#Bizarre Festival '97

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Marilyn Manson –  Sweet Dreams

[weirdbynorthwest]

Notes on Northern Exposure, S01E01: “Pilot”

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of “Notes on Northern Exposure”, my episode-by-episode commentary covering the entirety of Northern Exposure (CBS, 1990-1995). Without further ado, let’s get started!

 The series opens with Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) on board a plane to Alaska, dumping a lot of expository info on his new pal “Businessman” (John Aylward). We learn that Fleischman’s medical school bills were paid for by the state of Alaska and that, in return, he’s agreed to become their “indentured slave” for the next four years. In other words, the show has a built-in expiration date. Had it been a flop then this might, in retrospect, have seemed unduly optimistic. But the show went on to enjoy both critical acclaim and high ratings, running for six seasons and 110 episodes – providing me with enough material to keep this feature going for the next two years.

We’ll be seeing actor John Aylward again on the show, and in this same season, though not in the same role.

Joel arrives in Anchorage – Alaska’s largest city – only to be told that he’s not needed there. They have too many doctors. But before he can get too excited it’s made clear that the debt has not been cancelled. Instead, he’s expected to head out to Cicely, on the Alaskan Riviera.

What comes next is a lovely montage sequence set to the show’s theme that lets us bask in the stunning scenery of Alaska. That is, if any of the footage shown was of Alaska, as the series was actually filmed in Washington state.

The first Cicelian that Joel meets is Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows). Towards the end of the episode we get our first indication of Ed’s love of cinema, after he gives Joel a pang of homesickness for his beloved New York City. Ed reveals that the source of his New York knowledge is Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979): “I think Woody’s a genius!” I think Woody’s forever tainted by those sex abuse allegations, but those were two years away at this point. It’ll be interesting to see if Ed’s Woody fandom disappears or takes a backseat around that time. But given that, in 2017, actors are still falling over themselves to work with Allen, I’m not counting on it.

Joel meets up with former astronaut and town patriarch Maurice J. Minnifield (Barry Corbin). There’s some discomfort for Joel as Maurice mentions how excited he was to discover that Cicely “had a crack at a Jew doctor from New York City,” saying that “you boys do outstanding work.” This is the first indication we have of what, at this stage, we might charitably call Maurice’s lack of concern regarding political correctness.

Maurice goes on to introduce an essential piece of the series’ lore: “Cicely and Rosyln founded the town 97 years ago. Rumour and innuendo not withstanding, they were just good friends.” In time we’ll learn that rumour and innuendo were correct, and that Cicely and Roslyn were indeed lovers.

Regarding the painted mural outside Roslyn’s Café, Maurice says that “a hippy passing through painted that picture on the wall” but was so high on “the weed” that he forgot to include the apostrophe. In real life it was actually called the Roslyn Café, as the series was primarily filmed in Roslyn, Washington. The apostrophe was removed after production on the series ended.

At the doctor’s office, Marilyn (Elaine Miles) introduces herself by stepping out of the shadows and saying that she’s here for the receptionist job. This sends Joel running, and by “running” I mean “fleeing in terror”. Why? Was her sudden appearance that startling? Or is there an element of racism behind it?

Anyway, Marilyn persists, effectively giving herself the receptionist job that Joel says doesn’t exist (because he intends to leave town at the earliest opportunity). And she soon proves to be, if anything, overqualified for this job; she can stitch up wounds and has, as we’ll see in a later episode, a miracle cure for flu. Her professionalism in this episode is in sharp contrast to Joel, and I wonder if this is what irks him, as he turns up to work in a sweaty jogging outfit to whine about his situation. Also, he knows that she finds him ridiculous (“Please stop smiling at me. You’re constantly smiling at me.”). Joel is, in fact, an excellent doctor – but it takes Marilyn’s presence and professionalism to make him start acting like one.

After fleeing from Marilyn, Joel runs into the local bar, the Brick, and tries to renege on his contract in an angry phone call. He rants about Cicely being “the worst place on Earth,” and being stuck in a “godforsaken hole-in-the-wall pigsty with a bunch of dirty, psychotic rednecks.” Okay, so Joel is doing his level best to make himself loathsome. There’s nothing about Cicely, the Brick or its patrons to make these remarks seem remotely justified.

The Brick’s proprietor, Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum), provides Joel with a free meal and a surprisingly sympathetic ear, given Joel’s less than stellar review of Holling’s establishment. Holling explains to a curious Joel that his falling out with Maurice – until recently, his closest friend – was due to an argument over former “Miss Pacific Northwest” Shelly Marie Tambo (Cynthia Geary), who fell in love with Holling after Maurice brought her to Cicely with the intention of marrying her.

One problem that I have with this episode is that it doesn’t really treat Shelly as a character with agency. Sure, we’re told that she left Maurice and offered herself to Holling, but she doesn’t get to tell us that herself. That will soon change, but it’s still a pity that she doesn’t get a single line of spoken dialogue in this episode.

Whilst waiting for a phone call at the Brick, Joel is approached by Maggie O’Connell (Janine Turner). As Maggie attempts to introduce herself, Joel tells her that “the petulant aggressive thing is a real turn-off,” that he’s engaged to be married to “a real knockout,” and that she should take her “business somewhere else.” Joel’s sexism here – the way he automatically assumes Maggie must be coming on to him - stinks. Also, how do you look at Janine Turner and say those things? And then she drops the mic with: “I’m not a hooker, I’m your landlord.” Oy!

So what we have here is a classic example of the “will they / won’t they” TV trope. Once upon a time, this trope was everywhere you cared to look on network television. I think it’s fair to say that it’s no longer as common as it once was. The “battle of the sexes” mentality that informs it feels pretty archaic, but that could just be me. Perhaps romance in general just isn’t as prevalent on TV now as it was in the 90s? Conventional wisdom has it that a show dies when/if that “will they / won’t they” tension gets resolved, and keeping that tension going must be difficult if your show stands to run for several seasons. In real life, steamy romantic tensions don’t generally last 6-7 years, the average length of a US TV show. Keep it going too long and it’s at risk of seeming contrived. Then again, it can seem contrived right from the get-go, and that’s the case with Northern Exposure, as much as I enjoy this show. While the Fleischman/O’Connell relationship will evolve over time, I find it weird watching them launch into these slanging matches in the show’s early days. It’s as if they’ve been bickering since long before the show began.

Later on in the episode we cut to Maggie and Joel having a late-night drinking session in the Brick, where they appear to be the last customers. This scene exists to reveal more information about Maggie, but rather than have Maggie tell us herself the show treats us to yet another expository info-dump from a drunken Joel. Something else that made me cringe during this scene was Joel’s sudden acknowledgment of the obvious and indisputable beauty of Janine Turner on this show, which immediately tells you that this is the “will they?” scene.

And then we get the “DID they?!” scene, as Joel wakes up in a different bed in a different cabin. He finds one of Maggie’s shoes and assumes that fornication must have occurred. Things are moving fast for a 40-minute episode! But then Joel meets Maggie’s current beau, Rick Pederson (Grant Goodeve), and after an awkward exchange we learn that no fornication has occurred. This is one of the few times that we actually get to see Rick. Though Maggie and Joel are both in relationships, their respective partners are rarely seen and the relationships are never treated as the obstacles you’d think they’d be.

Joel is forced to mediate between Walter (Art LaFleur) and his wife Edna (Lois Foraker), who has tried shooting him and stabbing him with a swiss army knife and just doesn’t know what else to do to get his attention. Marilyn votes for divorce, and one of the first things you learn about Marilyn is that she is never wrong about anything. Still, we get to see Joel as marriage counsellor, and it’s another example of just how good his people skills can be.

The episode concludes with a large local gathering, the ninth Annual Arrowhead County Summer Wonderland Festival. It brings the series’ cast together in a grand display of the community spirit that will come to define the series.

It’s at the festival that we get our first few shots of Chris Stevens (John Corbett), Cicely’s local radio disc-jockey. It seems bizarre, in retrospect, that a character defined by his voice should be voiceless here. If you haven’t seen the show before, then you might think it odd that the camera keeps cutting to this as yet unknown character.

Holling has a quiet word with Maurice, and it’s worth singling out Corbin’s performance here as it is genuinely affecting. Maurice asks Holling what it’s like to be in love, the implication being that Maurice has never experienced “true” romantic love. A former astronaut, Maurice has staked his claim on Alaska, “the last frontier”, and been to space, “the final frontier”. But love represents a new frontier for Maurice and some of his best episodes are the ones that explore that theme. It’s significant then that Shelly, in this episode, is not presented to us as a person but as both an object (a trophy winner at risk of becoming a trophy bride) and a place (“Miss Pacific Northwest”). Maurice’s infatuation with Shelly in these early episodes has little to nothing to do with her as a person, and everything to do with whatever it is that she represents to him. Unexplored virgin territory perhaps, similar to the “new-found-land” of John Donne. That’s not to say that Shelly is a virgin, but a man like Maurice, old enough to be her (grand)father, is unlikely to split hairs. In other words we’re talking about lust, not love. But that’s all I have to say on the subject for now, as the show will return to it before long and, when it does, we’ll not only have a better idea of what Maurice thinks of Shelly, but Shelly will finally be able to share with us her side of the story.

