The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Not just a clever name...

Earlier this week I learned that Genesis will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  Usually when I hear any news about Genesis it's a BIG FUCKING DEAL. But when I heard this news, I just said to myself, "oh, big fucking deal."


Genesis deserves everything wonderful because they are the greatest band that I listen to. But unfortunately, RRHOF (said as raaaawwfff as in the sound you make when you are vomiting your spine) is not wonderful. I've always thought the RRHOF was a flaming pile of unicorn shit, and this was confirmed on a recent visit to the museum in '07 when I was in Cleveland* for, yes you guessed it, a Genesis concert. Based on the excruciating 20 minutes it took me to walk through this clogged toilet of so-called musical achievement, it appears that only artists who meet one or more of the following criteria are inducted:

1) Only 3 people (including mom) in the world have the ONLY album or single you ever released
2) You were a part of an obscure blues band that existed for approximately 13 minutes
3) Your music keeps classic rock and oldies radio alive
4) You had homoerotic costuming

So I'm a bit confused as to why Genesis will become a part of this dog and pony show. It's not that I'm against Genesis -- or any band for that matter -- getting recognized and honored for their innovation/contribution to music (Christ on a cracker, they should've been exalted years ago for Vari*lite alone! HELLLOOOO!) but the RRHOF operation is, in my opinion, an inconsistent, mysterious pat on the back that usually leaves me asking "so what?"
 

And "getting in" now feels like a total afterthought or like everyday in school when I was picked last for gym class. Oh let's see, we've already got ZZ Top and Bob Seger...guess we can let in Genesis now, I mean, they've only been making awesome rock music for about 3x as long as 90% of the already inducted artists.

But with that being said, my sincere congratulations to Genesis -- may it spawn the stuff I think we all care more about: live show(s) and MORE MUSIC. (And perhaps 1 more person in this world will buy a Tony Banks album).



But all this sincerity crap aside, this really burns my ass! I'm all fired up like Gabriel in this angry, ANGRY Genesis performance. I would hate to be his microphone!





*Please note that Chris and these Cleveland fans are in The Lady Stabson's Hall of Fame for being so amazing cool and lovely:

Send me your beard!

Long-time blog reader, best-friend, and solid 80's music fan Nicole has graciously shared a fantastic beard with us. I'm talking about none other than Kenny Loggins, who she says -- and I quote because I am going to use quotation marks, "light[s] up my Ipod screen like a lightning bug in a blackout." So true, so very true. Loggins's beard has graced us with some of the most powerful adult contemporary pop this world has ever seen,which in turn has contributed to some of the best movie montages in history: Top Gun, Caddyshack, Footloose to name a few I can remember at the moment. So here is a montage tribute to the best damn beardage on your 80s playlist:

Who wouldn't want to get all footloose up in that yo!

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Aw yeah.

Honey, it’s that wonderful time of year again. I’m not talking about our country’s obsession with putting pumpkins on our front steps or paying $45 to put a live fir tree in our living room for 2 weeks – I’m talking about the power and the glory of BEARD SEASON.

Beard Season is my favorite time of year to be heterosexual. Starting sometime in late October/early November when the weather gets colder and the nights get longer, many male humans will fall into this brooding, sexy melancholy funk that inhibits their ability to shave their faces. It is the ying to the yang of Shelf Bra Tank Top Season that starts at the first hint of warm weather and continues until late September (or continues all year round at any nightclub serving test-tube shots).

I really do love to look upon a bearded man throughout the year, but unfortunately it is a rare honor to see such hunks of pure man-awesomeness during the off-season. Why is this? Does it really keep you warmer during these asshole cold months? That would make sense and of course it looks better than the ridiculous giant loud scarf your girlfriend bought you at the Gap. I tried to grow a beard myself the other day to see what it’s all about but nothing happened. After doing some research it turns out that air drumming to Rush albums for the past 15 years has rendered me an endocrinologic mollycoddle.

Now before I go any further, let me clarify that Beard Season means JUST Beards. Unless you are Michael Jack Schmidt

or Magnum PI

don’t even THINK about it!
 

Shave/wax/laser/chemically burn that bitch off your upper lip IMMEDIATELY.

So far this has been a fantastic Beard Season, thanks to the hotness (well in beard-speak...) in the Phillies post-season bullpen to get it started off right

Although I have to admit this is a kick in the nuts insult to Beard Season

My admittedly creepy fascination of male facial hair that is thinly disguised as joyous celebration is something I am proud to admit on a blog no one reads. And now I also proudly present to you my top 5 favorite beards of all time on said blog; all beards are measured against these titans of the 5 o’clock shadow. It is my wish you will see these fantastic scruffy hot pockets and be inspired to be a part of the magic of Beard Season.
 
