY WOULD I BE ORDERING THE $10 PACKAGE!!!!
Excellent customer service Comcast.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
I almost forgot!
Happy Birthday Roger!Thursday, February 05, 2009
Monday, October 27, 2008
The big 5-0.
Happy 50th Simon!
Check out the awesome gift from his bandmates http://www.duranduran.com/wordpress/?page_id=14005
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
And The Winner Is....
Never underestimate the Duranie voter.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
"I’m glad it still survives..."
From John Taylor's blog at Duran Duran.com...Having gotten that out of the way, let us proceed. You were in Washington D.C., Georgetown precisely, and about to join Dom and Craig and myself for a drive south to the Merriweather Post venue. A famous venue in the neighbourhood, I’m glad it still survives, as it’s one of the few ‘indoor-outdoor’ venues that has real character. I first went there with Power Station in ’84 and I’ve been back several times since with Duran. Today we are hoping to beat the traffic out of town and it’s a miserly, sultry sort of early summer day, and I’m just glad it’s not August....
[Taylor comes on stage for the encore wearing a Barrack Obama t-shirt]
...At the Merriweather Post the audience went nuts!
I felt an extraordinary connectedness, almost a sense of relief from the people out there that I had made that choice. There was a palpable sense of love that went beyond the usual.
The D.C. gig was the highpoint, for me, of the US tour. From there we flew to Boston and then on to New York where we were to receive some news that was to rip the guts out of us all.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
$125 was a bargain!
My birthday is coming up.... hint hint.....
Okay, this event was last night. Bummer. I just check their schedule and they are free on June 18th. They will do private parties. Poolside perhaps?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
4 hours with a fantastic foursome
May 22nd: Mann Music Center, Philadelphia (#11)
May 27th: Merriweather Post Pavillion, Columbia, MARY-land (as John & Simon pronounced it) (#12)
Same set list for both shows. After 24 years, I FINALLY got to hear Last Chance On The Stairway live, even if it wasn't the entire song. I was so anxious to hear it, I couldn't enjoy it the first time because I spent the entire minute & a half thinking, "I'M FINALLY HEARING IT!!!! This is it!!!" and in a flash, it was done. At Merriweather, I just smiled and sang along. Much more enjoyable. I wanted to be sure the guys saw the joy on my face. I wanted to say, 'If you perform this song for the next 20 years, I promise I will never complain about hearing HLTW for the 10 millionth time!'
Didn't try to get the camera into Merriweather. Partly chickened out, partly didn't want to bother. My camera was never going to do justice to the view I had from the 4th row. I watched 10 years worth of O's games through a camera lense. That perspective is too distorted at a concert. I saw most of the camera'd people around me trying to enjoy at rock concert standing still. That must be a slight disappointment from the band's perspective. They are trying to get people to move and they get statues with camera where their faces should be.
Opening act, Your Vegas, were great. The lead singer sounded just like Bono and moved like him too, circa 1982. A Town And Two Cities
My seat at the VERY cold Mann Center was about 20 feet from John Taylor. Which for me is heaven. Only problem was the speakers which blocked most of my view of Roger.
[SIDEBAR: In 7 hours, I will have a bootleg of this show. DIALUP SUCKS! I did consider going out into the hallway and shouting, "Does anyone have a cable connection I can borrow for 5 minutes?!?", but I didn't think that was very neighborly.]
I'm very grateful for this bootleg because I don't remember much from this concert. The show moves VERY fast, even the ballads. There was barely time to catch your breath before they were on the the next tune. Even the "intermission" before the Electro set was only 2 minutes. Just enough time to take drink and a deep breath before the non-stop medley. I'm really not sure why they give Simon a keyboard. I think he hit 5 keys between the 2 shows!
At the beginning of the Electro set, Simon sneezed into his headset mic. The look on his face as part surprise and part 'oops, sorry!'! It was amusing. He also throws the tambourine in the air at the end of "Sunrise". When it came down, it hit him in the nose and rolled off to the side of the stage. He did a better job at Merriweather.
During GOF, Simon plays a little 'copy me' game with the crowd. After about 6 of them, he said, "Do you think this is going somewhere? 'Cause I promise you, it isn't!" and the game continued until the band introductions. This time around, Simon let the entire crowd do his intro. In Philly, he shouted, "What's my name?!?" until the crowd was at fever pitch. At Merriweather it was, "Who's your daddy?!?"
During SAP, virtually everyone in the place held up their cell phone for the "Duran Duran starlight party" as Simon called it. It looked amazing.
{SIDEBAR Part 2: The bootleg is FANTASTIC. Possibly the best one I've ever heard. I've listened to it 10 times already. Now if I can just get the Merriweather show.....}
The new songs sound great live. Especially Tempted. It was very brave of them to start the show with 3 new tunes.
