How my summer was made

It was Tuesday and an M-F’ing hot day. I left work around 6 – technically 30 minutes later than I should but nothing too far out of the ordinary. Rocking out to my iPod, blasting past tourists on 42nd St, when I catch a glimpse. I’m not positive, but I HAVE to investigate. So I do a 180 in the middle of the sidewalk (something I am normally extremely opposed to), lift my sunglasses and start scanning the crowd. Sure enough, in the group of attractive young folks standing outside the Yoshinoya, dressed in a white t-shirt and UM track pants, was Slacker Danny and NYOne Crush of the Summer ™, Max Crumm. Naturally I walked right past him. I collected myself (mostly unsuccessfully, as you’ll learn), queued up his songs on my iPod, and made my way over.
I led with the oh-so-original “I just have to say, I love you”. Max was, of course, super sweet and gracious. I showed him the songs, TMI’d that I also named my iPod Max, but not entirely after him, because it’s just a really good name in general…Mm hmm. He asked my name and did the cute thing, “Hi [NYOne], I’m Max.” Yes, dear, yes you are.

(Side note: Have you ever found yourself watching Last Call with Carson Daly or an especially weird sketch on SNL and found yourself thinking, I can’t believe THIS is the only thing on the National Broadcasting Channel right now. This right here is what GE is spending millions of dollars to send out over the airwaves. In the same vein, I can’t believe that for two shining minutes, I was in that moment, actually talking to Max and he was talking to me.)

Back to our story – I managed to salvage a shred of good sense and asked for a picture with my cell phone. He said “Of course!” and asked his friend (who had been listening to me ramble without once laughing at me, as far as I could tell) to get us both. He apologized for being sweaty from rehearsal, which was seriously not a problem. (I’m not being gross; it was hot out, we were all sweaty). My hands were very obviously shaking as I handed the cell phone over. So lame! But they get a little shaky just thinking about this again. My heart seriously races just from recalling the specifics. I am too embarrassing for anyone to be friends with me.
Picture snapped, I thanked him again and wobbled away. You have to realize that almost all of this, but especially the last part, is a blur. I still had the phone in my hand, but must have closed it when Max’s friend handed it back. Without hitting SAVE, which you need to do on my stupid, God-forsaken cell phone if you want to keep the photo. So yeah, I lost the picture, which is pretty heartbreaking if I let myself think about it at all. BUT instead, I chose to focus on the fact that I MET MAX CRUMM. I was dying for it to happen, and it did. And he was dreamy. Hopefully, I only came off as mildly insane and hey, at least I didn’t cry. I only hope that I was able to brighten his day a fraction as much he did mine.

What? I AM ALLOWED TO BE COMPLETELY CHEESY. IT WAS MAX CRUMM.

Next week we return to your regularly scheduled sarcasm. Maybe.

Just wondering

Question: Why doesn’t white-out work anymore? Back in [falsetto] the year 2000 [/falsetto] we used it daily in the BTF Box Office (Our motto: “Computers are for sissies”) and it worked fine. Ok, it did resemble Elmer’s Glue in that it dried practically clear, but that was Quill brand and all of their products are crap. But here in my current office, we have BiC ® Wite-Out ® Brand Super Smooth Correction Fluid. I am here to tell you there is nothing super about this other than its utter uselessness. It’s not dried out and crusty, it’s more of a stretchy, congealed glob connecting the sponge brush to the reservoir of gelatinous goo in the bottle. I guess the lesson here is that years of disuse is no good for the shelf life of Wite-Out, much like nail polish and one’s ability to recite the state capitals.

TOLD YOU SO

I swore up and down to anyone who would listen and several people who probably didn't that I WOULD see Max Crumm on the street or in the subway at some point...

AND IT HAPPENED!!

I will come back to document the full story later. Sadly, without pictoral evidence to back me up as I am lame and forgot to hit the SAVE button on my phone after his friend (and "publicist") was kind enough to snap one of us. I really, really hate my cell phone. Meanwhile, I just needed to put this out there. I SAW MAX. And got a sweet and sweaty hug. Squee-ew. No, really, just squee. So so SO much squee.

Cause life's like this

FINALLY, yesterday, the Video Gods* graced me with a showing of Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry. From the beginning, no less. Two observations, upon rewatch:

1. There is nowhere NEAR enough Hot Milo in this video.
2. Especially when he is wearing the aforementioned unacceptable porkpie hat in one scene. WTF is with the hat? I know in the grand scheme of high-waisted denim overalls and peed-in shorts that make up Fergie’s regular vestments I shouldn’t get so worked up over one egregious piece of millinery. But that hat just punches me in the rage bone. I need way more shirtless, guitar-strumming Hot Milo if I am to ignore That Hat.

