Music Observations From Pop Radio.

I’ve been driving a car that has a broken radio. It plays about 3 stations that are clear, lacks AM talk radio, and has no input for ipods or CD’s. The 3 stations it plays are 2 pop stations, 1 with Ryan Seacrest – the other with Carson Daly. And then a classic rock station that seemingly plays more commercials than music.Long story short – I listen to a lot of “Pop” radio.

Pop radio stations translates to the obvious – Pop Culture everything. It also means that I’ve been listening to the same 5 songs on repeat for a few months… It’s like shampooing – Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’ve picked up a few things on my drives to work, here they are:

- The two most played songs are easily: Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris - We Found Love and David Guetta Ft. Usher - Without You. These two songs are interesting because they’re both so similar. Both very electronic dance with a total of about 20 combined words.

I wonder if these songs are a segway into something bigger and this feel of music becoming more mainstream? I’ve always felt the electro indie vibe was more of a world/party/remix thing that never hits the pop charts. Slap two pop stars in the middle, keep repeating the title of the song 30 times over, have a good beat, and you’ve got yourself a hit. Seriously… this is going to be something bigger.

- LMFAO has 2 songs; Party Rock and Sexy and I Know It. I can listen to Party Rock more than I’d like to admit and I’m curious as to where this group is going to go in the future. I don’t know how diverse they are, but I don’t think it matters.

- I don’t want to hear “Moves Like Jagger” any more… And I don’t think having his moves is something to brag about anyway.

- I’m kind of sick of Adele, even though I love her voice.

- I can’t fucking believe Now that’s what I call Music: 40 is available. Yes… 40!

- J-Lo still thinks she’s the J-Lo of old.

- In the Dark by Dev: Something tells me someone somewhere was looking for Ke$ha 2.0 and thought this was her. But come on, is there ever going to be Ke$ha 2.0? Dev has this part in her song where she says; “Do the Cataracts” which may quite possibly be the most forced part of any song in 2011. It’s as if she was hoping something would catch on… maybe it did.

- Pop “hip hop” that’s on the radio is close to terrible.

- Jason Derulo has to stop saying his name in his own songs.

- If the pop station has played it’s top 5 songs – when in doubt play something from the mid 90’s.

I’m not sure what the rotation is on the top 5 songs when it comes to pop radio but I have a feeling it’s about 3 months. If I’m not going to be on the cell phone or thinking in silence then it appears that I am willingly going to listen to the same songs over and over until I’m so sick of them that I want even more. I suggest everyone give this a shot one-morning… turn on Kiis FM and don’t look back.

Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

Adios Jinx: The Perfect Green Bay Packers Season

I’m a sports fan, and being a sports fan means I believe in random superstitions and raw emotion generally tanks logic more than I’d like to admit. I occasionally believe in random jinxes and from time to time am afraid to admit this to myself simply because I feel to embarrassed…I’m a sports fan.

In my world you walk a fine line between gloating and creating the ultimate jinx, it’s actually tough not to cross the two - The reason we worry about a jinx is because we have a personal investment in the team, we actually care. The reason we gloat is because we’re so proud as if we’re actually quarterbacking the team.

I’ve turned the other cheek and am very careful not to create commotion in my jinx world; I’ve played it safe because I’ve been burned before.

I’ve played it cool… I’ve played it smart… I didn’t want to jinx a single person… I didn’t want to jinx my team. But today that changes.

Fuck you potential jinx. Today I announce what I’ve been thinking all NFL season:

The Green Bay Packers are going undefeated. I want them to go undefeated. I never want them to lose.

Somewhere my friend Alex just got very pissed off with me for “calling it” but I had too, and I know he’s thinking the same thing too, but neither one of us want to be responsible if they lose.

I hate it when ESPN starts with the Miami Dolphin undefeated 72’ season talk at weeks 2 and to be honest I’m sick of them leading off shows with “Looks like the Dolphins can pop the champagne” once the 5-0 whoever lose their game. I don’t want to hear about it anymore, I want to hear about the 2011 Packers going undefeated - all the way through the Super Bowl.

Here’s why they’ll do it:

The Offense: Is it just me or do these guys really like each other? If the Packers were on Hard Knocks I bet we’d see them playing monopoly with each other’s families. Why is it important for them to like each other? Duh, they want each other to succeed.