Whether or not Joel intends it, he’s become a part of this community by the end of the episode. The moose burger might be an acquired taste, but it looks as if Joel will be able to not just reconcile himself to his new surroundings but even come to enjoy life in Cicely.

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Marilyn Manson –  The Beautiful People

[whogoesthere-cleveland-blog]

The BIG Egg

The Place: The Big Egg

Location: 5107 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland

Susan: The Big Meh(gg)- Please Forgive Them for Their Trespasses. 

Shannon: A place for people to go and eat. 

Overview of The Big Egg

Shannon: What seems to be becoming the trend, I’ve been here once before, but, you, Susan, have not. Which I really don’t get because didn’t you often have the honor of being the last man standing waiting to chauffeur random revelers home from many a’ music venue in the wee hours of every grunge era lost weekend? How you managed to consistently dodge this place, I’ll never know. Then again, a direct quote from their current website and menu might have had something to do with your judiciousness: “More than seven years have passed since Big Egg Family Restaurant closed its doors on the Detroit Shoreway…the Big Egg had developed a loyal following by offering good food on the cheap. Not so abundant was an adherence to standard sanitation practices. After being cited for a number of health violations, the Cleveland Health Department pulled the plug on what was then a Cleveland staple.”  I guess props to the Big Egg for being so transparent? The one time I dined there during their golden (health violation) era was after attending some bizarre performance art piece (I know, I know - a bit redundant to use bizarre and performance art in the same sentence) at Cleveland Public Theater. After being seated at our table, I flipped my pre-set coffee mug over for a late night cup of joe and was surprised to find several pieces of French toast expertly stuffed inside. I guess at least I was able to buy a box of Tagalongs from a table of Girl Scouts who were inexplicably hawking cookies at midnight. Then again, maybe those scouts were just a continuation of the performance art. Who knows? Just part of the mystery of The Big Egg, I guess.

Susan:  Ha! I love that story. The menu referenced “devastating PR in 1997”. Was that because of all the health code violations? I just assumed they found a dead body in the bathroom or perhaps a riot broke out at 3 AM between the club kids and the bike messengers. I mean, the place did have that sort of reputation back in the day. The menu reads more like the New Testament. It’s very long and detailed and yes, they offer up much explanation, acknowledgement of past sins, and then ask for atonement. Yeah, it’s amazing to me that I’d never been here. However, I will say, in the late 90s and early aughts, after a long night of drinking, we would drag our collective asses home to retire for the evening. Wait, no we wouldn’t. We’d just go home and drink more.

(As an aside, I apologize for the blurry photos. It was Daylight Saving Time Sunday and I couldn’t tell if it was me or the camera that was fuzzy and unfocused.)

Anything special about the interior? 

Shannon: The dining area is split up into two rooms with the Northern and Western walls featuring windows - oddly we were seated in the Southeast section near the back vestibule and adjacent to a television set (with bad reception that was playing Turner Classic Movies on mute) even though the place was far from being crowded. The decor was festive and seemed to cover all the major holidays from late 2016 through the Spring 2017: mistletoe and poinsettias, to leprechauns and clovers.

Susan: There was an underlying scent of bleach in the air, which while is typically distasteful, in this setting, I found it oddly reassuring. I think that was a purposeful move by management, like, “See! We’re clean here! So clean that the entire place smells of Clorox! It’s just that clean in here, you see! So very, very clean that your nose hairs will become singed by the scent of chlorine-Now THAT’S clean, I tell ya!!” And don’t attempt to actually watch the TV in there. You will develop cataracts while trying to make out the shadowy forms moving across it. I really feel like they should not have even bothered with that. It would have been fine if it was like a 20 inch black and white Philco Predicta with a dial, but it wasn’t! It was a huge flat screen TV with the worst reception on the planet.   

After being seated, we looked at the menu for a really, really long time: 

Susan: In our defense, as aforementioned, the menu was very long and apologetic. There was like three pages of small font text in the back. How do you not read and analyze that!? I felt like it was our obligation. So while taking our time perusing the menu, we had a laughable succession of servers come up to try to take our order. It was like a magician pulling scarves out of his sleeve. They just kept coming! One after another and never the same person twice! Really, by the sixth server that appeared at our table, I just “LOL-ed”, as the kids say. I still cannot wrap my mind around why The Big Egg employs twenty-seven servers on Sunday morning for a total of about fifteen customers. Lulled into a false sense of security by the bleach fumes, I ordered an omelet with feta and tomatoes, hash browns, and rye toast. The omelet was pretty good and I will say, I truly enjoyed it!  The hash browns, however, were an unnatural rectangle shape. This continues to disturb me when I see it. Maybe I just don’t like square food.

Shannon: I alternated between perusing the menu for poorly scanned representations of entrees that made it seem like Raspberry Zingers was a legitimate breakfast option, and getting distracted by hits from the 1980s (Who Can it be Now, In Cars, C’mon Eileen) pumping through the overhead speakers. Finally, I went with a French toast reboot (this time on a plate instead of in a mug). It’s almost as if that darn Big Egg has made this dish my ‘usual’.

Who Goes There? 

Susan:  Neighborhood types and those longing to reminisce of bygone days when they used to be combative club kids and bike messengers, but now they have a spouse and two disheveled children that refuse to eat anything but pancakes. 

Shannon: Folks who aren’t quite sure where to go.

What philosophical school of thought would be most comfortable at The Big Egg?

Shannon: Absurdism 

Susan: Optimists  

If The Big Egg were a TV show hangout, who would be a regular? 

Susan: “The Man” from “Chico and the Man” 

Shannon: Mike Erhmentraut from Breaking Bad  

Additional thoughts: 

Shannon: The spin fridge was full of Boylan cane sugar artisan Root Beer. I mean what is this, Portland? Speaking of, as I was Googling The Big Egg, I found a Website for a restaurant of the same name that actually is in Portland, and I have to say, it looks kind of better. Here is their Website in case you want to compare and contrast: http://www.thebigegg.com (note how they secured the domain name first). 

Susan: Check out the gum ball machines! You can get three super stale mini Tootsie Rolls for 50 cents!! I keep thinking, who would buy those? Kids don’t really like Tootsie Rolls and if they did, 50 cents is a complete rip off! Especially considering you can get a Hi-Bounce ball for the same price. I mean, c’mon! Is there really a decision to be made here? 

Would you go back?

Shannon: I won’t suggest it, but if someone else does I guess I’d go along. Actually, I take that back. I might go back for the fresh cut fries. 

Susan: Sure. It seems like the perfect place to go after having spent twelve hours in the ER.

Is it a good place to bring Neal in a Baby Bjorn?  

Susan: No-The last thing they need is anymore “devastating PR”. They’re obviously still scarred and recovering from ’97.  

Shannon: No. A camouflage backpack would work better. 

Hours of Operation:Monday through Thursday - 6am - 9pm, Friday and Saturday - Open 24 hours, Sunday until 3pm 

[nyarisu]

Me, after reading the caption: oooohh so that’s why I was drooling so much over the gifs...

Till and Richard - Bizarre Festival 1997

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: The Columbus Blue Jackets – Somebody's feeling a little salty about going all the way from one game to two on NBC's new schedule. (More on the new schedule in a bit.) It's the eyeroll emoji that really sells it

The second star: I has a bucket – Not sure what was funnier, the original photo or the fact that literally everyone Twitter made the same joke about the bucket getting signed by the Oilers.

The first star: This SHL video about rule changes – I can't stop watching this. It's the fist pump that gets me every time. If Tom Wilson starts working in this move every time he blindsides somebody a half hour after they touched the puck I'll admit he's worth every penny.

Be It Resolved

We're closing in on one of the weirder moments on the MLB calendar, as the annual "Players' Weekend" is almost here. The event debuted last year, and its main highlight is that players get to wear their nicknames on their jerseys.

That's… different. You have to give MLB some credit here, as they're basically offering up an open invitation for players to cut loose and show a little personality. It's fun for the players, and everyone gets to sit back and try to figure out what some of the nicknames even mean.

If you've been reading this column all summer, and god bless you if you have, then you're probably figuring that this is the part where we play our weekly round of "the NHL should steal this cool idea from another sport." That's been kind of a theme all offseason, and this feels like a great time to break it out..

But here's the thing. Ultimately, we try to be realists around here. Sure, we'll propose things like radically changing the way powerplays work, or having a special draft where everyone picks Jaromir Jagr, or letting every champion legally kidnap somebody for their Cup parade. But those are things that could actually happen someday.

NHL players volunteering to put cool nicknames on their own jerseys? Never. Zero chance. There's no point even thinking about it. Every player would just use their regular name, while old-school types swooned about how winners don't have personalities. A few players would probably insist that they didn't have a name back there at all, because the team is the only thing that matters, dammit. It would be awful.

Besides, even if the NHL stole baseball's idea and forced the players to take part, the result would just be depressing. Can you imagine an entire weekend of guys skating around with names like "Smither" and "Jonesy" and "Other Jonesy" on their back? It would be embarrassing.

