DSO Records: Trivia & Music

Maud Newton, whom I adore unreservedly and who knows more about literature then me, and you, and (yes) everyone we know, has come up with a list of ten novels and short stories that should be made into films.

The ever-less-funny joke about Hollywood being out of ideas aside, there’s one place where narrative still rules the coop, so even when they screw it up unmerciful, it’s always good to see a serious attempt by someone — anyone — at a literary adaptation. It means there’s still someone in L.A. who reads, which means hope for us all.

I can’t comment so much on the list she gives, because I’ve only read three out of the ten pieces, and I’m not the type to pick up and pfutz off to the movies anyways, so I’m not even in the I-know-what-I-like group. But I’d love to see these stories get more play.

My homey kickerofelves at Large Hearted Boy is running a series of interviews with musicians and artists on why they’re openly supporting Barack Obama this fall.

It may be true that there are more artists on the progressive side of the fence under the least of times, and this is pretty damned far from that. But getting people of reasonable renown to openly cop to it, and then actually be able to articulate why, is no less worthwhile an exercise. They’re not long on the vagaries of policy: the current piece, by Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, talks about the politics of inclusiveness and his hope that intelligence may become a central American virtue again someday, and doesn’t delve into FISA or his economic plan. But if actors and socialites can weigh in on the Presidential race, then why not people who actually have somewhat coherent thoughts about the process and can articulate them too?

Update: In a related entry, Radar lists ten instances where music and politics collided, from Al Jolson to Mudhoney.

In an article in this week’s New Yorker, Charles Van Doren, the man at the center of the great game show fixing scandal of the 1950’s and subject of the movie Quiz Show, finally comes clean about his side of the story, fifty years on. This is kind of a big deal.

In the article, he recounts in great detail the conversations he had with the producers of the show, his lack of awareness that game shows were anything other than fixed (the TV game show format was still in its infancy at the time, and Van Doren didn’t even own a television himself when they asked him to be on the show; he rationalized the deception at first by comparing game shows to Shakespearian theater), the arguments he had with his wife over whether to go through with it, and the atmosphere in the studio, with him, Herb Stempel, the returning champion he was brought on specifically to beat, and host Jack Barry, and the long aftermath after his run on the show, where he at first perjures himself and then slowly comes clean over the ensuing decades, wrestling with the decisions he made then right up to this day.

It’s detailed and doesn’t flinch at some of the more unsavory bits. It’s well worth the read. Ultimately, everyone seems to have learned their lesson and made out okay: Herb Stempel is still teaching part-time in New York, Jack Barry eventually made it back to hosting shows such as The Joker’s Wild and Tic Tac Dough, and Van Doren never stopped teaching, even as he tried, with some success, to fade away into obscurity.

Just watch this video. There are so many cool little things in it, that describing them would kill the joy:

PES’ Western Spaghetti from ideals creatives on Vimeo.

Yeah. eviltwinclassic.blogspot.com is up.

This DSO project is the second blog I’ve really put an effort into maintaining (if you can call this “effort” and “maintaining”). In 2000, I started a blog called The Evil Twin Theory, from the name of the band I left in Toronto to move to New York. I had another blog before that, but it was the one I made mistakes on, and even the Internet Wayback Machine doesn’t have complete copies of it. Which is just as well.

So the old template was awful, because I’m not a programmer now and certainly was less of one then, but the writing itself was a lot better than I thought it would be when I cracked the seal on the stuff this weekend, so I figured I’d at least remount it at eviltwinclassic.blogspot.com.

If you’re laid up in traction or otherwise incapacitated, or if you’ve finished all the Proust & Tolstoy in the house, give it a read. I’ll poke through it and if there’s anything relevant I’ll mention it, but at least it’s up.

A bunch of things that don’t merit their own blog entry:

• I finally managed to get my grubby little mittens on tonyhightower.com. I had it for years; it was where the old blog was. Now I have to find a place to park those old entries. They go back to the Pleistocene Era. Those entries can’t all be embarrassing. Can they?