Aaron Rodgers: It’s a good time to be QB in the NFL; A Rodg is experiencing that right now. As long as he’s going… the Packers will not lose.

Well, wait… I’ll stop, that’s it, that’s why they’ll go undefeated. The A Rodg led offense is so good that it’s tough to keep up with them at this moment in time, the only way you can come close to beating them is by keeping them off the field.

Why they won’t do it:

Injures: That’s it.

Old me would have just given myself the Larry David skeptical stare down and asked why I just opened the door on a potential jinx of injuries, poor Rodgers play, bad offensive play, and the perfect season. New Me is the guy staring back at Larry David confident in whatever I just said – knowing the only way to this machine down is through the unfortunate injury.

The Packers are good and my logic is telling me nobody can stop them, they’re currently like the opening sequence of Last Boy Scout where Billy Banks is running down the field shooting everyone because nobody will stop them… The Packers are him - minus the gun.

Today I denounce a jinx. ESPN please start prepping any and all clever things you have to say about the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers. The Packers are going 16-0.

I say this with confidence.

Transformers - I quit you.

I had a bit too much to drink on Friday night, and for me “a bit to much to drink” is holding hands with me having a late night. I had to get up fairly early on Saturday morning and by Saturday night I was committed to not repeating my Friday night - told myself I’m taking it easy. Taking it easy meant that I was going to order a movie via OnDemand from Time Warner. Without much direction on what to get I had to know what I didn’t want, I didn’t want something that would make me think, I needed mindless entertainment.

After navigating through the Time Warner guide that can use some updating I had narrowed down my choices. First choice was – Fast5, it took only about 6 seconds to realize I’d have to be in the mindset of Friday night to purchase this. Second choice was – Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, the third installment to the series. The latter it was, and before I knew it Michael Bay and all his exploding glory was getting ready to play on my screen for the next… wait… how long… 144 minutes… um… almost 2.5 hours!?

5 minutes into the 144 I knew I might regret this purchase. Not sure if the regret came from the fact that they were intercutting actual footage from John F Kennedy’s 1969 space launch speech with a modern day actor, or the fact that Megan Fox had been replaced with someone who actually made me ask “Wait… what happened to Megan Fox?” It’s my own fault, I should have known this, I was warned twice…

Warning Shot #1:
Transformers (July 3rd, 2007)

I was traveling when this movie was released so I didn’t see it right away, but I remember being excited for it. The Transformers were my favorite toys as a kid and the trailers for this film made it looks like some justice may be served. This seemed like a perfect equation for a major reason… Michael Bay. Say what you want about Bay but he brings it when it’s time for action. The other things this had going for it –

Steven Spielberg: When I see Spielberg’s name on anything I still get excited to see it.

Shia LaBeouf: At this point he wasn’t the Shia he is today. This movie actually really helped bring him into the household name conversation. Before TF he had a surprise hit “Disturbia” which helped give him some weight and add to the “Oh we want to see him act discussion.

Megan Fox: I’m not about to give her acting credit but the fact is she added to this movie… yes, for aesthetic purposes. She was still relatively unknown, so we didn’t dog on her as much as we do now.

The Bad Ass Robots: It was cool to see Optimus Prime on the big screen trying to look real. The special effects seemed pretty cool too.

Seemed like a good equation? Yeah. A light-hearted family action movie that can be seen by various age groups and people. Kids, Adults, Comic lovers, Cartoon lovers – It’s a destined hit. And it was: $319 Million in the US and $719 Million worldwide. How can so many people be so wrong? This has to be good.

When I finally saw it about halfway into it’s theater run something happened that I didn’t expect – I didn’t really like it. It was just ehhh’ and from what I heard I thought I’d love it. It seemed as though everyone liked it. What happened?

I recall walking out and thinking it was corny, not terrible but ultimately corny. I specifically remember a scene when Shia’s Transformer is hiding around his house and Shia was trying to hide it from his parents. It was a goofy forced comedic moment that basically summed up the movie in a whole. But that’s to be expected in films that Spielberg has his name on. I just wasn’t ready for it.

The first TF – I give it a C+. Average film.