So here's my proposal: We steal MLB's good idea, but then we improve on it. Be it resolved that once a season, we have a player's weekend where every team gets to force one player from another team to wear a specific nickname on their back.

Which player? That would be up to them. They could take a vote on who the victim would be. And then they'd get to choose the nickname that the player had to wear. If I know hockey players, they'd probably spend more time figuring this out than they do on special teams.

Admittedly, we'd have to iron out a few kinks. For example, we'd need some sort of tie-breaking system for when 30 teams all submitted different insults for Matthew Tkachuk as their first choice. And there would probably be some team every year that would use their pick to say something nice about some veteran opponent because they wanted to be "classy" or whatever. We'd deal with that by immediately relegating that team to the ECHL.

Still, how much fun would it be to see who each team in the league decided to target with an embarrassing nickname? And how quickly would you line up to buy an officially licensed Bruins No. 63 jersey with "Rat Face" or whatever on the back?

Maybe we can't steal most of baseball's good ideas, like "not having a salary cap" or "interesting free agency" or "replay that mostly works" or "actually noticing when defensive strategies are out of control." But we can steal this one. After we're done improving it.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's Obscure Player honors go to Swedish goaltender Tommy Soderstrom, for no other reason than reader Nate wrote in to suggest him. Thanks Nate.

If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Soderstrom is the brutal game-winning goal from center ice that sent Belarus to a stunning upset over Sweden in the 2002 Olympics. That's unfair, for a couple of reasons. First, even the best goaltenders gives up the occasional bad goal, and it's wrong to remember any athlete for their lowest moment. But more importantly, that wasn't Soderstrom—that was Tommy Salo. What can I say, Sweden produced too many 1990s goalies named Tommy S.

In addition to not being Tommy Salo, Soderstrom was picked way down in the 11th round of the 1990 draft by the Flyers. He played for Team Sweden at the 1991 Canada Cup, then made his NHL debut in 1992, splitting the Flyers' starting duties with Dominic Roussel. He played reasonably well, but struggled badly as a sophomore, winning just six times in 34 appearances while posting a GAA of 4.01. It didn't help his numbers that his own teammates occasionally scored on him.

Somehow, that made him worthy of being dealt to the Islanders straight up for Ron Hextall in a trade that probably happened mainly because nobody has any recollection of Hextall being an Islander in the first place. Soderstrom would spend two years as the Islanders' starter and wasn't bad, and to this day many fans probably remember his big white Jofa facemask. He once got into a fight with Corey Schwab.

As you can see, he didn't do all that well. But for the record, he didn't get destroyed by Dan Cloutier. That was also Tommy Salo.

Soderstrom would play a single game for the Islanders during the 1996-97 season—according to hockey-reference.com, his appearance lasted all of ten seconds—and that was it for his NHL career. He'd head to the IHL, and then back home to Sweden for several seasons.

According to his Wikipedia page, he apparently appeared on a Swedish reality show in 2014. I don't read Swedish so I don't know what the show is about, but I'm going to just assume it featured him and Tommy Salo living together while doing the Spiderman pointing meme and trying to figure out which one of them it was that Mike Milbury made cry during an arbitration hearing.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: NBC released their 2018-19 schedule. The outrage: Your team isn't on it enough. Is it justified: Kind of, in the sense that fans are fans, and you're supposed to want your team to get as much airtime as possible. Even if it doesn't really affect you—and let's face it, it doesn't, because you still have your local broadcast—it feels like a respect thing. Your team is great, or at least better than everyone thinks, and NBC should love them as much as you do.

Of course, in the real world it can't work that way. There are only so many games to go around. And while it would be nice if the games were handed out based on merit, ratings still matter and some teams do better than others. So sure, the Blackhawks are the most heavily featured team, as always, even though they missed the playoffs last year. And no, you won't see struggling Canadian teams like the Canucks or Senators at all. That's not fair, but life's not fair, and hockey fans know that better than anyone.

Still, the overall schedule is… not bad? I'm going to go with not bad. NBC made some smart moves, including the decision to scrap the Wednesday Night Rivalry that sounded great in theory but never really worked in reality because there hasn't been a good NHL rivalry since 2012. And while they're still giving you the Blackhawks out of a firehose, they've done a better job of spreading the love around. We've even got a game between two Canadian teams on the schedule, as the Leafs and Jets face off in October. That's the sort of matchup the league should want to see promoted, since it features two teams packed with young stars who should be good, and could even end up playing in a Stanley Cup final someday.

We're also getting more of fun teams like the Capitals, Predators, Golden Knights, and Lightning, and less of traditional teams like the Red Wings and Canadiens who figure to be iffy or worse. It doesn't all make sense, and nobody can quite figure out what's going on with the Kings, but it's a decent effort. So yeah, not bad.

Will "not bad" be enough to keep hockey fans from complaining? Of course not, because it's August and the only other things to talk about are Andrej Sekera's achilles tendon and Max Pacioretty's golf tournament. So we squabble about the TV schedule, if only to remind ourselves that meaningful hockey will return some day. That's as it should be. At least until the Senators and Canucks are playing in the Stanley Cup final and NBC can't figure out why the ratings are so low.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Hey, who wants to close things out with a bizarre short film about hockey, made by a Canadian celebrity, and aired at a late-night talk show hosts film festival? Why not. Let's get weird.

I'll be honest, I don't have a really strong grasp on what exactly this is or why it exists. Let's cover the basics. This is a short film that was produced by Michael J. Fox for David Letterman's 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival, which aired in 1986. The film is called The Ice Man Hummeth. And yeah, it's going to get strange.

Why yes, David Letterman apparently did have his own film festival, or at least a TV special that was presented that way. He had two, in fact. The first aired in 1985, and this one followed in 1986. You can watch the full thing here.

So on to the film. We start things off with Fox arriving at a rink, looking suitably badass given he's fresh off of Back To The Future and is pretty much one of the biggest movie stars in the world at this point. But that doesn't last long, because once he gets to the door he's suddenly a mild-mannered guy in a suit. But he's in a hockey dressing room. But he's not. We've got some sort of Westworld-style dueling timelines deal going here, with Fox as both a hockey tough guy and a classical musician. He's basically David Schultz with slightly more high-brow tastes.

We cut back and forth between the two scenes, including a shot of Hockey Fox's locker, complete with an autographed Letterman photo. That gets the first laugh from the audience, albeit a confused one, as they're clearly waiting for some of that Alex P. Keaton magic. Where's Uncle Ned and his maraschino cherries when you need him?

The next joke gets a better reaction, as Fox has to return a jock strap for something larger. Because the other didn't fit his oversized junk, you see. Look, it's his movie and Back To The Future made $210 million, he can write himself a big package if he wants to.

We get more juxtaposition, until we finally arrive at game time. That leads to a reasonably clever transition from pucks on ice into musical notes on paper as the orchestra warms up. Then it's back to the rink, where Fox's team has been joined by their opponent, who are very clearly wearing Winnipeg Jets uniforms with just enough strategically applied tape to prevent a lawsuit. Players from both teams are constantly threatening to kill each other in that way that happens in 100 percent of 1980s hockey movies, but only like 80 percent of actual 1980s hockey games. OK, fine, 95 percent if it was the Norris.

Also, a mid-80s goaltender makes a save, which is the least realistic part of this whole film.

One note about all of this that's kind of neat—in the comment section from the video, someone shows up who claims to have done the music for the film and explains that he actually had to compose a song that switched back and forth from classical to heavy metal and time it exactly to the final cut. That's kind of cool, and I'm going to assume it's true because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to lie on YouTube.

The referee, who is like eight inches taller than any of the players, drops the puck to start the game, and we instantly go full Rangers/Devils.

The benches empty because it's 1986, and at one point Fox seems to take a swing at the referee. More importantly, careful viewers will have noticed that we've now got a fully classical soundtrack, meaning the clean separation between timelines is starting to break down.

Sure enough, Hockey Fox looks up and realizes that Violin Fox and the rest of the orchestra is now in the stands. That somehow turns our bench-clearing brawl into an ice-dancing spectacle. There's a joke here about going from mid-80s hockey to the 2018 version, but I'm too mature to make it.

Meanwhile, Violin Fox is getting crowded by a fellow musician, and you can probably guess where that's headed. Soon enough, the orchestra is brawling while the hockey players tut-tut about unnecessary violence. Up is down, left is right, Harold Ballard does something nice, and we're done.

In the full version of the show, Fox gives a little more information about how this was all made. The entire project took four weeks, the shooting lasted just two nights, and it all cost less than $40,000. And best of all, he tells a great story about how the musicians couldn't wait to fight each other. It's well worth a watch.

And there you have it: Quite possibly the best artistic interpretation of the marriage between hockey and music every filmed that didn't involve Neil Sheehy.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[kyotocollection]

Moving to Japan: An Assistant English Teacher’s Life in a Small Town

If you want to teach English in Japan, I wholeheartedly encourage you to take the plunge. That's just what I did back in '97 and I'm still here, with no plans to go back to Los Angeles.

I can personally attest that Japan offers many opportunities to native English speakers to live in the countryside as well as cities of various sizes and teach English, whether it’s at private English language schools or as an Assistant English Teacher (AET) on the state-sponsored JET program or similar private programs. 

