Meanwhile, back at EATS...

My classic Rock brethren friends will know what I'm referring to, there...

OH, IS THERE A FOOTBALL GAME ON TONIGHT?
Much has been made about the NFL's decision to simulcast tonight's Patriots-Giants game on CBS and NBC, in addition to their own NFL Network, which is originating the broadcast.  The league claims it's so the fans can witness potential history with the Pats trying to go undefeated and all, but what they won't admit is their little cable channel is a colossal flop.  Yours truly is as big an NFL fan as they come, but I have no desire to pay extra for NFL Network, and I think most other football fans feel the same way, but true-to-form, the league is using their little simulcast as a three-hour infomercial for their cable channel.

During the first year of its existence, I got NFL Network as part of my existing digital cable package and I was largely unimpressed with it.  Their typical programming day was a total bore—it was the same three-hour block of shows run continuously.  One show dissected every aspect of the game ad nauseam (á la ESPN), and there was another show following the Jacksonville Jaguars through training camp (zzzzz!), blah blah blah.  I also fully expected the league to take advantage of their virtual treasure trove of old school NFL Films highlights from the past 40 years to fill out at least part of their daily TV schedule, and sadly, they never did.  Now, Compost—I mean, Comcast—wants me to pay extra to get NFL Network, and they can shove it.  NFL Network's game broadcasts (which began last season) are pretty underwhelming anyway.  There have been numerous glitches and FUBARs along the way, not to mention the uninspired choice of has-been Bryant Gumball as play-by-play man and Cris "Super Shill" Collinsworth as color analyst, plus Deion "Pimps R Us" Sanders on their pre-game show.  Sorry, gents, I'll pass...

MORE THINGS I CAN DO WITHOUT...
These new FreeCreditReport.com TV ads featuring these bozos singing along like Weird Al Yankovic about being in the poor house because they didn't utilize this important service.  These ads replaced the equally-annoying ones featuring that "I'm thinking of a number..." Pat Sajak look-alike weasel.  Keep your smelling salts handy, now—I have a little revelation about FreeCreditReport.com:  It's not really free!  Just thought I'd share that with you...

A KISS IS STILL A KISS
I got Volume III of the Kissology DVD anthology for Christmas, and it's totally worth it for the 4th disc alone, which features one of the earliest Kiss shows ever, December 22, 1973—nearly two months before the first album came out—at a place called the Coventry in New Yawk City.  It's a single-camera video, but the quality is surprisingly good (all things considered) and it's the Kiss equivalent of the Zapruder film of JFK's assassination—almost literally where it all began...

PROOFREADING, THE LOST ART...
I ate Virgina once—tasted like chicken!  Almost heaven, West Virgina...












CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #67
"Stranger”--JEFFERSON STARSHIP (1981)  “What is veiled now soon will be shown.”  This line had me bamboozled for years until I finally looked it up.  I thought it was something like “What is there? My suit will be shown...”

THE DE-EVOLUTION OF RADAR O'REILLY
I mentioned in my last post how the general quality of "M*A*S*H" declined after Radar went home, and it occurred to me how company clerk Walter Eugene O'Reilly (no relation to Bill, one would hope) somehow managed to age in reverse on the show over the years.  When the show debuted, Radar was actually rather savvy and sassy, and even a little cocky at times.  Witness the "Chief Surgeon Who?" episode when he's camped out at Henry's desk drinking his brandy and smoking his cigars when the General (played by the future Boss Hogg Sorrell Booke) comes storming in and asks him what he's doing, "D-O-I-N-G, doing!  What're you doing?", to which young master O'Reilly replies, "Listening do you spell 'doing', sir!"  Then flash ahead a few years to an episode where Col. Potter offers Radar one of his cigars, and Radar reluctantly asks, "Won't it stunt my growth?" then he proceeds to practically choke on it!  Over the years, Radar became more and more naïve and child-like as time went on, but then all of sudden in his last episode, "Goodbye, Radar" he turned into this surly bastard, for some bizarre reason.  Perhaps it had something to do with actor Gary Burghoff, who was 35 by that time, playing a kid who was what, 19 or 20?  His receding hairline was probably a good hint that it was time to return to Ottumwa...

Ain't I a stinker?--Vol. I

First of an occasional series where I salute those truly crappy episodes that inevitably come from good TV series...

Any show that runs 11 years is bound to have its fair share of clunker episodes, and “Frasier” is no exception, especially near the end of the show’s run when many eps involved Daphne‘s insufferable mother, Gertrude, but there are two that really stick out for me.  One of them seems to be universally hated by “Frasier” fans, “Enemy At The Gate” from 2001, where Frasier makes a big fuss about an exorbitant parking garage fee which he refuses to pay and inconsiderately causes a major back-up of cars behind him and Niles at the gate.  Confounded, man—you’re a bloody psychologist and can afford to pay the friggin' $8.50 (or whatever it was)!  The other one I hate is called “Four For The Seesaw” from 1997 where Niles and Frasier impulsively snag a weekend getaway at a mountain cabin with two babes (because life is just THAT kind!) and suddenly morph into Ralph and Potsie once they get there.  Those are the two “Frasier” episodes I refuse to sit through in reruns.

