Louis CK

Louis CK, my new favorite comedian (superceding Jake Johansen). I love his take on parenthood. Check out his new HBO special "Shameless". Honest, inappropriate and hysterical. He's been around for years, was a head writer for "The Chris Rock Show", but I really only sat down and listened this past week.

Boy, Dog and Guitar

Here's another video of a kid playing guitar (really playing this time). Though he's small and talented and everything, it's the dog and his interaction with the boy at around 55 seconds that made me smile. The rest of the video gets to be a bit long, but sleeping dog fans will want to skip to the end.

Global Warming Report 01/09/07

It has been an extremely warm winter here in the northeast. The strange weather is affecting local animal and plant life. Birds are confused, and some of the shallow planted bulbs are prematurely sprouting in the garden. Plus, I've noticed some disturbing trends in my own behavior.

This warm weather is causing me to crave and consume chilled white wines, usually reserved for the warm weather months. Also, I usually pay attention to College Basketball only during the month of March, but I'm finding myself tuning in to ESPN in search of some madness here in early January (which, by the way, I found last night during Villanova's close victory over Georgetown).

There are also some disturbing warm weather fashion trends that are re-emerging. Emboldened women are wearing those awful bermuda shorts with galoshes again. Horrors. I know this look was introduced on runway models during spring fashion previews last year, but when regular gals sport it, it evokes the outfit my dad would wear whenever our basement flooded.

How bad does this environmental crisis have to get before we all take notice?

You've gotta love this kid rocking out in the family computer/sewing room (dig the sewing machine in the background). I must admit, right down to the sloppy fro, this looks like me circa 1982 (if the internet existed, and I had smaller glasses) with my cheap-ass Fender Strat Fake and my Gorilla amp. Even if I was more of a Rush man myself. Behold.

Rocky Balboa

I was given the rare opportunity to go to the movies all by myself one afternoon last week. (Some people think the solo movie experience a lonely one, but for me it is the best way to take in a film.) In order to avoid future movie viewing inequities, my wife asked me to pick one that she would probably never want to see. It didn't take me long to choose Rocky Balboa (boxing + Sly Stallone + 5th sequel = Winner!)

The premise of the movie is that a computer simulation of a fight between Rocky and the current champ shows Rocky winning, which brings Rocky, now 60, out of retirement for an exhibition match.

With only one fight at the end, "Rocky Balboa" strays a bit from the formula used by most of the sequels. All except "Rocky II" had two fights to bolster weak scripts and bad acting. This story has more heart and is better acted than most of the others. The first half of the movie is a loving examination of Rocky's retired life. His beloved Adrian (Talia Shire*) has passed on, and he holds court every night in his restaurant named for her, where patrons listen to the boxer tell stories about the good old days. Paulie (Burt Young) is still around, still a mess, and often comes by Adrian's for free booze and to harass the hostess. Rocky's son, now in his twenties and surrounded by thoughtless assholes is dealing poorly with the stress of living in his father's shadow. Rocky is bored and depressed with his retirement, and after much soul searching the slugger decides he's got one fight left in him. There were at least two touching moments toward the end of the first half where I was sure it would fade to black and the inevitable training sequence would begin. I was beginning to get itchy.

I'm a sucker for the Rocky franchise, so of course as soon as the "Gonna Fly Now" trumpets did peal out those opening notes, I was rejuvenated and ready for a good ol' Rocky training sequence. I was not disappointed. You could put that music under a shot of Stallone brushing his teeth and it would inspire. Since Rocky now owns a restaurant, the unconventional training method this time is lifting and throwing a keg around**. Rocky also revisits to the meat punching and raw egg drinking from the first movie, and runs up the steps of the Philadelphia museum to jump up and down with his newly adopted old shaggy dog in his arms (that was a bit goofy).

The fight sequences are typical Rocky fare (completely fictional, rarely is a heavyweight fight that exciting), as is the course of the match. Rocky is compared to George Foreman, who fought his last fight when he was 48, but any fight fan will recognize that a 60 year old could never go 10 rounds with a reasonably fit guy in his 20's. Even bad boxing requires incredible endurance. The beating that Rocky survives in this fight is just relentless. I'm all set to suspend disbelief during a Rocky fight, so I did. A lot. But that's why we love Rock. He's got that intangible stuff. And he needs to be hit right in the face repeatedly and with deadly force until the final round to find those intangibles.