And if you have an advanced university degree and want to stay awhile, it's always possible that you'll be able to make the jump to university teaching if that's something that appeals to you. 

There are also jobs in Japan for English speakers besides teaching, but they are obviously less plentiful, and it often takes an entrepreneurial spirit to create work for yourself. This website is in fact one such example-I retired from teaching almost ten years ago, and I now make my living dealing in new and vintage Japanese textiles, indulging my interest in traditional culture.

This post is a general primer on what life can be like in small town Japan, with some basic tips on how to get the most out of your experience. In future pieces I'll write about specific experiences that I've had in different locales and at different types of schools, as I've sampled various teaching and living scenarios in my decades here.

Before you actually visit the country your image of Japan may be influenced by popular media, which tends to focus on such aspects of Japanese culture as Lolita girls, surprising vending machines, manga and animé, pop stars and game shows. The more traditional side of Japan, such as its temples, its geisha, and its Shinto shrines tend to be portrayed in the west as somehow otherworldly and static, as if they belong to a different time.

The real Japan defies these stereotypes, especially in small towns and rural areas. Like any other country, Japan mixes its traditional culture with modern life and its alternative scenes with mainstream pop culture. It is also surprisingly cosmopolitan in terms of food, music and entertainment. You don’t need to be in the big cities to find excellent quality Italian food alongside the regular restaurants and ramen diners, and small towns will often have interesting venues for small bands and performers as well as traditional festivals and craft fairs. Small-town Japan is a vibrant place to live if you’re open-minded and willing to spend a little time getting to know it.

The Japanese countryside is strikingly beautiful. Forests cover about 67% of the land in Japan, so the mountains spend most of the year looking lush and green. Roads wind through the valleys beside rocky rivers of beautifully clear water. This is the kind of countryside in which you may well find yourself as an AET in a Japanese school or district. It can be tough to find your bearings if you don’t read Japanese, since English is used less outside of the cities. It’s far from impossible, though, and in fact, with the right approach, small-town Japanese life is very rewarding.

The first thing you’ll realize is that, if you don’t look Japanese, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Don’t be surprised if neighbors and co-workers seem to know more about you than you might expect. Looking different means that people notice you, and naturally people like to talk about the new person in town. This can seem invasive to non-Japanese people, so it’s important to bear in mind that talking to you about things you’ve been doing is often a Japanese person’s way of striking up a conversation and being friendly. Bear in mind that you’re noticeable, avoid doing anything you don’t want to be seen doing, and you’ll find in time that no one cares what you bought at the supermarket anymore.

Because Japan is often affected by earthquakes, its buildings must be earthquake proof. That means that Japanese houses and apartments tend not to have central heating systems to avoid the danger of fire in the case of earthquake damage. Of course the cities feel the cold, but in rural areas and small towns it will be colder. 

Electric or paraffin heaters are usually used to heat apartments and houses. You will probably also use a kotatsu, which is a wonderful Japanese solution to cold weather. A kotatsu is a low table with a heater. Under the top of the table, you lay a quilt, so you have formed a quilted tent over the heater for your feet and legs. With a kotatsu to keep you warm, the winter may seem too hot instead of too cold.

It may also be necessary to have an all-night electric blanket to keep you warm at night, especially higher in the mountains. There are stories of AETs in particularly mountainous areas who have to keep their toothpaste from freezing overnight by putting it in the fridge. With those kind of temperatures inside, you need a little extra help to keep you warm at night.

Curiously, Japanese toilets seem to vary from the very high-tech, with rows of buttons and a multitude of functions, to the very low-tech, being little more than a pit in the ground. Rural Japan still has a significant proportion of pit toilets. If you find yourself living in a house with such a toilet, you may have to get used to treating it with certain chemicals and scheduling a waste removal service. 

If you’re living in a small town or a rural area, owning a car is pretty much essential. Even simple things like shopping for groceries or meeting up with friends will be a challenge without a car. The good news is, used cars are very affordable in Japan. Your co-workers can advise you on where to find a good deal and the dealership will help you with tax and insurance.

One major advantage of living in or near the mountains is that you’re never far from a hike in the summer or a ski-slope in the winter. Japan has been host to the Winter Olympics, which took place in Nagano-ken in 1998. Winter sports are very popular and snowfall is usually heavy enough to allow a reasonably long skiing season. The season is longer in Hokkaido, where snowfall is usually significantly heavier than on the other islands.

As soon as you can after you’ve moved to Japan—or even before you’ve arrived, if possible—join any online groups that will keep you informed of events and activities in your area. AET networks are very helpful both for sharing professional resources and introducing newcomers  to a ready-made social circle. It often takes some time to make Japanese friends, since Japanese people are typically reserved at first. In the meantime, other AET's or English teachers will provide a good support network while you settle in and will be able to give you any advice you need.

The stereotype of westerners making noisy neighbors is one that endures in Japan, so if you’re living in an apartment or if your house is close to others, be aware of the noise you make during the day and even more so in the evenings. Walls can be thin! And many Japanese people in rural areas go to sleep early and get up early. This is especially true of farming families. Being a thoughtful and considerate neighbor is the very best way of fitting in with your Japanese community.

Above all, learn Japanese. Even if you never hope to be capable of reading the newspaper or a Japanese novel, a little conversational Japanese will go a long way. Not only is it extremely useful, since most Japanese people outside of the large urban centers don’t speak English, but it’s also a sign to the people around you that you want to become part of the community. 

Japan has a reputation for being alien and bizarre, and some aspects of its culture seem so to outsiders. Those things make up only a fraction of Japan’s culture, however, as you will find when you live in the country day to day. 

There are challenges to life in Japan—as a gaijin, you will never entirely fit in—but it’s perfectly possible to find your own niche, even in the smallest of towns. Take things as they come, be open to new experiences, ask for help when you need it, and soon you’ll be right at home.

from Kyoto Collection: Latest News https://kyotocollection.com/blog/moving-to-japan-an-assistant-english-teachers-life-in-a-small-town/

[junker-town]

“We’ll have a lawn mower bring out the stage for the trophy presentation”: The story of the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl, the new greatest bowl name in college football history

Yes, this is a real football game that is really happening.

College football bowl games are known for having ridiculous names. We’ve seen games sponsored by pizza websites, Duck Commanders, BattleFrogs, military companies, video games, and potatoes. Those have all now been topped by a bowl pairing orange lawn mowers and make-believe pirates.

In August, the St. Petersburg Bowl announced a new name: the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl. At the time, it seemed too good to be real. It’s real.

The name is distinct, badass, and bizarre. SB Nation spoke to parties involved with the name change to tell the story of how it came about.

First, let’s talk about lawn mowers. They will be everywhere, folks.

In the week leading up to the game, both FIU and Temple participated in various events in the Tampa/St. Pete area.

“We’re going to have some local celebrities in the area, some local sports celebrities, some local on-air personalities, and we’re going to have some lawn mower races out at Busch Gardens,” Brett Dulaney, the bowl’s executive director, said. “It’s almost like the movie The Water Boy, right?”

SHANE MCGOUGH WITH AN EPIC PERFORMANCE TO WIN THE LAWNMOWER RACE FOR @FIUFOOTBALL. THE PANTHERS STORM THE FIELD. There will be a 30 for 30 on this one day #Legendary http://pic.twitter.com/DjP3SmEZnJ

— AJ Ricketts (@AJRicketts) December 18, 2017

For another charity event called “Fill the Bowl,” players from both teams will fill backpacks of food for children to take home, and the mowers will transport all the food to trucks that will deliver the backpacks.

“At the stadium itself, there are going to be mowers everywhere, all over the place,” Dulaney said. “People handing out information, promotional teams, we’ll have mowers out on the field — we’ll have a mower bring out the stage for the trophy presentation. So we’ll have lawnmowers up on the concourses, out on the field, they’ll be in television view, we’ll have them on our shipwreck party deck, but we’ll also have them at all of our other events.”

How’d such a thing happen?

Bad Boy Mowers, the most badass name in the lawn mower industry (in my opinion), was looking to grow its brand. The company is based out of Batesville, Ark. Its mowers stand out thanks to bright orange paint.

Washington-Holcomb Tractor is having their Grand Opening today in Pontotoc, MS from 10am-2pm. They will be frying fish from 11am-1pm, so come by and eat some fish and check out what we have to offer!

A post shared by Bad Boy Mowers (@badboymowers) on Nov 18, 2017 at 8:19am PST

Everything you need to know about the brand this company is trying to convey: “As a group of folks gathered around the parking lot driving our first mower, the name Bad Boy was struck when a driver jumped off and exclaimed, ‘that’s a Bad Boy.’”

The company wanted to expand its market.

“They had other opportunities at other bowl games, but they were in the Florida market, and they were trying to grow the Florida market,” Dulaney said. “Everybody knows that if you’re a lawn mower company, grass grows year-round in Florida. So one of their goals was to find a sporting event in the state of Florida that made sense for them, and with the Tampa Bay area being one of the top-leading media markets in the country, it was a good fit for them.”

