Summer School

Saying you like summer school is a bit like buying a bumper sticker that says "I love my wife", you are trying to convince yourself and everyone around you that summer school is really awesome, and that you are proud of your decision to commit to it.  Nobody likes summer school.  I have already gone through summer semester I (I had cataloging with no a/c part of the time, riveting), and am now plowing through summer II.  However unpleasant summer school may be due to the daily, compact nature of the beast, it is over relatively quick.  Three weeks of pressure beats four months of drawn out projects and busy work is a no brainer if you have the ability to not work for a short time.  Summer school is difficult, almost impossible, without a job.  The whole process has not been that fun, but (fingers crossed) I will have finished 1/3 of the program this summer.  So, if nothing else, I can say that when it is all over summer school has been good for me.  The extended metaphor between the bumper sticker and summer school broke down around the middle of that last sentence.
This video isnt about summer school, but it is from a movie with summer in the title and its Paul Rudd so there
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7yJ7sMosk

Josh Thomas review

                JT/Josh Thomas is a long time, standout talent in a musically rich town.  He has been in a gaggle of area bands over the years including Louis Fine and the Miracle Steed.  He has collaborated at one time or another with most area musicians and has been heard at many venues around town.  He is now mainly a solo, acoustic artist who can be seen playing at many places around town.  Some of his favorite arenas to play are the divest bars in town, which Is a perfect, low rent, personable way to be introduced to this amiable, area tunesmith, although his stage presence is equally as palpable on a large stage.

                Josh’s repertoire consists of a formidable catalog allowing him to play for hours evoking all manner of human emotions over the course of the evening.  I have seen him a dozen times or more and I still hear new songs, old favorites, and covers I didn’t know weren’t his until I went home to find he has done them better than the original artists.  His covers are from a wide array of songwriters including Warren Zevon, John Prine, and many others.  JT has the rare ability to interpret other artist’s songs and transfigure them into something completely his.  He has albums full of original songs from years of hard work, penned with pertinent lyrics coupled with his beautifully crafted melodies.   His lyrics are not always the focal point, because of his incredible guitar work, but they are autobiographically convincing.  He has sweated out several solo cds along with his work with the Miracle Steed (Aubrey Echols) in the past few years developing a devout local following aware of his immense talent.

                Whether playing a small personable tavern or a larger venue, Thomas stage presence is undeniable.  He smiles frequently, talks loudly, and employs humor and wit on top of his raucous laughter.  He intersperses humor, stories, and anecdotes to somehow segue into whatever is next on his tentative set list.  You will hear unprompted, concise witticisms and rants about politics, women, the drink, and any number of unscripted topics of interest that spontaneously come to mind.  He enjoys patron interaction and laughing too long. His singing will go from raspy, anger to low and honest within the song.   In short he has a gift for performing live.  His cds are great to tide you over, but if you really want to know what it is like to see a Josh Thomas show, head out to an intimate venue.

                A new tune that nods to his aforementioned influences as well as his progressing talent as a songwriter and lyricist is “Dissolve”.   The song has a distinct country feel, but it is not a cliché song about loss.  It is a deceptively simple song inundated with a sadness which somehow seems dichotomously torn between caring about the life that fell apart and the hope that it might look more interesting in pieces on the floor.  It is this sort of simplistic complexity that pervades much of his new material.            

                Although, there are a number of Josh Thomas classics that stick with you, the one, and frequent closer, is a tune called “JT the Idiot”.  In traditional comedy form, Josh likes closing with a song that jabs at the performer who has already commented jokingly throughout the show on everything from pilates to Jesus.  However, for the hometown listener this song is not only a self denigrating admittance to living the night life of a blues man, it is an homage to Fort Smith, JTs professed home.  The attitude expressed is one many people in the area have espoused at one time in life.  This seemingly comic ditty of self deprecation and self destruction is truly a resonant, beer banging anthem reminiscent of a Simpsons episode with the Stonecutters (who hasn’t seen that) and Clutch’s “Drink to the Dead” littered with references to Fort Smith locales easily recognizable to natives.  Fort Smith is a town full of people capriciously on the edge of a total breakdown where the only thing to do is honestly joke about it and say “Look, ma, no hands”.  In all my years of listening to music in Fort Smith, I have never heard someone write a tune so closely related to the unspoken, vaguely defined attitude shared by many a barstool in Fort Smith.