I loved “Friends” to death, but they had several episodes (again, toward the end of the show's run) that basically sucked, and my all-time “Friends” cringe moment was the episode where Ross had to hide the fact that he had the audacity to shop at Pottery Barn because Phoebe absolutely hated Pottery Barn!  First off, this was such a blatantly transparent commercial for Pottery Barn, and secondly, what exactly would Ross have to fear if he did indeed experience the wrath of the omnipotent Pheebs—a whack on his pee-pee?  Oh, horror of horrors!  Another one I hated was the time Ross enlisted Joey and Rachel to help him move his new sofa up the steps and he kept uttering the word “PIVOT!” over and over at every turn (pun intended).  And then there was the shameless self-promotion when Robin Williams and Billy Crystal guested briefly in the coffee house in one ep the very same week they just happened to have some movie coming out (which tanked, big-time).
 January 29, 1971 is a date that will live in TV infamy as “The Partridge Family” bus cruised into Motown and they wound up hanging out in the Hood with guest stars Richard Pryor and Louis Gossett, Jr. in the episode called “Soul Club”.  Seems our heroes in crushed velvet somehow got booked at a club called “The Fire House” in the ghetto after somehow being confused with the Temptations (they were practically interchangable, after all—nice going, Reuben!) and the club (run by Pryor’s and Gossett’s characters) was about to go belly-up.  However, Keith (aka, "Soul Brother #2,908) saves the day by coming up with a new song ("kind of an Afro thing") and the P-Family delights the Soul Train crowd with “Bandala” and a grand time was had by all.  Talk about fucking science fiction…

“Sanford And Son” is my all-time favorite sitcom ever “on earth in this hemisphere,” as Fred would say, but the one episode that absolutely makes me cringe is the next-to-next-to-last one ever from 1977 called “Funny, You Don’t Look It”.  Did they really expect us to believe that Fred G. Sanford would ever actually think for a nanosecond that he was Jewish?!?  Even worse, by this time Redd Foxx was basically phoning in his performances (as was Demond Wilson as Lamont), so the acting in this episode was more wooden than Pinocchio.  Dare I say it?  You big dummies!

It’s no secret that “M*A*S*H” overstayed its welcome, and many of the episodes—especially after Radar left—were subpar, like when Klinger runs a camp newspaper, or when the 4,077th staff tries to redo the O.R. floor in cement, et al.  The infamous “Dreams” episode that began the 1979 season is often cited by fans as another clunker, but it didn’t annoy me half as much as “War Co-Respondent” with guest star Susan St. James as “THE” Aggie O’Shea.  It was downright sickening the way the whole camp fawned over this gal, especially Hawkeye, who seemed to think he was entitled to doink every woman under the age of 35 who happened into camp, not to mention the contrived romance between Aggie and the ever-faithful B.J. Hunnicutt.  They should’ve paired her up with Klinger—it’d have been a helluva lot funnier…

And then there’s our all-time favorite shark-jumpers, the gang at Arnold’s on “Happy Days”.  I like to divide up HD into two distinct eras:  Pre-Chachi and During-Chachi.  From the Pre-Chachi era, I give you the rather infamous “Fonzie’s New Friend” episode where “Happy Days” suddenly became socially-conscious by inserting a token Black character, Sticks Downey.  Oh yeah, like a brotha is going to play the drums for Richie, Ralph and Potsie!  Okay, tell me that one again about the oceanfront property in Winnipeg, will ya?

From the During-Chachi era, I give you “Potsie Quits School” from 1979 where young Warren Webber struggles with his anatomy studies in college and Da Fonz encourages him to assimilate his studies musically, so come final exam time, good ol’ Pots hums and sings his way through the test, and next thing you know, the entire classroom erupts into a college musical singing along to “Pump Your Blood” while Fonzie proclaims “My boy don’t cheat”, the professor acts all befuddled and Potsie prances around like a faggot.  It’s a sure death knell to any sitcom when it resorts to singing and dancing on every other episode.  As Robin Williams said in Dead Poet’s Society:  “Excrement!”

ABBA--The Blog Post

I’ve often said it takes a real man to admit he likes ABBA, so I’ll be a real he-man and confess my love for the world’s greatest pop group.  Hey, I have company in the ABBA Admiration Society with the likes of Bono and The Edge from Youse2, Tina Turner, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Alice Cooper and even Oasis hard-ass Noel Gallagher.  Dead loser Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain even once listed them as an influence—funny, it never showed in his music, but I digress...

I’ll spare you the minutiae of the history of ABBA, which is well-documented, and focus on why I enjoy their music—because it’s pretty bloody good!  As beloved as ABBA are, you’d think there would be more artists who try to emulate them and their style, but given the dearth of decent pop music over the last 15-20 years, that is sadly not the case.  Benny and Björn were/are master craftsmen at creating killer pop songs with catchy hooks and great melodies, and Agnetha and Frida are two of the finest female vocalists ever to grace this planet.  True, some of ABBA’s stuff was on the schlocky side, and toward the end of their career they leaned a bit too hard on danceable fluff'n'stuff, but overall they produced some of the dandiest pop music of all-time.