Bad Boy Mowers is proud to announce a multi-year title sponsorship of the Gasparilla Bowl, held on December 21st, in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Bowl Game, which is owned by ESPN Events, a subsidiary of ESPN, is the beneficiary of one of the best resort locations in the nation and is able to showcase St. Petersburg, its award-winning beaches, beautiful Tampa Bay, and a tropical climate annually to thousands of college football fans in person and many more fans watching the game live on ESPN in the U.S. and beyond.

A post shared by Bad Boy Mowers (@badboymowers) on Aug 23, 2017 at 9:38am PDT

There have been some equipment-sponsored bowls in the past, such as the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl (1991-97) in Shreveport, the Royal Purple (Oil) Las Vegas Bowl, the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, and the MicronPC.com Bowl (1999-2000) in Miami. While Dulaney said the uniqueness of the company’s name wasn’t exactly a factor in choosing Bad Boy Mowers as a sponsor, it certainly helps set the bowl apart.

“We know that a couple other bowl games have done equipment in the past,” Dulaney said. “And it just made a lot of sense. I think it was meeting with the group themselves and understanding that they are a marketing company, selling lawn mowers, and it was just a really good fit for both of us — they’re trying to push their brand, we’re trying to grow our bowl game, so it made a lot of sense.”

Please keep in mind this game is played on artificial turf, not actual grass that needs mowed.

Photo by Joseph Garnett, Jr. /Getty Images

A game named after lawn mowers is silly enough, but it also involves FAKE PIRATES.

Gasparilla means a lot to the people of Tampa and St. Pete. It’s the nickname for legendary pirate Jose Gaspar, who’s said to have plundered across the west coast of Florida during the 18th and early 19th centuries, even though he probably didn’t exist.

Numerous annual events in the area use the Gasparilla name, such as the Gasparilla Pirate Festival every January. As someone who’s attended the event before, let’s just say there are copious amounts of alcohol involved.

“I would say all bowl games go through growth phases, and we had been on the market for 10 years, and we had St. Pete in our name, and we wanted to be a little bit more regional,” Dulaney said. “We wanted to be inclusive of St. Pete and Pinellas County and Hillsborough County and Manatee County in our five-county area.”

The bowl is also teaming up with the Gasparilla Music Festival’s charity to donate used instruments to schools that don’t have the means to buy them.

How long will this amazing name last?

Bowl sponsors change quite frequently, and Bad Boy Mowers and the Gasparilla Bowl have a three-year deal in place. There’s no guarantee that the name will last forever, but both sides are excited and hopeful about the future the partnership holds.

“I think they’re in it for the long haul as well,” Dulaney said. “They understand the importance of sports marketing, they understand the opportunity to partner with ESPN on the television side and ESPN events to help on the game. We understand their brand, and what they’re trying to do and how they’re trying to grow their dealerships in the state of Florida — and thus far, it’s been a win-win situation for everybody.”

This game has had a lot of names over the years, all of them ridiculous.

In the St. Pete Bowl’s 10 years of existence, it’s had four different sponsors, most of them strange, including a phone company, a faux-Irish sports bar, and an invisible currency.

2008: The MagicJack St. Petersburg Bowl name stuck for just a year. MagicJack is a phone company that’s still in existence, actually!

2009-2013: In what sounded like an internet joke at the time, the Beef ‘O’ Brady's Bowl stuck for five years.

2014: The Bitcoin Bowl was arguably the weirdest name of them all. The name came from money that you can read articles about how to understand. There was even a BitPay mascot — and dog!

Met Mr. Bitcoin at the @BitPay Christmas dinner! #BitcoinBowl @BitcoinBowl http://pic.twitter.com/Ha9JSYFHXL

— Maria Gallippi (@BitPayMom) December 26, 2014

So this bowl has had an identity all along, it turns out.

This bowl has had some out-there names in the past, so why not stick to that as its brand?

[nyarisu]

@rezny is it still “tonight”? May I interest you in watching Bizarre Festival 97?

[altriviera]

Interview de Juniore*

* Entretien réalisé dans le cadre du Festival Plage de Rock, le 17-08-17

Merci encore à Gwénola et toute l’équipe des Prairies de la Mer…

Canopy, « around midnight ». Dans ce superbe bar-club des Prairies de la Mer, on se délecte de la vue sur la baie de St-Tropez, mais aussi, en prime, de la compagnie du gang Juniore au complet. On fait ainsi la connaissance de Samy Osta, maître d’oeuvre de l’album Ouh Là Là, et dont vous avez pu apprécier le travail sur ceux de La Femme ou Feu ! Chatterton. On parlera plus tard sonorisation avec Lucas, également arrangeur de rhums, mais pour l’heure on va tenter de réaliser l’interview qu’Anna et Swanny m’ont promise quand, toutes chargées de leur matériel, je les ai surprises à la faveur des ténèbres gothico-provençales de l’arrière-scène… S’entretenir avec elles et Laure (la claviériste) suppose maintenant d’accomplir un sale boulot :  « se débarrasser » des copains :  Hugo V. fait feu de tout son charme en direction des trois jeunes femmes, et les autres ne sont pas en reste. Pas très joli, d’évincer les copains… L’espace d’un instant, j’ai honte, mais la mission Alt_Riviera prime tout. Florian doit pouvoir réaliser son portrait-photo. Les sourires taquins de Claire, Bertie et Hugo nous accordent enfin le créneau demandé : en route pour l’interview des vacances !    

 Alors,c’est le temps des vacances pour Juniore ?

 (Un peu toutes ensemble) - Oui, les vacances ! On va à Imperia : la plage, les spécialités italiennes, les pâtes, pour deux-trois jours…

 Que pensez-vous l’endroit où nous sommes ? Vous le connaissiez déjà ?

 Swanny - Moi j’étais déjà venue dans ce coin, ici précisément, il y a deux ans. C’était avec Moodoïd. (Là on fait le rapprochement : il nous semblait bien avoir déjà vu Swanny à la batterie quelque part ! )

 Anna - Swanny nous avait donc un peu vendu la mèche…

 Revenons sur votre nom : le E, c’est pour le féminin ? Et faut-il voir un sens sportif dans le « Juniore » ?

 Anna - Oui ! L'idée, c'était de former un genre d'équipe de sport, plus précisément d'éternelles débutantes. Je trouvais que ça me/nous correspondait bien et j'ai toujours le projet de nous faire confectionner des tenues assorties, des survêts de dames avec nos noms à l'arrière. 

 Ma question favorite : quelle est, pour chacune d’entre vous, votre première émotion musicale marquante ? ou la plus ancienne, bonne ou mauvaise… A quel lieu l’associez-vous ? Si vous voulez je vous laisse le temps de méditer!    

 Anna - Pour moi ce serait Nina Simone au festival de jazz de Nice, dans les années 90… 97 ou 98 ? (1997, ndlr). A l’époque ma soeur et moi on avait décidé d’aller la voir… Mais sauf qu’on n’avait pas pensé à prendre des places ! Et… plus de places du tout, évidemment. C’est une des musiciennes que j’ai le plus écoutée… Et là, on arrive devant les grilles… On s’est donc mises dehors et on a écouté de loin. (Laure et Swanny optent pour le délai supplémentaire).

 Petite question « matériel » : êtes-vous des collectionneuses d’instruments de musique, des maniaques ou des geekettes  ?

 Swanny - Pas geekettes, mais on aime bien quand-même le vieux matériel, les vieilles basses, les vieilles guitares… Donc un peu collectionneuses, oui. - Tu joues d’autres instruments que la batterie ? - Oui, un peu de basse.

 Laure - Moi je suis plutôt une geekette des claviers : je viens du classique - oui, j’ai fait ma crise d’ado sur le tard, à 29 ans, avant ça j’ai étudié le piano, j’ai eu droit au parcours musique-études, classes CHAM (classes à horaires aménagés musicales, ndlr), et tout… Après cette crise, j’ai acheté un clavier et passé une annonce : « claviériste cherche groupe » sur internet ! J’aime bien les claviers aux sons graves… tout ce qui est Moog, en fait, tout ce que je ne peux pas faire avec le piano « matière »  ! (rires)… Je fais toujours plein de classique mais bizarrement ce sont ces musiques-là (rock ou actuelles, ndlr) qui m’ont apporté pour le classique…

 Anna - Moi pas du tout : j’ai une seule guitare, une Guild M65 de 1957, qui est la guitare de ma vie - pour la tournée j’en ai une neuve car je ne veux pas emmener l’ancienne en voyage. C’est comme la femme de ta vie : tu sais que c’est la seule, l’unique !

 Laure et Swanny, vous avez avancé sur la question souvenirs ? (Swanny sourit mais reste mutique).

 Anna à Swanny : Moi j’en ai un pour toi : c’est à propos des vacances que tu passais avec tes parents : ton père écoutait beaucoup de chanteurs yéyés et ça te soûlait ! (à nous) Ce qui est bizarre, c’est que je crois qu’elle aimait, au fond, vu ce qu’elle est amenée à jouer avec nous : elle avait tellement baigné dedans, dans la voiture de ses parents… (Swanny semble approuver).