Warning Explosion #2:
Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (June 24th, 2009)

Where do I being? How can I say this? This movie fucking sucked so bad. I’m honestly trying to wrap my head around this and figure out how to explain why and how this movie is bad. For starters I went and saw it with my girlfriend and good buddy who is a director and loves action/adventure films. That good buddy fell asleep during this movie and I contemplated walking out, in hindsight I don’t know how I didn’t. Seriously, my friend fell asleep in a movie that has insanely loud noises, Shia yelling a lot, robots, and action (to name a few).

That’s not a reason as to why this movie is so bad it’s just an example that the perfect storm of shit pushed us into a corner – a sleeping corner and a contemplative walking out corner.

Somehow this movie is the most profitable (in the US) out of the 3. It made $402 Million domestic and $836 Million worldwide, that is a lot of money. To confirm I’m not crazy – Rotten Tomatoes has it coming in at 20% - meaning 80% think this movie is as bad as I do.

I think it’s pointless to say what’s wrong with this film because it’s a list that’s so full it would look like that one scene in Charlie and the Chocolate factory when Willy Wonka asks the kids to read the rules before they enter his place. I think I can actually try and put some meat behind why this movie is so bad.

A) Megan Fox’s completely irrelevant ass posing while working at a car shop with her father, not only was it weird for her to be straddling a motorcycle the way she was, but she was dressed like Jessica Simpson in The Dukes of Hazzard.

B) Mid filming Shia was in a car accident, which required him to start wearing a cast on his hand. At minute who gives a shit, Shia inexplicably has this random cast he’s sporting. Seriously, it’s as if he was running in one scene and the next scene he’s got this cast on. Okay, that may sound like I’m loser nit picking but I think it says a lot. This movie gave up on the average from part 1 and decided to just make it all about the action. It’s kind of understandable… but is it?

I need to stop talking about this movie; it’s giving me a headache. The main thing I can do now is to ultimately tell you what I decided at the moment I saw that movie. I decided never to see another TF again. No way.

The second TF – I give it an F. Not just any F, one of those F’s that’s a low F, not scratching the surface for a D, F.

Enter Saturday and my detoxing body.

I didn’t hear much about TF3 but I did hear that it had more action than part 1 and 2, and it was also shot for 3-D. 3-D translates to higher ticket prices which translates to more $$$. In fact this movie made $352 Million in the US and $1 BILLION worldwide… 3-D makes cash. However, there was no Fing way I was going to go down that road so I stuck with old school 2-D.

Getting back to my regrets I mentioned above. How can any movie that doesn’t have Kevin Coster Dancing with Wolves be 2.5 hours? Bay has been treating these films as though they’re looking for an Academy Award for best picture. I guess, that’s actually kind of cool to a certain extent, but it takes up a lot of my time.

That time that was taken up with was filled with utter insanity. Insanity in the sense that I felt as though I was watching a real life video game unfold… seriously. I could see how kids would find this movie amazing – I talked to my buddy (buddy who fell asleep in part 2) and told him I could imagine this film as a ride at Universal Studios, and I don’t mean they make a ride for the film… The film IS the ride.

They tried so hard for there to be a plot – there is none. They tried so hard for comic relief – there isn’t. They tried so hard for a serious film – it isn’t. They tried so hard for the new chick to be a good actress – she’s not. This movie isn’t a lot of things, but it is a ride. That’s the main reason I didn’t stop watching it, If I stopped watching it I’d be one of those kids who leaves an amusement park because the rollercoaster’s are to scary. I wasn’t going to be that kid… It’s an experience and I wanted to show Michael Bay that I could handle this shit.

I did handle it, and truthfully I kind of hope this would be the last film in the series even though I don’t think it is. How could it be? Why stop when there is so much of a cash return? It just seems that we’ve watched all we need to watch with this, even Shia seemed like he was done with this blow em’ up shit.

To this movies credit I did walk away minus a headache. Granted I was reclined on my couch drinking Tea, but ultimately it did the trick and gave me mindless action that I was looking for. Which kind of makes me wonder if the whole point of this series is to dumb you down for 2.5 hours a piece while exposing you to more action than… well… a different Michael Bay film.

Shit, now that I think of it this movie served its purpose. My recommendation for watching any Transformer movie: Drink too much the night before so you’re forced to lie like a zombie. Like I said… it’s an experience.

Few quick thoughts about the World Series.

It’s the top of the 9th and it looks like Texas will win, however I’m kind of rooting for the Cards to come back and pull this out.