Just before they came on stage at Merriweather, a well-dressed black man sat down next to me. We chatted a little during the show. He was quite friendly. He said he had just come from work because he couldn't let DD be that close and not go see them. When Simon stands at the front of the stage to start the show (about 15 ft away from us), my new friend yelled, "That's Simon 'freaking Le Bon!!!!" and said similar things about John & Nick. He knew all the classics and was singing louder than I was! It was great.
More tidbits as I remember them....
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Now playing: Duran Duran - Red Carpet Massacre
via FoxyTunes
Monday, May 26, 2008
23 hours until #12
From "And Duran Played On" by Lori Majewski
..."'Wasn't six shows enough?' Okay, so let me try and tackle that, if only because you, dear reader, may be faced with it yourself after attending multiple concerts on the Red Carpet Massacre World Tour. No, six is not enough. Nor is 10, nor is 20, nor is 100. There can never be enough Duran Duran shows. For if they suddenly quite playing live, what would become of us? Would we find ourselves old before our time, bitter and jaded - like those unfortunate people we all know we don't have a favorite pop group anymore, whose music purchases consist solely of Now That's What I Call Music collections, and whose attention to their kids' wardrobes eclipse their own?"
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
You've been warned, windshield wiper!
Micky Dolenz, "I'm A Believer: My Life of Monkees, Music and Madness"
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Now playing: Duran Duran - Union of the Snake (The Monkey Mix)
via FoxyTunes
Friday, May 09, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
22 more days!!!!
Young and young at heart dance along to Duran Duran
| The Province |
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
|
If ever there were an argument for style over substance in a band, Birmingham, England's Duran Duran would fit the bill.
The very New Romantic movement that the band sprang from generated so few enduring moments that it's all but forgotten.
But not Duran Duran.
Having written the lion's share of the New Romantic scene's hits, the group remains whereas the Spandau Ballets and Ultravoxes have long vanished. Even if the spotlight turned off on Simon Le Bon's model good looks and primped hair somewhere around 1986, the quintet did recreate itself as lite-funk adult dance rockers in the 1990s and looks to be back in action again with the well-received new CD Red Carpet Massacre.
The Timbaland and Danja-helmed disc is certainly the most relevant piece of music from the band since The Wedding Album and boasts some tunes that could rub epaulets with any other chart-topper that has Timbaland, Danja and Justin Timberlake's mitts on it. While no one in the respectably sized crowd last night cheered louder for "Falling Down" than they did "Planet Earth" and "Hungry Like the Wolf," the new single certainly holds its own with the old material.
And, yes, besides sounding good - they always could play their instruments - the group looked fabulous. A little craggier, a tad filled out, but trés jet set. Even Nick Rhodes, who still has the same Andy Warhol/Vidal Sassoon wedgie-bob 'do that hasn't been seen around these parts since long before the Love Affair played its last dance tune.
The danciness in the band's repertoire certainly connected with the audience.
While it wouldn't be wrong to assume that the house was swayed towards those who were around when the group ruled the U.K. and U.S. charts in the 1980s, it also included a large number of far younger fans. Waxing nostalgic for a hair-jelled and pointy-toed shoe decade that predated their births, they got their boogie on to the radio-ready "Skin Divers" and older hits such as "The Reflex" that spent 10 years in heavy rotation on MuchMusic. So did their parents and grandparents.
Big props to the group of kids in the upper nosebleeds decked out in their vintage-store finery. Rocking everything from Spice Girl Union Jack dresses to silver lamé Members Only jackets, they had the top o' the club speakers 'copter dance moves down to rights. Actually, there really didn't appear to be anyone not having a really good time. The band hammed it up, too.
It's pretty clear that the members are happy to know someone still cares. Le Bon, guitarist Roger Taylor and bassist John Taylor couldn't believe it when the house took over the lyrics to "Save A Prayer."
A welcome surprise was the second "act" where the band reappeared all dressed in black in a line of keyboards and an electro-drum kit to perform Kraftwerk-like techno verisions of hits such as "All She Wants Is" and a cover of that old bondage and discipline ditty "Warm Leatherette." It was a great reminder of how goofy that whole robot-beat presentation was back in the day. Not that it didn't generate some great songs.
After this interlude, "act three." The final round kicked off with the funky "Notorious" and the hits kept coming.
Hmmm, a band able to mess around with old material without marring it. A band with a set list loaded with hits and a new album that isn't some pale imitation of past glories. Dang. There might be some substance here after all.
Grade: B
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
UGH!
My list of 'I miss you's':
Yankee Candle Tulip & Vanilla Sandalwood
Loreal Pure Zone Scrub
Salon Selectives hair goop
Cyclops & Conestoga at Hershey Park
Target Nightime Sinus (Thanks Methheads :-P)
Gibby's Restaurant
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Spooky
Freaky!