 Laure - Pour moi c’est moins glamour : j’ai commencé la musique au collège, j’ai débarqué dedans un peu par hasard. Mes parents - qui n’étaient pas forcément mélomanes - m’avaient abonné à la collection « Au coeur du classique » : à chaque numéro je recevais un CD plus un fascicule. J’ai découvert des oeuvres comme ça. Cette collection m’a accompagnée partout, même dans mon 9m2 à Paris. Je me rappelle notamment du Concerto pour piano de Tchaïkovski… Plus tard, à 25 ans, j’ai voyagé en Bulgarie, et j’ai découvert la musique balkanique : j’ai tout plaqué, tout lâché.

 Que lisez-vous en ce moment ? Avez-vous le temps ?

 Swanny - Oui, dans le train, les transports…

 Anna - Là on lit Society Magazine…

 Swanny - … sur les grands crimes, les histoires hantées… Par exemple celle du pont où les chiens se suicident - (moi) Oui, ça me dit quelque chose… (le pont d’Overtoun, en Ecosse, ndlr). - Les crimes un peu chelous, quoi… On aime bien aussi les bios d’artistes un peu fous-fous.

 Laure - Et les BD ! - Oui, les BD !

 Un souvenir de concert à nous raconter ? A propos ça vous fait combien de concerts ensemble ?

 Anna - Une vingtaine… Eh bien je dirais le premier ! - (Swanny) C’était mon anniversaire. - Oui, c’était à Paris, chez un disquaire (en mars chez Ground Zero pour la sortie du disque Ouh Là Là ! en vinyle, ndlr). Moi j’étais euphorique : les copains, le cidre…

 Laure - … et moi hyper stressée ! La première fois que je répétais avec le groupe, c’était une heure avant… J’étais transparente… Je sentais que j’allais vomir, en fait ! - (moi) Et pourtant en classique tu as été habituée à la pression !

  Anna - On ne sentait pas l’importance de se préparer, on se disait « ça va marcher », on n’avait en gros jamais répété. Je nous ai trouvées hyper-cavalières, là, alors que ce n’est pas du tout notre genre ! (rires).

 Laure - J’avais appris les morceaux.Mais elles, elles partaient, et alors je reconnaissais le morceau… Ah OK, c’est celui-là ? C’est tel son… mais c’était déjà passé ! Je ne savais pas où j’avais mis mon antisèche…

 Anna - Je crois qu’on était particulièrement euphoriques parce qu’on avait eu pas mal de galères avant, beaucoup de changements de clavier… On se retrouvait sans claviériste du jour au lendemain… Tellement galère.

 Et une dernière : qu’est-ce que vous écoutez en ce moment ?

 Swanny - Gregory Porter.

 Laure - Des comédies musicales. Le cabaret Chicago, en ce moment.

 Anna - Je me replonge dans les Everly Brothers.

 Ah, et la question alcool : que boit Juniore, de préférence ?

 Anna - On est plutôt cidre !

Texte : Arnauld H.

Photo : Florian Folco

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[houstonlocalus-blog]

Hostage Stamps: The Best of The Week

At The Drive-In. Photo: Rise Records

  Now that festivals are in full swing, things are heating up as far as the weather and what’s rolling through town this week. Sets from the likes of At The Drive-In, Metallica, and Tripping Daisy will be on deck with performances from locals like Clay Melton, Finger Guns and more filling in the gaps. Houston, here’s how to map out the next seven days.

  On Wednesday you could begin over at Discovery Green for their Party on The Plaza series featuring Dallas’ Ishi. There was a night some years back where Wilco bored me, so I went to catch Father John Misty where the venue was too hot, and Ishi saved my night with an electric performance at Nightingale Room. Maybe he can save your night as well, as his latest single “Crocodile Tears” is an electronic jam that’s worth hearing live. The folky sounds of Houston’s Romina Von Mohr will open the all ages show that gets going around 5 pm and is 100% FREE.

  We Were Wolves. Photo: Ken Asibor

  Later on at The Secret Group, you could catch the Nashville rock goodness of JEFF The Brotherhood. This duo seems to really be all about exploring the genre of rock without taking things too far. Their live shows can be crazed energy bubbles, and last year’s Zone proved they can still mix things up. Houston’s We Were Wolves will bring their beer fueled rock n’ roll party on as direct support and should add new songs from their upcoming album to their set along with songs from 2015’s Ruin Your Weekend. Houston’s Far Out will bring their hook-heavy rock on as openers for the all ages show, and their last album Universe was one everyone should hear. Doors are at 8 pm with a $12 cover.

  On Thursday you could kick the evening off over in the ballroom at Warehouse Live when Dallas’ Tripping Daisy reunites for a performance. It’s been eighteen years since the death of founding member Wes Berggren and since the band has performed live, so this is a real treat for fans of the band. While the group’s posthumous B-sides album Tripping Daisy from 2000 and the album before it Jesus Hits Like The Atomic Bomb were both good and well received, the album I Am An Elastic Firecracker with the hit track, “I Got A Girl” was what made the group Texas psych pop legends. I saw the band a lot in the nineties and their live shows were always on point and sometimes bizarre. Dallas’ Motorcade featuring members of War on Drugs, St. Vincent and more will be on hand as direct support while the only Houston band that could open things up, Frog Hair will get things going. If you’ve never seen Frog Hair before, just imagine what Butthole Surfers on LSD would be like and you’ll have their debut album A Long List of Shortcomings figured out. The all ages show has doors at 7 pm and tickets between $25 and $30.

  Over at Walter’s you could get the indie meets punk rock of Finger Guns who will be there to drop their new album, Life On The Floor. The new sounds of Houston’s The Daphne Blue were set to perform, but have since had to cancel due to an emergency. There’s also a set from Since Always who should impress with their indie rock sounds while the all ages show will get opened up by the alt rock sounds of Middlechild. Doors are at 8 pm with a $10 cover.

  Clark. Photo: Tim Saccenti

  Downstairs at White Oak Music Hall, New York born and New Jersey raised Com Truise will return for a set filled with electronica jams. This guy has been making bangers for a good while, but his latest single, “Isotasy,” is definitely something to groove to and his live sets are always a little bonkers. He’ll have one of the best electronica producers going as direct support and opener with U.K. triple threat Clark. Clark is literally fire as a producer and his live sets are a real trip. His latest release Death Peak from this year just keeps him at the top of the electronic game even moreso. The all ages show has doors at 8 pm and tickets between $17 and $22.

    Friday you could make it out to House of Blues for the alt country of Old 97’s. While the band has been around a good while and their live shows have always felt like a party made up of friends, their latest release Graveyard Whistling offers up hints of the band in their early days. Shooter Jennings will bring his twangy sound on as direct support and opener for the all ages show with doors at 7 pm and tickets between $25 and $49.

  Japanese Breakfast. Photo: Phobymo

  Upstairs at White Oak Music Hall will host the always fun lo-fi indie pop of (Sandy) Alex G. While the Philadelphia artist has always been worth catching, his latest record Rocket offers up his most cohesive and catchy sound to date. The indie sci-fi jams of Japanese Breakfast will be on as direct support while Brooklyn-based power pop rock group Cende will open the all ages show with doors at 7 pm and tickets between $13 and $18.

  In the back of Continental Club at the Pachinko Hut, you can get groovy to the sounds of DJ jams from the likes of Darenda Weaver, Zack Dorsey, and Black Slacks at the Citrus Shakedown. While there are rumors of a bubble machine on site, the cheap drinks and cool jams make for a fun time in the hot summer sun. The 21 & up show is free and gets going at 7 pm with more information here.

  Vinal Edge will host the indie post rock strangeness of Denton’s Sexual Jeremy. I say post rock, but in reality this band just emulates multiple genres including spoken word, math rock, and early emocore, and their latest Chuck Weekend is a trip. Denton’s Jesus Chris + The Beetles will be on as direct support while the unexplained improvised magic of Houston’s Ak’chamel will open things ups as only they can for the free all ages show with gratis beer for the adults.

  Pfaff. Photo: Marshall Forse Walker

  The Waughford will host the return of Austin’s Dylan Cameron of Holodeck Records. Cameron has made his name by dropping danceable jams and his latest, Infinite Floor, is full of tracks to groove to. The electro-acoustic sounds of Houston’s Yakul will be on as direct support while Pfaff will bring his modular techno prior. A DJ set from Houston’s KONA FM will get the night started with visuals all night from Sppank. The show has doors at 8 pm and a $10 cover.

  Over at Rito’s Bar you could check out the gloss punk of NOLA’s Patsy. Here in support of their snappy new 7” Eat It, they sound like a feverishly fun punk band. Austin’s Sass will be on as well as No Come, while Houston’s The Pose will bring their punk heaviness on hand. Criminal Itch will open the all ages show with doors at 8 pm and a $6 cover.

  Rudyard’s will host the new album release from Houston’s Sam Turner & the Cactus Cats. While the band has traveled far down the road of what they call “beach wave,” they’re really closer to psych infused folk in sound and they’re definitely due for a new album. The show will also have Grisbee on as direct support, while the rock of Houston’s Bayou Saints will go on beforehand. The indie pop of Austin’s Golden Solid will also be on hand to perform and Mikey Drag from Flower Graves will get the evening started by spinning records all night, as well as in-between sets and after the show too. The 21 & up show has doors at 8 pm and an $8 cover.