So naturally, having seen the vid again, I thought I could return to my previously peaceful toggling between MTV and VH1, leaving those trickier high-number channels out of the equation. But, glutton for punishment that I am, of course this morning I had to just check really quickly and see what might be on MTV2. They play exactly two types of music on MTV2 in the morning: hip-hop (70%) and screamo (30%), that “I AM VERY SMAD + LOUD” brand of rock. To which my response is that {sigh} I am so old but SHUT UP and wash your hair already and you know what, I ALWAYS liked Brian Krakow better anyway.
Except…for this:

I do not understand what happened to My Chemical Romance. This was probably my #1 most despised band before I really knew anything about 30 Seconds to Mars. They are shrill, angry and worst of all, seemingly humorless. As near as I can understand it, they discovered Queen sometime before writing and recording their most recent album The Black Parade, and it did them a world of good. The first video, for the title track, had the benefit of a surprisingly melodic and rousing chorus AND the lead singer’s hot new haircut/color. As for this video, well, the angry/disaffected cheerleader thing will forever be a rip-off of Nirvana, and I can’t support Gerard’s return to the black hair, but…THIS SONG. It is BEYOND catchy. You know it completely the very first time you hear it. It’s the auditory equivalent of Hey! It’s That Guy! In fact, where DO I know this song from? Oh man, this is going to drive me nuts…

*Simon LeBon and Toni Basil , natch.

WTF of the day

So my mission to see the Fergie/HOT MILO video again goes on fruitlessly to this day. But I have not given up, and in fact have added Fuse and MTV2 into my morning rotation. And while I may be suffering from an acute lack of HotMilo in my life, I am being compensated for my efforts by a guarantee of at least one video every single morning that makes me put the remote down for a second to go, “…the fuck?!?” I hope I can make this a regular feature; there is certainly plenty of WTF out there:



Please watch as much of this video as you can handle*. Now let’s just sit Elliot Yamin down and ask, what HAPPENED here? Is it 1994? Is this one of those booths where they take an All-4-One video and insert you lip-syncing?

*It might not be much. Or you might be like me and find yourself physically unable to turn away until the whole thing is done. I think maybe the fact that I just saw this again recently really helped.

Watch this show:


You will not be sorry. Also, it must be summer if I’m actually watching a show on CBS.


I noticed a funny thing the other day - I have the same number of posts in April and May as A-Rod has home runs for the respective months. So I only need two more here in June to catch up! Pick it up, slugger, or my fan(s) here will be sorely disappointed!


Speaking of baseball, the Yankees are on their way to sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks as I type this and thus far I have only one question.











What the Eff IS this? A hockey jersey? I find it totally offensive when teams/schools shorten their names to something slangy on official game wear (a la Mizzou. Gross). And also, Gordon Ramsay called and would like his font back.

Mixtape (thank god it's not) Monday!

Choosing a name for your band is not easy. It is the very first impression you will likely make on anyone. While it is possible to randomly overhear music without knowing who the artist is (a dangerous situation in which one can find oneself bopping along to Stars Are Blind, because I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS A PARIS HILTON SONG, OK, AND IT’S DAMN CATCHY AND YOU KNOW YOU LIKE IT TOO. Ahem.) it's rare. So when it comes time to pick a name for your band, you want something generally short, not already in use by any other of the 8 billion bands on MySpace and of course somewhat evocative of your sound. Well, sometimes two out of three is the best you can do.

Death Cab for Cutie – Marching Bands of Manhattan
Think back to when you first heard of Death Cab. Oh shut up, hipster troll, my reader(s) and I first heard of Death Cab because they were Seth Cohen’s favorite band. And come on, with the word Death in the title, I know I was not the only one surprised by the band’s vaguely-castrati sounds.

Acid House Kings – Do What You Wanna Do
Recently discovered from one or another of the awesome mp3 blogs I like to crawl through. I remember thinking to myself, ugh, there is no way I will like this band. Clearly the expectation here is psychedelic/dance/electronica, like a raver tripping at Woodstock. Imagine my delight to get happy, jangly pop, complete with handclaps!

