Some People Say Cucumbers Taste Better Pickled

With all of the Michael Jackson stuff that happened this week (funeral, tabloid coverage, random other things) I have decided to put up one of the funniest Chappelle Show skits of all time - the one featuring the Michael Jackson and R. Kelly jury trial selection process.

I figured that by the time Friday rolls around, everyone should just laugh and enjoy the weekend!

Chappelle's Show
Celebrity Trial Jury Selection
www.comedycentral.com

***The Comedy Central sketch above does not feautre the entire jury selection skit. It is missing the 1994 O.J. trial selection, which features one of the most classic lines: 'Sir, my blackness doesn't permit me to answer that question.'

Go here and skip to the 10:25 mark to view the full skit.

Stream The Dead Weather - TODAY ONLY!

The Dead Weather are streaming their entire debut album, Horehound, on iLike for TODAY ONLY!

For those of you that live under a rock; The Dead Weather is comprised of Dean Fertita of Queens Of The Stone Age, Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs, Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs and Allison Mosshart of The Kills.

They will be playing day 3 of ACL this year.

Go here to stream the entire album which isn't available to purchase until July 14th.

James Franco's UCLA Commencement Speech

As some of you may have heard; James Franco was invited by his alma matter to be UCLA's class of 2009 commencement speaker. While this really doesn't make much sense, especially since he was known for skipping or sleeping in class, he ended up turning the offer down.

Now, he has teamed up with Funny or Die to show the world the real reason he wasn't the UCLA class of 2009 commencement speaker.

Enjoy. One more day 'till Friday!

ACL 2009 Schedule Change!

For those of you that are thinking about purchasing ACL 1-day tickets, make sure you are constantly looking at the band lineup/schedule page (the schedule isn't out yet, but they list what bands are playing on each day) before you purchase anything, because C3 seems to be switching artists around without notice. So far, the only switch that I am concerned with is the John Legend/Mos Def switch.

In my previous post, I listed the original lineup of artists playing ACL each day, and personally I prefer it much more than the current list.

Here are the changes:

Old Friday lineup:
Beastie Boys
Kings of Leon
Thievery Corporation
Mos Def

New Friday lineup:
Beastie Boys
Kings of Leon
Thievery Corporation
John Legend

Old Saturday lineup:
Dave Matthews Band
John Legend
The Levon Helm Band
Ghostland Observatory

New Saturday lineup:
Dave Matthews Band
The Levon Helm Band
Ghostland Observatory
Mos Def

While this doesn't seem like that big of a change; what they have done is loaded Friday with an extra "big" artist (John Legend), and taken him away from Saturday. This leaves Friday's lineup overcrowded and Saturday's lineup completely weak.

To me, the older lineup was a simple choice of which bands to see each night (Kings vs Beastie and Thievery vs Mos Def on Friday and DMB vs John Legend on Saturday). Now it seems like there will be more conflicts in the schedule (or at least my schedule) having to choose between Thievery and John Legend (John Legend wins) on Friday night, and then not giving a shit about DMB vs Levon Helm Band.

In my opinion, they need to move either one of the top four bands from Friday night to Saturday night (hopefully either Beastie Boys or Thievery corportation), or they need to take a really good mid-tier band from Sunday's lineup (Dead Weather, Arctic Monkeys or Toadies) to make up for the extremely weak top portion of Saturday's schedule.

I normally expect ACL to have horrible scheduling problems, but I do not, however, expect them to get it right the first time and then change it so it creates problems that didn't originally exist.

Michael Jackson's Best Dance Move

When thinking back on Michael Jackson's music career, everyone knows him as an amazing musician, dancer, and the biggest selling artist of all time. However, when thinking about him specifically as a dancer, I feel like everyone really knows him for one move; the moonwalk.

While the moonwalk is a great move that many have tried (and failed) to recreate, I don't feel like this was his most impressive move. So, if it isn't the moonwalk, what was his most impressive dance move?

The 45-degree lean.

You know, the one from the Smooth Criminal music video (shown in the video above at the 7:12 mark) where he and a few others somehow manage to lean at a 45-degree angle while planting their feet completely flat on the ground.

If you think I am wrong, I would like to see you try it. I did when I was younger and I remember almost breaking my ankles before falling over every single time.

Most people at the time thought the move in the video was fake until Michael performed the lean live in concert for thousands of fans, which then debunked these rumors.

Until now...

Perez Hilton once again has decided to ruin the fun and let the whole world in on Michael's secret of the 45-degree angle lean.






"In a famous scene from Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal music video, the pop singer and his dancers leaned forward at a 45-degree angle - much to the confusion of all of us watching.

Well, now the cat is out of the bag!!!

Wires and harnesses were used during the filming of the video, but when performing live they had assistance from special shoes.

The shoes, which were patented in 1993, contain anklets which give the footwear the rigidity of ski boots along with ability to latch on to pegs that rise out of the floor, thereby allowing Jackson to defy gravity."

While the lean may have been fake, putting the moonwalk back into the official #1 spot of Michael Jackson's best dance moves, the 45-degree lean is still my personal favorite.