 

here is a link to his facebook and reverbnation page, check it out

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reverbnation.com%2Fjoshuaclaythomas&h=oAQDNt_IJ

The funniest movies ever have been made in the last ten years

I cannot help but notice nearly all of my favorite comedies have been made in the last ten years.  Comedy central ran 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, and Walk Hard:  The Dewey Cox Story consecutively today.  I can watch these movies over and over and snortle out loud even when I am by myself.  All that was missing was Anchorman.  It is easy to say that what I laughed at ten or more years ago (The Great Outdoors, Chevy Chase, Brewsters Millions) are from a different era.  Different things were considered humorous then.  I think that may be the case in some respects.  Watch a Laurel and Hardy movie.  Somehow they became internationally famous by something hitting one of them on the ass (understatement of comedic role, but really, this is more than a lietmotif of Laurel and Hardy movies).  I believe this to a certain degree, but mainly I feel that comedy has evolved into a turbo geek fart joke based on the ever expanding collective pop culture everyone that watches these movies knows all too well. 

I realize there are certain comedies are timeless.  If you have any entries that arent by Mel Brooks let me know, and I will probably agree.  However, it seems like the most hilarious movies have come out of the last decade (please dont mention The Hangover).  Take Dewey Cox, which may be my favorite comedy ever.  It is a premise based on various rock biopics like the Doors, Ray, and Walk the Line, which somehow documents the passage of Dewey's whole life in a Gumpian sort of way assuming the garb and attitudes of different decades easily discernible to the average pop culture initiate.  The music in the movie is surprisingly good despite and because of the terrible/hilarious lyrics.  The movie takes the cliche, troubled segments of these biopics to hyperbolic, solo belly laughing extremes.  Somehow it has taken all that infused pop culture and intelligently spoofed it to the lowest brow.  Basically, this stupid movie is pure genius.

Here is a youtube clip of one of my favorite parts.
  Paul Rudd playing John Lennon is sort of brilliant.  I could not find a clip of the interview with Jane Lynch, but that is also hilarious.

did some sweating

 Ok, I was going to talk about star wars toys today, but I had to use the new sauce I got in the mail.  You may or may not have read about my elation yesterday.  Although this was not the elusive inferno wing sauce, Stubbs regular sauce is almost as hot (1% less hot than the inferno supposedly, no wonder you cannot find it around here) as the discontinued inferno sauce.  These were AMAZING!   The sauce was a great mix of heat and flavor unmatched by other store condiments.  I did some sweating and felt the sort of blackout, autopilot euphoria one can achieve from obliviously consuming the best hot wings.  This is better than any restaurant even those that specialize in wings.  All you have to do is fry some raw drummettes in a fryer until done, and then roll them around in some tupperware.  It is not a recipe if you just mix this with that.  Its that simple.  Now for my nexium.  This is the awesome thing that happened to me today!

http://stubbsbbq.elsstore.com/

Stubbs wing sauce

So, here is a simple first entry.  I bought an absurd amount of wings from Wal-Mart about a week ago.  Such a large quantity freezing was my only option.  I like immorally hot wings (and most other foods) and have found one sauce i truly enjoy, Stubb's Inferno Wing Sauce.  It is just kind of the best as far as both extreme heat and flavor go.  I have looked at every condiment selling store in the tri-county area to find the inferno sauce again.  I have only seen it before at the IGA in Fayetteville, AR, and even they do not have it now.  I had no choice but to email Stubb's sauces so some person far away would get to hear me complain about a problem I assumed they would disregard.  I did not get a reply for a few days.  Assuming they had completely disregarded me, I went and bought some other sauce.  When I got home, a lady had written to tell me the inferno sauce had been discontinued (gasp).  The remaining condiment was only slightly less hot she claimed, but there were no wing sauce distributors in my area, but I could order it directly from the warehouse.  She told me she would send me a bottle to stem my cravings to her immense credit.  Today, I received two bottles of sauce, a BBQ rub, two sauce bottle holders to keep it cold I guess, and some coupons, and a phone number (presumably the nice young woman's number or direct order line, who knows).  So, that was the awesome thing that happened to me today.

http://www.amazon.com/Stubbs-Bar-B-Q-Spice-3-5-Ounce-Cans/dp/B000LLIZGY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1310775752&sr=8-4