Teddybears – Cobrastyle
On the other end of the spectrum, we have a band name that sounds like they should be playing PopFest on a double bill with the Pipettes. While there are handclaps present here as well, the vibe is more synth-Shaggy. Also, you have heard this song before. It has been featured in several commercials and movie trailers, and most prominently (at least in my house) on the soundtrack to FIFA 2006 for Sony Playstation.

The Damnwells – Kung Fu Grip Kiss
Wow, double whammy here. The name to me sounds like an angry and unwashed punk band, but the Damnwells actually play indie/alt-country rock that’s more rocking live than some of their tracks would lead you to believe. Strike two is the song title. I almost demoted this song back down to 3 stars after an initial 4-star rating, simply because I couldn’t believe I would like a song with such a ridiculous name. Well, suffice to say the song has actually made the incredibly rare leap to a FIVE star rating, and their concert (note: NOT my photos) kicked some serious ass (in a hygienic and non-punk way).

Rigby Lane – link to their MySpace page
This pains me in a way, because I know these guys and they are awesome people. The band’s previous incarnation was called Catherine St. and while everyone agrees that was a basically acceptable name, numerous changes in the lineup dictated an entirely new band name for the remaining members. Here is the problem: they are not, I repeat NOT, actually a Beatles tribute band. I know, right?


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Has anyone else noticed that I fluctuate between listing the songs title first vs. band name first? Yeah, it annoys me too. In this post, listing the band name first made sense as that was the thematic thread tying together the mix. But I feel like my default is song title first, then artist name, like reading left to right in iTunes. I need to do some research on music blog standards. OR if you have a preference one way or the other, do tell.

Dirty!

Working on a slightly delayed Mixtape Monday for y'all. Meanwhile, I'm hosting my music at Box.net and if you don't think that tags like "My Public Box", "Share Your Box" and "Upgrade Your Box" make me laugh each and every time, well clearly we don't know each other very well.

A lack of blogging

…not because there is nothing to blog about. On the contrary, there are loads of things I’ve been meaning to share, but a change in my work environment makes daytime blogging infinitely more challenging. Why not just do it at home in the evenings like a responsible person? Look, it’s hard to argue with you when you won’t stop making sense. BACK OFF! No, sorry, please don’t.
Currently the things I feel most strongly in need of sharing (in ascending order of importance):

Thank Effing God the Yankees won last night. MH and I constantly play the “If X = Y, then T = D” game, wherein X is the current batter, Y is the desired result of the at-bat, usually a homerun, T is some form of reward and D is usually an alcoholic beverage. So it’s normally, “If Derek Jeter hits a homerun right here I’m going out and getting ingredients for margaritas”. And A-Rod’s top of the 9th two out at-bat would have been an IDEAL opportunity for this game, but unfortunately we were thoroughly convinced that a lead squandered is a lead lost and so were watching the MTV Movie Awards instead at the time.

Which brings me to point the second: was it me or was Mike Myers disturbingly hot in the black tie/black shirt combo doing his Austin Powers dance? I was a little distracted by the threat of Cam Diaz’s crotch coming out to attack, but DAMN. Boyfriend was kind of working it. As was maybe Shia LeBoef and he is at least 20 by now, plus I have heard rumors that he’s fibbing about his actual age so don’t look at me that way.

WHICH in turn brings me to my most significant point, WRT to “working it” and hot guys. Obvies I have been enjoying Milo Ventimiglia as Possessor of Emo Bangs of Hotness Peter Petrelli on Heroes. So much so, that he even looks better to me in old eps of Gilmore Girls (specifically, the sprinkler scene and the much later Jess-gets-his-shit-together last time we see him). But nothing really prepared me for this:

HE HAS NO RIGHT TO LOOK THAT GOOD. I'm just saying.
I might possibly enjoy this song, and Fergie’s oeuvre as a whole, despite her often tragic fashion choices. (A porkpie hat...that just hurts.) I often spend my small window of free/napping time in the mornings flipping between MTV and VH1 because at that ungodly hour they actually show music videos. Seriously though you guys, ever since I first saw this vid, all I do is obsessively check back and forth waiting for this video to play. And does it? No! I get Pink (which, Ok but the song is better enjoyed on the radio), Kelly Clarkson (which, awesome) and simultaneous Carrie Underwood on both channels (COME ON!) but no greasy-ponytail-wearing, fake-tattoo-sporting, HOTTER THAN FIRE MV have I seen in the last two weeks. I know that this is why God invented YouTube, but for reals, MTV. I need a pick-me-up in the morning – make mine a Venti.