5. Chuck Norris
OK, he’s like 87 years old but my GOD his sweet lovin’ Republican beard that can waste a pack of terrorist gorilla bears makes me swoon!

















4. Guy Pearce
You’re like WHO? Yes, Guy Pearce…a terrible actor I’ve had a mad crush on since I saw Time Machine at a $1.95 movie theater back in 2002. Despite having a pretty inconsistent film career (the same guy in Memento was in The Proposition? REALLY?) he has always shown consistent, solid beard performance. He is particularly compelling with the hint o’ beard look shown below.

3. Ray Weston
This man is in the greatest band called echolyn you should worship immediately and also happens to have the greatest voice in rock music today, most likely due to the power of his fucking sweet fuzzy chops. 

2. Phil Collins
Phil Collins is so fucking awesome in so many ways and having the Greatest Beard of the 70’s is just one of them. G-damn I love Phil Collins. If I had 1.21 jiggawatts at my disposal, I would go back to 1977 and crawl inside his beard during his “Cinema Show” drum duet with Bill Bruford.

1. Zach Galifianakis
skjgsfjghfjghskdfhsdfhsjkghf;kghfsjkg. Best. Beard. EVER. Razor blades and Lady Stabson melt in its presence.

Although Beard Season is a beautiful thing that all should embrace, it should NOT be confused with the all too common "vacation" beard or the "I've given up, where are my sweatpants?" beard...these beards can result in some serious side-effects. Please see below.

I Heart Philly Always and Forever

Do you know what it feels like to have Philadelphia throw itself on you and squeeze your heart into a million pieces so it shoots out of every orifice as a rainbow surrounded by butterfly puppies and fragrant flower petals? I certainly do.

Philadelphia came on strong Wednesday night when the Phillies beat the LA Dodgers 10-4 to become the National League Champions, and we have been in a silly tickle-fight ever since. We really can't keep our hands off each other. And in only a few more days we'll be walking hand-in-hand into the World Series...swoooooooon!

But just when I thought Philly couldn't sweep me off my feet any higher, Friday night the beautiful city embraced me like an old lover, whispering "you're still the one" with an evening of music straight from her heart at the place where we had our first date many years ago.

The place was the Spectrum, the stadium where I saw my first ever concert back in '94--The Phil Collins JC Penney's Homeless Tour---and where I've seen many other concerts, hockey, and basketball games before they moved on to the bigger (read: vacuous) Wachovia Center. The line-up was a trifecta of hometown heroes: The Hooters, Todd Rundgren, and Hall & Oates. Featuring an appearance by the Bacon Brothers who introduced said Hall & Oates. And Philadelphia was not holding back tonight: this was the 2nd to last act that will ever grace the Spectrum stage before it gets demolished and turned into an Applebees parking lot at the end of the year.

The concert was great fun except for the part where we thought that Todd Rundgren was the first act and not the second so I missed seeing The Hooters, only one of my favorite bands from childhood. No biggie. Well, maybe I took out my frustration on him a little bit

But Philly and I quickly kissed and made up when Hall & Oates took the stage and made sweet love to our nostalgic ears. It was a delicious homecoming, especially since I was able to share it with Nicole who was listening to Hall and Oates with me back in our Zane-North days. To see and hear for yourself, here is a clip I am dedicating to the 500 people who said, "I can go for that!" when I told them I was going to a Hall & Oates concert.

Although this chick climaxed pretty much during the 2nd song of the set,

for me the night exploded with an extended set featuring all 3 acts declaring their Philly love with some of the greatest songs by some of the greatest artists this city ever busted out: "Expressway to Your Heart" by the Soul Survivors, "Backstabbers" by the O'Jays, and "Disco Inferno" by the Trammps to name a few that I remember. I needed a fucking cigarette after that.

Sigh. This was a night that Philly and I will tell our grandkids about because it was a snapshot of all the things she brings to the relationship; she's like the Spectrum: perfect-sized and a little rough around its honest edges, and like the music that still endures and endears people who still truly love solid, honest rock music (the best people of all). But above all else, she gives me the comfort of knowing this is exactly where I belong and I could never be in love like this anywhere else in the world. Especially when you're singing your heart out to "Rich Girl" in a Phillies tee.

XOPHI

Face me. Embrace me.

OK, I'm curious to see who's with me on this. Because if you aren't with me, you're probably with someone else. And that's OK, I just don't want to know about it.