I first got into ABBA sometime in ’75 when “S.O.S.” came out, mostly because I mistakenly thought it was my girl Olivia Newton-John singing it at first.  Loved the song anyway, even when I found out it was the group that did “Waterloo” the year before.  The summer of ‘76 was when I first embraced Kiss, but all the while I found myself also being drawn to their polar musical opposite, that little ol’ group from Sweden.  The women-folk in the group certainly caught my eye, especially my (other) girl Frida, as I’m a sucker for redheads.  People often tend to write off ABBA’s music as lightweight happy ‘70s music (“When I Kissed The Teacher“, "Honey, Honey" for instance), but at closer look, they also excelled at break-up songs—"Knowing Me, Knowing You", "The Winner Takes It All", “S.O.S.” and “One Of Us” being prime examples.

It took them a while, but ABBA finally scored a #1 hit in America with the quintessential pop record, 1977‘s “Dancing Queen”, but after that, they began to sound a bit too mechanical and things suddenly became minimalist with ABBA-The Album, ABBA-The Movie, etc., therefore it’s their earlier stuff that I prefer the most.  In the 25 years since the group ceased recording and performing, there has been an unprecedented wave of ABBA nostalgia, with the hit musical Mamma Mia!, tribute groups like Björn Again, and movies featuring ABBA music like Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, as well as fans clamoring for a reunion concert/tour.  Regarding the latter, I think a reunion—even just a one-off concert—would be a big downer, and I’d rather remember ABBA the way they were.

For the record, I pronounce the group’s name ‘AH-ba‘, not ‘aaaa-ba’, or even the Aussie variation ‘Ib-ba’!  You say ‘to-MAY-to’, I say ‘to-MAH-to’…

My all-time ABBA Top 20:
20) “Honey, Honey” (1974)  Cute little pop song that features one of the silliest lines in music history, “You’re a doggone beast!”  Then again, it wasn't nearly as silly as what they wore in this video...
19) “Ring, Ring” (1973)  You don’t suppose this is Ernestine the phone operator’s favorite song, do ya? “One ringy-dingy…two ringy-dingies…”
18) “Angeleyes” (1979)  Second-best track off the overly disco-y Voulez-Vous LP.
17) “Take A Chance On Me” (1978)  ABBA-The Album was a tad disappointing to me following Arrival, but this was easily the best single from it.  Seeing Frida in thigh-high boots in the video was also quite a draw to my 14-year-old eyes!
16) “Does Your Mother Know?” (1979)  Björn—who was 34 at the time—sounds rather Shaun Cassidy-ish here singing lines like “but I can’t take a chance on a chick like you,” but it’s a cool song anyway.
15) “Hole In Your Soul” (1978)  Borderline Rock ‘N’ Roll here and very guitar-driven, a rarity on an ABBA record.
14) “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” (1975)  Song that holds the world record for most often repeated words in a song title, and a natural for any wedding reception.
13) “When I Kissed The Teacher” (1977)  Lead-off track from the Arrival album.  Cornball as all get-out, but I like it anyway.
12) “Bang-A-Boomerang” (1975)  The title has a hokey Archies quality to it, the chorus is hokey and so is the video, but the song still works!
11) “Why Did It Have To Be Me?” (1977)  This song was often a concert highlight with Björn trading lead vocals with Frida while Agnetha was off-stage smoking a joint.  Just kidding!
10) “Intermezzo #1” (1975)  A rare instrumental from ABBA, this one gave brother Benny a chance to flex his muscles and show off his very underrated prowess on the keys.  That’s pronounced “Inter-MET-zo” for youse non-Italians out there…
9) “Mamma Mia” (1975)  Funny, they don’t look Italian…
8) “The Winner Takes It All” (1980)  ABBA’s second-greatest break-up song ever, and Agnetha’s finest hour on record.
7) “Waterloo” (1974)  Song that put ABBA on the map/globe and made Sweden famous for something other than Volvos and meatballs.  It’s bouncy, catchy and pure ‘70s, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that!  Ignore the white "Soul Train" dancers at the beginning of this video...
6) “On And On And On” (1980)  This one has really grown on me over the years, even though it’s from ABBA’s later era when their records tended to be a bit cold and over-produced.
5) “Knowing Me, Knowing You” (1977)  One of the best break-up songs ever, this was Frida’s finest hour on record.  The twin lead guitars on the outro were a nice touch too.  Looks like Agnetha OD'd on the blue eye shadow in the video!
4) “So Long” (1975)  This catchy little number went beyond break-up song to fuck-you song!  ABBA used to close their concerts with this one, naturally (based on the title, not the fuck-you part, I presume).
3) “I’ve Been Waiting For You” (1975)  Highly underrated track which features great vocals from Agnetha as she sings of devotion to someone without losing her cool.
2) “Dancing Queen” (1977)  Arguably ABBA’s most famous song, and one of their very best.  Pop singles don’t get much more perfect than this one.
1) “S.O.S.” (1975)  Love the Wall of Sound effect during the choruses here.  This song was the first ABBA song that really stuck with me, and remains my favorite, too.