Stallone did a decent job writing and directing, he clearly loves this character and his script and acting redeem the faults of the lesser Rocky films. He also captures the feel of Philadelphia with the same sentimental rawness I remember from the original. All in all, I rank it as the third best of the Rocky movies.***

*Apparently the awful Godfather III was her last sequel, she should have chosen this movie, it was better.
**For you Rocky neophytes, each movie uses some new, unusual training method that often reflects the setting and initially makes no sense, but ultimately turns out to be a really good idea: "Rocky" - punching sides of beef in the meat packing plant where he works; "Rocky II" - chasing a chicken ; "Rocky III" - training in an inner city gym, swimming, and racing Apollo Creed on the beach in short shorts, tall socks and sleeveless belly shirts - really ; "Rocky IV" - chopping wood, carrying logs through knee deep snow, and running in the mountains somewhere in the Soviet Union; "Rocky V"- an embarrassment for everyone involved, and I can't remember - I get that one mixed up with the arm wrestling movie.
***
1. Rocky
2. Rocky III
3. Rocky Balboa
4. Rocky II
5. Rocky IV
6. Rocky V

Crack Mommies

When my wife and her siblings were growing up, they made a double entendre of the phrase "doing crack" to describe what many of us refer to as "plumber's crack". "Look, girls! Daddy's doing crack!" I would hear as my pants dropped a bit while bending under the kitchen sink. Well as we all now know, doing crack is no longer a problem for plumbers only. The ass crack is the new pierced navel. The perfect accessory for your low rise jeans. And this trend, once reserved for teenagers and twentysomethings has become acceptable for some adventurous older women (and unfortunately some men) as well. That's right, suburban mothers are doing crack!

Crack mommies are in evidence all over Westchester County. I see them at the supermarket, I see them at the mall. I saw a woman last summer bent over, weeding her lawn with almost her entire ass out. I've also seen moms doing crack at elementary and preschool events and at a number of kid's birthday parties, which makes me a little uneasy.


As a man, my eye is drawn to any bared skin below a woman's neck and above her knees. I've tried to fight it, but I've got very little discipline, and I consider it a victimless social crime. That said, it does make me uncomfortable to see a woman doing crack while I'm trying to be a good father at a school event or some similar gathering. Enslaved by my hard wired man brain, my eyes cannot help but wander to the crack. As a result, I feel like a pervert for objectifying women during what should be quality time with my daughters. Those feelings of perversion soon turn to confusion when I begin to wonder why these women aren't being more crack conscious in such places. In a setting like a bar, one expects to see some crack. And one can assume either drunken neglect or alluring exhibitionism as rationalizations. But those reasons don't seem to apply at a preschool birthday party or a scholastic book fair.

One assumes that most crack moms are simply the victims of fashion and circumstance. Surely they would be devastated to know that the men in the room (and some of the boys, I'm sure) had seen so much. Or would they? I suspect that for some of these women, doing crack is akin to wearing a very low cut top. The denim curtain drops to "accidentally" reveal the butt cleavage which shouts, "Motherhood took the belly, but please take some time to enjoy my ass crack while I bend over wipe my toddler's nose."

There is, however, an important difference between bum and breast cleavage. The plunging neckline has an elegant quality.
We see it often at posh red carpet events. The low cut top helps accentuate a woman's neck and creates a line of vision that leads to a woman's face. Plus boobs can be a warm happy home for a priceless necklace. The ass crack points to a less sophisticated place, and it's location allows for more surreptitious viewing at close range. This gives it a seedier image than its forward facing counterpart. If boob cleavage is Elizabeth Hurley, ass crack is Divine Brown, and most men are Hugh Grant, and would like a taste, so to speak, of both the elegant and the seedy (even if Divine might not quite be their type).

Don't get me wrong. The crack mommy epidemic is mostly harmless, and I'm a big fan of the female rear end and all roads that lead there. I just think it's inappropriate to have Divine Brown propositioning me when I'm supposed to be enjoying my three year old singing jingle bells at the preschool Holiday party.

You can read more about ass cleavage fashion here, and here.