Happy Friday!

In 2007, Chuy took me to see a band at SXSW that he said was HUGE...the only problem was that I had never heard of them before. He failed to mention they were huge in Sweden (or if he did I didn't hear him).

Either way, we ended up at La Zona Rosa with about 15 others listening to an AMAZING band that really does sell out 40,000+ person arenas in Europe.

That band was Mando Diao, and I have been a fan ever since.

Here is their video for 'Dance with Somebody':

Happy Birthday, Blog - 2 Year Anniversary!

I can't believe it has already been two years! Last Year I went over a few favorite posts that I wrote in the blogs first year of existence, which made me think of all the time I wasted at work (and how much fun I had doing it).

This year, I think I am going to go another route.

I haven't been posting as much, because there isn't as much going on in my life; but hopefully I will be able to change that very soon. I have seen a lot of bloggers closing down and quitting the blogosphere, and I definitely don't plan on doing that in the near future. I do, however, want to get more interesting/witty/amusing posts up more often, which will require a little more effort on my part.

So that is my challenge for this next year; put more effort into my blog. I had a great time doing SXSW coverage (and music in general), so maybe there might be a bigger push in that direction...but maybe not. I really don't know yet.

I do hope that everyone is still enjoying it because I am, and even more so; I hope you are checking out the other blogs that I read (located on the right) regularly.

With that, as my birthday present; I leave you with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at this year's Bonnaroo Music Festival:

Lollapalooza 2009 Schedule Is Out!

The schedule for the 2009 Lollapalooza festival was released this morning, and let me tell you; Friday and Sunday aren't pretty (in Lolla terms...for any other festival, this probably wouldn't look so bad).

There are lots of conflicts, which is bound to happen with that many great bands, but come on...I am sure they could have done a better job with the schedule. Normally C3 Presents saves the time conflicts for ACL (this number of conflicts is NOTHING compared to a typical ACL schedule/fiasco), but it looks like Lolla was actually hit with more conflicts than normal for the first and last day of the festival.

Again, I know that conflicts are bound to happen, but it always makes me mad to see bands that I thought I was getting to see up against another band that I like and I have to choose between them.

It always works out in the end. Let's just hope that the ACL schedule doesn't look even worse...

Click to view the full schedule for Lollapalooza 2009

Some of the more notable conflicts below:

Friday, August 7:
-White Lies vs. The Gaslight Anthem 2-3pm
-Bon Iver vs. Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam 3-4pm
-Fleet Foxes vs. Crystal Castles 5-6pm
-The Decemberists vs. Thievery Corportation 6-7pm
-Kings of Leon vs. Depeche Mode vs. Peter Bjorn & John 8-10pm(ish)

Saturday, August 8:
-Santigold vs. Glasvegas 5:30-6:30pm
-TV on the Radio vs. Lykke Li 6:30-7:30pm

Sunday, August 9:
-Friendly Fires vs. Ra Ra Riot 12:30-1:30pm
-Neko Case vs. Vampire Weekend vs Passion Pit 4:30-6pm
-Dan Auerbach vs. Cold War Kids 5:30-6:30pm
-Snoop Dogg vs. Passion Pit 6:30-7:30pm
-Band of Horses vs. MSTRKRFT vs. Silversun Pickups 7:30-8:30pm

Larry David On The Tonight Show

Last night (6/16/09) Larry David appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and let me just say that it was hilarious.

If you are wondering why you don't recall seeing Larry David (edit note: It sounds weird just calling him "Larry") on more late night talk shows, it is because he doesn't do them. He hates them. This was actually his first appearance on the Tonight Show ever.

If you like the shows Seinfeld, or especially Curb Your Enthusiasm, then you will enjoy this interview. The clips are broken into two segments where he talks about why he thinks he divorced, to revealing that he enjoys being fired. Then, underneath those clips is the preview for the new Woody Allen movie featuring Larry David called "Whatever Works."

Interview. Part 1


Interview. Part 2:


Whatever Works:

Thank You, Zack Morris!!

I used to LOVE Saved By The Bell! If you didn't, then you are in one of the following categories: A.) Someone with horrible taste B.) Really young (which still isn't a very good excuse) or C.) Dead (but liked the show when you were alive).

I sometimes even catch episodes when I can't sleep/have to wake up around 5am, and even though I have seen them all, they are still amazing.

Well, thanks to Jimmy Fallon, Zack Morris (no, not Mark-Paul Gosselaar) appeared on the Late Night show to give us an update on his life and to agree to appear in their version of a cast reunion.

So far, the people who have agreed to being in the reunion are:

-Zach Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar)
-A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez)
-Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies)
-Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) [ Who knew Jessie's middle name was Myrtle??]
-Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins)

The only two that are currently holding out are Kelly Kapowski and Screech (who apparently hates the entire cast, so don't hold your breath on this one).

Enjoy!



UPDATE 6/10: Here is an interview with Mark-Paul Gosselaar talking about his Jimmy Fallon appearance.