  Clay Melton. Photo: Daniel Jackson

  In the Bronze Peacock room of House of Blues, the bluesy twang of Houston’s Clay Melton will bring the house to its knees with his guitar prowess. While Melton’s debut record is good, it doesn’t really showcase his strength as songwriter and guitarist and his live shows are the type you don’t want to miss before he gets too big for this city. The energetic blues psych of Vanilla Whale will be on hand as support and openers, and they, too, are a band everyone should check out. The all ages show has doors at 8:45 pm and tickets for $15.

  Saturday you could get going over at Silver Street Studios for the Pop Shop Houston Summer Festival. The two day event has tons of local vendors, art, food, and even a fashion show. The fashion show gets going around 7 pm, but the two day event opens at 10 am on Saturday and 11 am on Sunday with tickets for $8.

  There’s a good chance you’ll head to Saint Arnold’s Brewery when they celebrate their 23rd year. The show has a headlining set from Houston’s Bun B, but also features a slew of locals to round things out. Performances from The Tontons, 30 Foot Fall, Buxton, John Evans and more will all be there to get feet moving. The 21 & up show has doors at 4 pm and tickets between $10 and $35 with more information here.

  Over at Revention Center, El Paso’s At The Drive-In will make their return to our city. While they’re without founding member Jim Ward, the band has since soldiered on and dropped a new album with this year’s in*ter*a*li*a. It’s not confirmed if they still get wild like they did at their shows twenty years ago or not, but if you’re a fan, then you might want to attend based on how volatile they all are. Les Butcherettes will be on board as direct support and opener for the all ages show with doors at 7 pm and tickets between $30 and $40.

  Over at Arena Theatre, the internationally renowned sounds of Mexico’s Bronco will perform in the round. You might not know these guys, but seeing as they’ve sold over 12 million records, those who know them realize that they’re worth catching live. If you’re a fan of Norteno music, you should love their latest release Primera Fila from this year. The doors are at 7:30 pm and tickets are between $49.50 and $155.

  Ruiners. Photo: Keith Hatch

  Over at Rudyard’s, Houston’s Football, etc. will be upstairs to play their album release party for the recently released Corner. One of my favorite records of the year, as well as the strongest from the trio, the album takes the band far outside of their emo past and places them on a larger scale. While their live shows are always fun, they will have one of the strongest live bands on as direct support when Houston’s Ruiners will release their new album as well. Their new record, Plebeian, is pretty epic, like a mix of Mission of Burma and Fugazi. The screamo sounds of Austin’s Yorick will also be on the bill while Houston’s Greg Cote & the Real Life Friends will open the 21 & up show with doors at 8 pm and an $8 cover.

  On Sunday you could make your way over to the EaDo Vintage June Fest. The monthly event takes place over on Polk Street and features an eclectic mix of vintage wares and wears, art, music and eats. The all day event is open to all ages, it’s free to attend, and gets going at noon with more information here.

  Over at NRG Stadium you can hope that Metallica sticks to their tunes that don’t go past …And Justice For All. While I haven’t been a fan of how these guys act towards anyone not up to pay them for the smallest things, or the fact that I’m really not a fan of most of their work from the past twenty years, I can say that they’re pretty epic to catch live. Their early work on Kill Em’ All and Master of Puppets alone is amazing. The metalcore of Avenged Sevenfold will be on as direct support while the Danish metal of Volbeat will open the all ages show with doors at 6 pm, and tickets between $55 and $155.50. Parking is an extra $20.

  Walter’s will host the proggy instrumental sounds of California’s Strawberry Girls. This trio makes groove heavy jams that are great to catch live, and their latest release Italian Ghosts keeps that vibe going. They’ll have the intense sounds of Colorado’s Comrades on as direct support while the post hardcore of Belle Noire will open the all ages show with doors at 6 pm and tickets between $10 and $13.

  On Monday you could head over to the new Insomnia Gallery for Night One of Houston Benefit Week for a poster art show. The art of ACK!, House of Eyes, Christopher Oddo, Honeybones, and more will be on display and available for purchase in an ultra limited run of prints, both framed and unframed. DJ sets from some mystery guests, gratis Topo Chico and Lonestar, and all proceeds go to help Christian Kidd of The Hates as he battles cancer. The event is all ages, the doors are at 7 pm, and with art from each artists for sale as well, it’s definitely worth making it our for.

  Radkey. Photo: Paradigm Agency

  The indie pop of London’s The Joy Formidable will be on hand upstairs at White Oak Music Hall. Here in support of last year’s Sleep Is Day, there’s something remarkable about how this group writes music. The punky garage sounds of Radkey will be on hand as direct support and should melt some faces when they perform at the all ages show with doors at 7:30 pm and tickets between $18 and $22.

  On Tuesday you could make it over to Warehouse Live for the long standing good time also know as The Moth story hour. The true stories told live will use the theme of celebration for this show, and if you’ve never been, then this is a great opportunity to check it out. The all ages event has doors at 6:30 pm and tickets for $10 on the seated show.

  The Secret Group will have a set from the always funny Tom Rhodes. Rhodes has been doing stand up for thirty years, he’s been on places like Comedy Central, NBC, and Netflix, and his last album Colossus of Me is pretty hilarious. Two of Houston’s better up and coming comics might serve as host and feature for the all ages show with doors at 7 pm and tickets between $10 and $12.

  Los Skarnales. Photo: Ed Villegas

  Over at Continental Club, Night Two of Houston Benefit Week will see a headlining set from Houston’s Los Skarnales. These guys have been blowing minds with their energetic shows since I was in high school and their latest release, Another Day, Another Borrachera, is one of the strongest ska records you’ll hear. A reunited set from Houston rockabilly legends The Flamin’ Hellcats will be on hand as direct support while Houston’s energetic Tax The Wolf will go on prior. A Sundae Drive will bring their indie rock goodness on as openers for the 21 & up show with doors at 8 pm. Like the art show at Insomnia, the event will have all proceeds going to Christian Kidd of The Hates as he battles cancer, providing a great way to enjoy music and help out a local legend at the same time.

  That’s about it for this week.  No matter what you do, remember that a safe ride home is just a click away.

Hostage Stamps: The Best of The Week this is a repost

[londontheatre]

Penny Layden and Christian Patterson (Photographer: Sarah Lee)

If I were to write a play about Brexit, it would be so long it would probably require two intervals. My Country doesn’t even have one, which I thought was quite an achievement in itself until I realised that the complex arguments both in favour and against leaving the European Union weren’t really being discussed in a meaningful way. I don’t think it is categorically a missed opportunity because essentially, the play does what it sets out to do, in giving its audiences verbatim opinions from both political leaders and members of the public. The voices of ‘Leavers’ seemed more prominent than those of ‘Remainers’, a point a fellow theatregoer and I separately concluded. In case anyone thought our positions on the country-wide referendum in 2016 influenced this viewpoint either way, I voted one way while she voted the other.

The play gets off to a serene start, with the characters introducing themselves. Britannia (Penny Layden) chairs a meeting of regional representatives. It’s absurdist, and to aid understanding, the show’s programme even has an article on Britannia – its etymology and ‘modern use’, and everything in between. Now, there are certain stereotypical conceptions out there of behaviour and lifestyle in the various regions of the UK. My Country does little to discourage them, which made me think of a lyric from the musical Avenue Q: “Ethnic jokes may be uncouth / But you laugh, because they’re based on truth.” So Cymru (Christian Patterson) leads a rendition of Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer, Caledonia (Stuart McQuarrie) storms off at one point, showing off his ‘independence’ (geddit?) and the North East (Laura Elphinstone) apparently likes to have chips as a pizza topping. Oh, and everyone in Northern Ireland (Cavan Clarke) randomly breaks into Riverdance whenever they’re in a good mood.

Things are so calm and respectful to begin with that one can quite easily predict that chaos is about to descend in some form. I didn’t see any meaningful purpose in having numerous personal stories being told. They were interesting, but as there were so many of them, they felt disconnected from one another. It would be harsh to say there was no character development, but in jumping from story to story, the play becomes unnecessarily complicated. I would have preferred hearing the views of someone who was interviewed as part of the research process for this play in its entirety (or near entirety) before moving on to the next one.

[See image gallery at http://ift.tt/1FpwFUw] This, then, is more a stream of consciousness than a coherent debate, epitomised so well by a child interviewee who talks about there being a “good train service, good bus service, good taxi service” where they are based. Of the political voices, the likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson were over-represented. Penny Layden’s portrayal of Johnson is faultless, and while his soundbites make for good entertainment in the National Theatre (“My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it”) it makes the play unbalanced.

And then there’s all that business about the colour of beans and the curvature of bananas. Elsewhere, I found someone’s analysis of “Brexit means Brexit” downright hilarious, and there is indeed something bizarre at best and vacuous at worst by defining something by itself. However, repeated pleas from Britannia to ‘listen’ began to irritate. What else would an audience be doing in the theatre if not listening? The cast do a great job, but there’s not much to take away from this ambitious but unexceptional production. Even Jeremy Corbyn has acknowledged a “real fight” has started, which makes the play’s instruction to lend an ear to what people are saying, with no accompanying encouragement to take action, rather odd.