So here it goes. Usually when I meet-up with or say bye to people I call "friends" or "loved ones" or "anyone who looks like Zach Galifianakis" we hug. Well sort of. Lately these people are giving me some weird half-ass or rather half-body hug I'm calling the "sideways hug." This is how it works: I face the person, straight-on, and outstretch both arms towards the person to signify "hey, I really like you and you smell nice. Please hold me." While at the same time my friend turns his/her body slightly to the side and outstretches one arm towards me and the other off to their side like some cheerleader, to signify "hey, I like you more than a handshake but not really much more than a hug." And when we come together it's this uncomfortable, awkward, perpendicular embrace that leaves me feeling depressed, even if the people I'm getting them from are not cheerleaders. I should have seen this coming when we went from the double-hand slap

to the fist bump.

At first I tried to train myself to go from my two-armed + one-chest hug to work with these one-armed + one-hip hugs but I couldn't do it! I am so uncoordinated. So for awhile I stopped making the effort to hug people as much as possible to avoid being sidewayed...but then I became paranoid that people would think I had syphilis or swamp pits. And that's worse than having them think I'm some slippery creep who wants to fully embrace them....right? I can't win. This sucks. I need a hug.

So is the sideways hug the way to go? The old-school squeeze is no more? Do you offer a reserved sideways hug or do you like to sweep your peeps up into your arms? Is there anything wrong with either hug-method? Do you think that I think you give a shit about this? I am curious to know.

Next blog: The "backwards kick in the nuts."

Come play with me...if you dare!

OK, here's the deal. I am ridiculously busy this time of year: job + school + post-season baseball + working on a nice layer of pre-hibernation fat = not a lot of time to vomit up a toasty blog. But I still like to waste some of your time. So not to cheat you and so I can get back to watching baseball until 2am when I'm supposed to be writing a paper, here I hastily give you part 1 of a 25 part series called "Pictures of Creepy Children's Toys" for your amusement. Or nightmares.

Please send me the pictures you have in your computer of Creepy Children's Toys for Part 2. Thank you.

This toy has the ability to bad-touch you in your bathing suit area.

OK, maybe not so creepy but if you got this for Christmas, you would call Santa a creep

Hi, kids I'm COKEY the Horse! Just say yes!

Baby peanut turd with stubby arms

She haunts Chucky's nightmares

How fucked up are you as an adult if you played with this as a kid?

Oh FUCK it's coming AFTER ME!!!

Inappropriate!

Today I was treated to one of the many perks of working for a company that does silly things like follow the law: “sensitivity training.”

At first, I was quite excited to be asked to attend this training as one of my 2009 objectives is to be more sensitive to my co-workers’ needs. However, I quickly learned that I was not there to learn when to drape my coat over my manager’s shoulders during project status meetings; I was there to learn that I probably should have been fired a long time ago.

Apparently, being “sensitive” in this context is about not being an asshole, a slut, and/or a creep. Don’t show your favorite Red Tube clips to the interns as part of orientation, don’t have sex with your manager to get your expense report signed faster, don’t fondle your staff while congratulating them on a new business win, don’t be a racist, bigotty, sexist fuckface….blah, blah, blah, yeah we all know this is wrong and stupid and in the words of our trainer, totally and completely “fucking inappropriate.”

And speaking of “inappropriate,” what was really interesting about the sensitivity training was that it was solely based on several scenarios that we had to rate on an APPROPRIATENESS scale of 5 to 1 --- 5 being so wrong you should be castrated and have your teeth kicked in, and 1 being totally OK even though you probably work with one hypersensitive twat who’ll whine about it. They were all good examples of douchebaggery; however, I think if we are highlighting what he called “inappropriate behavior at work,” he overlooked several key situations that I would like to offer for your consideration below. Please feel free to rate them.

1. You put a non-fat strawberry yogurt cup with your name on it in the refrigerator on Tuesday. The yogurt is gone Wednesday morning.

2. It is 9:00am on Monday and you notice a co-worker utilizing the only coffee maker in the office to make a pot of decaf.

3. Your manager schedules a meeting at 4:30pm on a Friday.

4. A co-worker in the cubicle next to you eats a tuna melt at their desk.

5. Everyone on your team accepts your meeting request, but no one accepts the responsibility for actually showing up for the meeting.

6. A co-worker sends you an e-mail and then within 30 seconds calls you to see if you have read said e-mail.

7. You are in a brainstorming session and a co-worker is obscenely overusing phrases like, “low-hanging fruit” and “pull-through strategy” and “let’s discuss offline”

8. Your manager schedules a meeting at 8:30am on a Monday.

9. You are washing your hands in the bathroom and a co-worker comes in and proceeds to tell you about his/her weekend in excruciating detail.

10. A co-worker brings in from home or buys inordinate amounts of junk food to share with the office, and places the communal pile of calories on the table directly across from your office.

I will leave you with one of my all-time favorite Conan O’Brien skits that I was replaying in my head throughout the entire sensitivity training….how….very…..(drum roll please)……..inappropriate.

Inappropriate Reaction Channel - Funny home videos are a click away