Few thoughts before this game is over –

Is the Job of “baseball announcer” the most boring thing since that one time I drove from LA to Milwaukee? Yes. I feel bad for them, so much dead space and time to talk about nothing.

I turned this game on 4 hours ago during the 6th inning…

Baseball players are weak! Now powerful weak… Did I really see a dude leave this game because of a bruised pinky?

Managers are pointless. Baseball should treat games like kids do playing in parks by themselves. Sub yourself when you’re sucking or tired. Also, the managers look tired and bored.

Homeruns are very exciting to watch.

They just showed a stat that the Cubs haven’t won a title since 1908… Go Cubs!

Albert Pujols is going to hit a homer in the bottom of the 9th.

Whoops… it’s now the bottom of the 9th. Go Cards.

Exit Row: Every Man For Himself!

So let me see if I understand this – in case of emergency I’m supposed to rely on average Joe to unlatch the door and help me?

You know for all the precautions that an airline takes before, during, and after a flight you’d think that there may be more guidelines to manning the emergency exit. The thing about the emergency exit / emergency row is that people don’t look at it as a chance to be put in a very fucked up situation; they look at it as a chance to get more legroom.

Here’s the thing: If I’m going to have to take off 40 percent of my clothing before getting x-rayed, pay extra to board a flight early, pay extra for luggage, and occasionally pay extra to sit closer to the front of the plane… then I want more assurance at the emergency exits.

This is what I propose:

Instead of having Joe the hungover college guy and Ted the 13 year old who barely meets the exit row age requirement sit at the exit row, how about airlines offer some incentives? Such as: If people take online courses that they pay 100 dollars for say… a week or a total number of hours then they automatically can fly free in the exit row - if it’s open - If it’s not open then they buy a full priced ticket.

What this will do is A) make some money for the airlines because tons of people would think they’d win the golden ticket and get a free flight that would otherwise cost 400 dollars. Yes, some lucky people would fly free in the exit row. B) Give some sort of reassurance to people that “Hey, the guy at the exit door may actually know how to open that door in case of an emergency.”

Proposing online courses for exiting exit rows sounds stupid you say? Yeah, I kind of think they’re stupid too but our system in America has online courses for college and driving classes… so it’s not that far fetched.

Let’s be honest – Nobody really thinks we’d ever need to use the exit row. I have this feeling that in the back of everyone’s mind is when or if there were some emergency that required the emergency exit then it’s every man for himself. The exit row is a glaring area where everyone turns the check on “worrying” about it. Nobody ever really thinks we’d need it.

Another idea is to put certifiably trained people in the seats that have a history of being cool under extreme situations. Will this be a waste for passengers flying from one place to another? Sure, they’d take up the seats. But come on – the airlines waste so much manpower on bullshit already. Today at the airport I saw a guy toss a lighter into the trash and make a joke about it -“Whoops!”

For the record, if there is no change then I’m okay with the way it is, but lets acknowledge that the announcements in the beginning and asking people if they’re okay to sit in the exit row means nothing. Fortunately I feel confident that I could wrestle my way to the emergency exit before anyone else…

Every man for himself, right?

Tower Heist ... You Almost Had Us At $60.

If you didn’t know, last week Universal announced that their film, Tower Heist, which opens in theaters on November 4th would be released to VOD (Video On Demand aka Pay tv) 3 weeks later for the measly price of $59.99. For the sake of things lets just say $60 dollars… they’re not fooling anyone.

When this was first reported a few things happened:

First – People were confused that anyone would pay $60 for a movie 3 weeks later.

Second – People started to wonder how this would change things down the road with releases post-theater run. It’s interesting because there isn’t nor has there ever been some magical number that says when a movie comes out after it’s theater run. It seems to always change. For instance, I want to know why X-Men: First Class is on DVD but Super 8 is nowhere to be found. Weren’t they in the theater at the same time? Give me my F’n JJ / Spielberg film.

Third – This started the inevitable process of people never having to leave their living rooms and drastically altering the movie going experience. This is a whole other can of worms… we’ll just stick to Tower Heist.

Earlier this week exhibitors (theater owners) went bat shit crazy and strong-armed Universal by saying “You release this 3 weeks later, then we’ll boycott this film.” Universal took note and pulled the 3 weeks later release date, which probably felt awfully gratifying for a lot of theater owners but we all know they’ll lose this war in the long term.

