Harptallica: On Tour!

Enjoy the hard sound of Metallica but desire a lighter version for those less tumultuous mood swings? Look no further: Harptallica has arrived (last year, actually). More interesting, more genuine and much less "produced" than other classical forays into metal territory, Ashley and Patricia have taken their giant harps on the road. They've also released their CD of Metallica compositions!

DIO: "It's a job"

This may not turn into a regular feature, but it's always worth quoting the little man of metal every now and then. Recently, an Australian paper caught up with RJD while (still) touring with Sabbath's latest incarnation as Heaven and Hell. Here's what he had to say about himself:

"I'm not really that impressed with myself... I know what I can do and I do that really well... But once you start believing what other people are saying about you, you've got nowhere else to go..."

"I'm my own judge and my own critic, and I'm a harsh critic... I want every show to be perfect, I want to sing perfectly, I want the weather to be perfect. Guess what? That never happens. But at least I have a goal..."

As far as other things, I can barely tie my shoes. I can do basically nothing any more but I can still get up on stage. It's a job, I'm no better than the plumber or the electrician."

Happy birthday, Ronnie.

Little Charlie Z.

This weekend, we had the extreme pleasure of meeting Little Charlie Z. He's just under a week old!

We witnessed lots of family bonding...

between the peanut...

and Mom...

and Pa.


In between wardrobe changes (3 or 4 in the afternoon we were there, due to both barf and poop), Tina got to hold the little guy...

as did Dan, who couldn't get enough of CharleZ's ultra-tiny features!

Including those little honker toes on those little monkey feet!

Perfect for those little socks.

Picture-Tainer

Our pal Michelle sent us some stolen memories on her recent trip out West. The photos came in this cool little yellow plastic container, a Picture-Tainer! It held about a dozen faded snapshots of teen sporting events from the 1980s. Here are some highlights from the big game!

Blabla Meets Boy

Good news! We finally found our favorite sock monkey, Blabla, a new baby boy! His name is Arthur Atari. Blabla took his binky and went to live on the prairie with Atari. According to his first letter, he seems to like it there so far with his new family. Monkey handwriting is sort of hard to decipher, but he said something like: "Stinky Town is no place for a sock monkey, fools!" Not sure what that means, but we wish him well in the Midwest.

Dan. In Springfield.

Dan visited Springfield this weekend. You should go, too - recreate yourself!

Dan's Metal Memory of the Month: 7/07

I saw Slayer before I really knew who they were. One of those life-changing, early teen encounters. Much to my Dad's dismay, after this show I wore a groove in my vinyl copy of Reign in Blood. I played it non-stop for months on end. At one point, worried about the noise level and what the neighbors might think, he came into my room and demanded I "turn down that garbage - it sounds like someone's being murdered in here." He could never decipher the lyrics of any other band I played, but Araya's gravelly vocals struck a new chord with Dad. When the crush wore off in a few months, I never saw him so happy that I was back to listening to the old standards like AC/DC and Motorhead. I guess he saw the threat of his son becoming a serial killer pass. (I must say, Slayer's new album is quite good.)

Il buono, il brutto & il cattivo (Movie Review #4)

Three movies watched out of boredom. The good: Knocked Up. (I could've selected Sicko or La Vie en Rose, but they're too obvious.) Seriously, it was quite entertaining and, at times, even hilarious. It was raining, our neighbors were being annoying, there was nothing else playing in the n'hood - and we weren't about to get on the subway on a weekend - so we begrudgingly stumbled into this seemingly lame flick. Yes, ample potty humor, but brutally honest at times. Highly recommended comedic relief! The bad: Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. It actually has another subtitle: "A Love Story." Yikes. This movie had so much potential, but sucked so badly. First question: why make an "imaginary" movie about such an interesting historical figure? Arbus was a real person who died only recently - it's not like she made her mark during the French and Indian War when history was a bit murky. It was the 1970s. You couldn't ask for a better subject. Second, why not just make another, more engaging story with imaginary characters? All the right ingredients were there: love, loneliness, photography, freaks. The ugly: 1408. (Another all too obvious choice for this category: Spiderman 3, which, for me, has taken the place of Congo as the worse movie I have ever seen, ever.) I have no excuse for this one. We were already in Stinky Town proper, but found ourselves yearning for a movie without having bought tix in advance. Not good. It was the first theater we came across and this movie was playing in five minutes. "Hey, let's go - it'll be fun! Cusack and Jackson - how bad could it be?" It was awful. It was funny, too, but not intentionally. Wait for the (second of four) end scene when the hotel room floods. Classic cinema.

Signs

Our pals Micki and Harley just returned from their honeymoon in Japan. Harley didn't speak Japanese, but the English signage helped guide him during the trip.