• John McCain can’t seem to complete a sentence properly, and he has about as much of a grasp of the machinations of the American economy as I do, but he’s still virtually tied with the guy who not only can speak volumes on the subject, but who has had answers for everything, be it foreign, domestic, military, policy, economic or racial, everything that’s come up in the last couple of years. Isn’t that the kind of person we want as President? Someone who, y’know, knows what they’re doing? I mean, has the player-hater complex really become that much a part of the national character?

• I am a bad person because I don’t care about a missing two-year-old. Yes, I know. I never claimed to be all-knowing, and certainly I’m nowhere near all-caring. I’m sorry, World Of News. My attention is elsewhere. Besides, I’m guessing the press is running with this because there’s footage of a cute kid with a cute (and pottymouthed! ooh!) mom, and the JonBenet Ramsey case has gone cold. Seriously, people. Unless you’re involved with the case or you live in the area, this is not an ongoing national story. This is porn. Send out the APBs and then move on. It’s not like there’s nothing else to cover.

• Although I know it probably was a copyright violation and they had been operating without an agreement with the Hasbro Corporation: yes, I’m missing Scrabulous. It was why I joined Facebook in the first place. I’m not buying yet another version of Scrabble. I have two versions of it in the house, and I haven’t cracked them in years. That application got me playing the game again. If this is just someone forcing someone’s legal hand, well, that’s fine, but I really hope they work it out. These are two smart sets of minds with two solid ideas that dovetail nicely.

• On the personal front, I’m wondering if I know how to apply for a job correctly. I keep getting told I’m either (a) overqualified or (b) hideously overqualified for every job I’ve applied for, and yet no one seems to want me around. I’m happy to commit to a job that pays me a living wage so I can maintain the trivia thing at night and write this friggin’ book. That’s the life I want. I’ll give you 40 hours a week, if you’ll let me.

• Speaking of which, I’m very excited about one of the jobs I applied for yesterday. I’m sure it’s a long shot, but I know I’d be good at it, and it would feed every other part of my life. The hardest part is trying to stay positive. And, apparently, keep writing. If you have extra get-hired vibes you could point my way, I could use them.

Last night’s audio round is now up at dsotrivia.muxtape.com, as well as an unused track from the genius behind the Chipmunks. Feel free to guess answers and other stuff I could have included. I suspect I could do this theme again with different music.

Oh, and congratulations to the Cream Masters, Rimshot Korsakoff, and Tired of Being Grouchy Marxists, who edged out That Family Plan With Rollover Minutes Sure Paid Off For The Packers for third place.

They’ve opened a couple of channels on YouTube and posted some (largely musical) videos under a few usernames:

• deumnborkborkbork

• patrioticeagle

• weirdowhatever

• meepmeepmeepow

• and, kindasorta tying them together: heckleu247

They seem to have constructed each video as a response to another already-popular Youtube video. You know, like they were paying attention to the internet before they started this ad-campaign-slash-whatever-the-hell-it-is.

I suspect this is going to turn into something else, and while the Jim Henson voices aren’t quite exact, they’re close enough. And it’s the Muppets. They were a significant part of my childhood. I’ll hear them out at least. If they’re selling Wheat Thins or Pontiacs or Lipitor or something, I’ll pass, but until then, let’s see where this is going.

After trying since Thursday to upload the new audio round (not continuously, but regularly), I finally managed to get the most recent audio round up at DSOTrivia.muxtape.com.

I think I have a decent setup for it now. Every week (Thursdays, hopefully), I’ll upload that Wednesday’s 10-clip audio round, plus an 11th song that I could never use in an actual audio round, but which I either thin is cool or feel is otherwise worth the trouble.

I’ll post the answers in the comments on Tuesday. You’ll have until then to listen and work it out.

In a move that should have happened many, many years ago, I’ve finally procured http://DSOTrivia.com and directed it to point to this page.

Talk about something that was way overdue. The record label is still going to happen, I swear, but given what’s been going on the last couple of years, the trivia arm of Drunken Smartass Omnimedia has received severely short appellative shrift. This should fix that. (I’ll change the header soon.)

I’m slowly looking to reclaim a lot of old domains that I let slide through neglect and… well, mostly neglect. But this is a start.