When this all went down nobody seemed to care, in fact I think people were happy because when you put the words MOVIE and 60 DOLLARS together we black out due to not being able to comprehend the concept. With nobody getting behind the VOD release Universal basically lost early on. All the talk was “Who the fuck would pay $60?” as opposed to “Hmmm, I might pay that.”

This is what Universal did wrong in their little experiment… And how they could have made this work, and like always – it’s a money thing:

First off $60 is insane for this movie… Or is it? The argument is – “If you and your wife take your kids to the movie it can come to just as much” which is actually kind of true. Quick financial breakdown:

Husband and Wife with 2 kids at $10 a ticket on a Friday night: $40.

Popcorn: $6

Drinks: $8

Candy: $4

Grand Total: $58

Not to mention any variables of paying for parking… extra candy for the bitching kid… more drinks. You may actually top $60 dollars going to see a 2 hour movie.

What they should have done was start much lower… say… $39.99, ahem, $40. Sure, lower is better when it comes to spending but Tower Heist is sort of a perfect storm in a few ways from the outside looking in. It has early positive reviews, an apparent resurgence from Eddie Murphy (for the 18th time), and Ben Stiller.

The marquee stars are interesting because they appeal to such a wide audience. People can choose to remember Eddie Murphy as the guy who did kick ass stand up, Coming to America, SNL, and The Nutty Professor… And then happily forget about Pluto Nash and Bowfinger. Then you have Stiller who’s still appealing to the crowd who remembers him from Something about Mary and the younger generation who knows him from A Night at The Museum. OHHH not to mention one is black and the other is white which equals… BIG AUDIENCE! For the sake of talking about cast lets not forget that Ferris Bueller is in this movie and so is Michael Pena. Man, this movie is covering all it’s race angles.

If you start low with your initial price when dealing with this movie people will want it and it starts to look like a good deal, I’m not totally sure people have accepted they’re blowing so much money at the movies quite yet. Once people start to want it then you get people on your side with every social media outlet known to mankind. Suddenly we want to watch Tower Heist and every other movie in 3 weeks… or else.

Universal dropped the ball here by about 20 bucks. They could have seriously started to alter things if not by a lot then juuust a little. A little nudge if you would. It seems like all Universal did was let the public side with the exhibitors.

If nothing else the door has been cracked opened. This was the first major studio film to really test these waters like it did. If Tower Heist doesn’t manage to CPR Eddie Murphy’s career then we can look back at it as the movie that attempted the inevitable paradigm shift that’s slowly taking place.

…And it made us realize that it’s fucking expensive for a night at the movies.

I've Seen Too Many Scary Movies

How do I know that I’ve seen too many scary movies? Well it’s pretty simple and here’s the scenario…

My girlfriend’s beautiful 1-year-old niece, Justine, who looks as innocent as … well … I can’t think of anything, she would be the example I use when explaining someone looks innocent. Just look at that picture above. Anyway, her niece, sister, and brother in law are staying with us for the weekend and last night we had her crib in our room.

It should be noted - I’ve never had a 1 year old stay in my room until last night so I experienced the hours upon hours of listening with an acute hearing that maybe only bats have just to make sure she’s breathing and healthy. When I was finally dosing off, half in and out of sleep, a weird and sudden thought came to me:

What if I woke up and the baby was standing at the edge of the bed looking at me as if it knew something I didn’t know?

Then…

Or! What if the baby is sitting in our chair in the corner of the room reading a novel that can only be found in a different country!?

I quickly woke up my girlfriend and said:

“Hey what if Justine was just standing there staring at you?”

She looked at me with a who says that look and said: “Shut up”

So I did. Then I looked at Justine sound asleep and was probably dreaming about the Mickey Mouse Hot Dog song that I played for her 8 times. Of course she looked totally adorable and innocent. I laid back down and wondered what kind of person would think that? I’ll tell you who…

A person who creates fictitious scenarios and then embellishes them because they’ve probably seen it or thought about it… When watching a scary movie! I couldn’t stop thinking about the creepy twins from The Shining or the kid from The Omen.

This situation described about should be the standardized test for all people wanting to know if they’ve seen too many scary movies.