Review by Chris Omaweng

Britannia calls a meeting to listen to her people. Caledonia, Cymru, East Midlands, North East, Northern Ireland and the South West bring the voices of their regions. The debate is passionate, the darts are sharp, stereotypes nailed and opinions divided. Can there ever be a United Kingdom?

In the days following the Brexit vote, a team from the National Theatre of Great Britain spoke to people nationwide, aged 9 to 97, to hear their views on the country we call home. In a series of deeply personal interviews, they heard opinions that were honest, emotional, funny, and sometimes extreme.

These real testimonials are interwoven with speeches from party leaders of the time in this new play by Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, and director Rufus Norris.

My Country; a work in progress opens in London before playing at venues around the country. Created in collaboration with; Citizens Theatre, Curve, Derry Playhouse, Live Theatre, National Theatre Wales, Sage Gateshead, Salisbury Playhouse and Strike A Light Festival in association with Cusack Projects Limited.

My Country; a work in progress in the words of people across the UK and Carol Ann Duffy Running Time: 1 hour 30 minutes. There is no interval Dorfman Theatre

Ream more reviews from LondonTheatre1.com

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[nyarisu]

@theelliottsmiths​ I watched Bizarre Festival 97 like 2 weeks ago and let me tell you it was a real thirst fest XD (courtesy of hot young Till). You had some really nice points. Till’s gestures are amazing. I firmly belive Ollie wears his glasses for the same reason I would: because it looks cool af. I’m actually more curious how should Bestrafe mich or Spiel mit mir be changed so they can fit  with Till’s voice now (when was his voice even innocent?? XD).

„Did he really make someone run out into the stage to hand him something from the floor” my god yes I forgot about that XD

Paul is hot here XD I was suprised at the amounts of gifs I’ve seen from this live and I had no idea!

ps Till kneeling is always beautiful

„I promise that doesn't just mean blowjob it does” but it also does XD „This entire show is just Richard mouthing his mic like a [redacted]” sluts, all of them, that’s what they are XDDD

MY GOD I REMEMBERED THE CHEST TOUCH  you have no idea how many times I replayed that part :))

*whispers* Laichzeit is amazing

Of course Richard looks soft, he’s watching Till afterall!

Could you please liveblog Bizarre Fest 97?

OH this is where the clip of Oli playing Tier on acoustic guitar and getting blown up came from! His face is killing me for some reason

I wish hed be more involved with pyro maybe we'd actually see him then

What the fuck is up with probably-richards guitar sound? It sounds like if a harpsichord and a guitar fucked

Okay it's fixed

The skips suck but I can handle it I may Chech the other version to see if it also does that

He just said Frau and then mimed a boob I swear

I adore tier did you know this

One of many examples of flake being Vital

So does Oli wear glasses for the same reason as till used to or does he secretly have super sensitive eyes

I love all tills hand gestures but my favourite is the hand shaking when he hits some emotional vibrato. It genuinely seems to help

Bestrafe mich ist my all time favourite Rammstein song and god they're really getting into it huh? The energy

You know those moments where you can see the face someone is making while they're headbanging? Losing my mind

He's hitting the deep notes so well so far

Oli is Wiggling

I don't think Bestrafe mich or Spiel mit mir would work nowadays his voice isn't very Innocent any more or crude enough to hit the low notes the same but at the same time I would like to see him try

Richard is so boppy and cute

Did he really make someone run out into the stage to hand him something from the floor

Oh honey, the face he makes just before the tails hit. I'm glad now they stopped playing it the anticipation is not my favourite

Though I'm sure some of it is for show since he's doing it over clothing at least

Oh fuck this is

The one where Paul looks

Not like himself at all

I know sometimes the way till doesn't remotely hit the right long notes on the sein before flakes bit can be a little cringey in the actual sense of a momentary wince but I actually prefer it to the ones where he hits them all it's more raw and fitting with the desperation aspect of the song

I forget the handle is a dick

He's not a subtle man actually

Who is he and what has he done with Paul

I think they need to bring back the crop tops bit for all of them

Except Oli he is allergic to shirts and as such has permission to stick to the full body lingerie from 2019 or maybe the black metal thing he had going on for a while

To someone who speaks no German and doesn't know the lyrics I feel like the only thing theyd understand of this song is when he mimes the small dick and I'm sure it's incredibly confusing unless theyre fans of sph

Oh god fuck that was a good last note I'm

Okay is it silly that that long note makes me emotional because it always does

Even though it also reminds me of 2:58 of Я сошла с ума

Maybe that's why

But it's such a pretty and pained note and also I wish he did more long notes surely he has the lungs for it and also

It's actually the way the notes all coalesce when he says "er auch" more than the long note on its own it just really gets to me if I was a crier I'd probably cry

And also the lyrics obviously like fuck man it says so much about till and just aches so badly of needing love and acceptance but not feeling like he deserves it and preferring the punishment because he knows where he stands with that and also god and worthiness and the draw of a higher power and

Ughhhhh this took twenty minutes in itself because of the replaying

The backing bestrafe mich chant is also really pretty they're singing it more than usual maybe?

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: The Columbus Blue Jackets – Somebody's feeling a little salty about going all the way from one game to two on NBC's new schedule. (More on the new schedule in a bit.) It's the eyeroll emoji that really sells it

The second star: I has a bucket – Not sure what was funnier, the original photo or the fact that literally everyone Twitter made the same joke about the bucket getting signed by the Oilers.

The first star: This SHL video about rule changes – I can't stop watching this. It's the fist pump that gets me every time. If Tom Wilson starts working in this move every time he blindsides somebody a half hour after they touched the puck I'll admit he's worth every penny.

Be It Resolved

We're closing in on one of the weirder moments on the MLB calendar, as the annual "Players' Weekend" is almost here. The event debuted last year, and its main highlight is that players get to wear their nicknames on their jerseys.

That's… different. You have to give MLB some credit here, as they're basically offering up an open invitation for players to cut loose and show a little personality. It's fun for the players, and everyone gets to sit back and try to figure out what some of the nicknames even mean.

If you've been reading this column all summer, and god bless you if you have, then you're probably figuring that this is the part where we play our weekly round of "the NHL should steal this cool idea from another sport." That's been kind of a theme all offseason, and this feels like a great time to break it out..

But here's the thing. Ultimately, we try to be realists around here. Sure, we'll propose things like radically changing the way powerplays work, or having a special draft where everyone picks Jaromir Jagr, or letting every champion legally kidnap somebody for their Cup parade. But those are things that could actually happen someday.

NHL players volunteering to put cool nicknames on their own jerseys? Never. Zero chance. There's no point even thinking about it. Every player would just use their regular name, while old-school types swooned about how winners don't have personalities. A few players would probably insist that they didn't have a name back there at all, because the team is the only thing that matters, dammit. It would be awful.

Besides, even if the NHL stole baseball's idea and forced the players to take part, the result would just be depressing. Can you imagine an entire weekend of guys skating around with names like "Smither" and "Jonesy" and "Other Jonesy" on their back? It would be embarrassing.

So here's my proposal: We steal MLB's good idea, but then we improve on it. Be it resolved that once a season, we have a player's weekend where every team gets to force one player from another team to wear a specific nickname on their back.

Which player? That would be up to them. They could take a vote on who the victim would be. And then they'd get to choose the nickname that the player had to wear. If I know hockey players, they'd probably spend more time figuring this out than they do on special teams.

Admittedly, we'd have to iron out a few kinks. For example, we'd need some sort of tie-breaking system for when 30 teams all submitted different insults for Matthew Tkachuk as their first choice. And there would probably be some team every year that would use their pick to say something nice about some veteran opponent because they wanted to be "classy" or whatever. We'd deal with that by immediately relegating that team to the ECHL.

Still, how much fun would it be to see who each team in the league decided to target with an embarrassing nickname? And how quickly would you line up to buy an officially licensed Bruins No. 63 jersey with "Rat Face" or whatever on the back?

Maybe we can't steal most of baseball's good ideas, like "not having a salary cap" or "interesting free agency" or "replay that mostly works" or "actually noticing when defensive strategies are out of control." But we can steal this one. After we're done improving it.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

This week's Obscure Player honors go to Swedish goaltender Tommy Soderstrom, for no other reason than reader Nate wrote in to suggest him. Thanks Nate.

If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Soderstrom is the brutal game-winning goal from center ice that sent Belarus to a stunning upset over Sweden in the 2002 Olympics. That's unfair, for a couple of reasons. First, even the best goaltenders gives up the occasional bad goal, and it's wrong to remember any athlete for their lowest moment. But more importantly, that wasn't Soderstrom—that was Tommy Salo. What can I say, Sweden produced too many 1990s goalies named Tommy S.

In addition to not being Tommy Salo, Soderstrom was picked way down in the 11th round of the 1990 draft by the Flyers. He played for Team Sweden at the 1991 Canada Cup, then made his NHL debut in 1992, splitting the Flyers' starting duties with Dominic Roussel. He played reasonably well, but struggled badly as a sophomore, winning just six times in 34 appearances while posting a GAA of 4.01. It didn't help his numbers that his own teammates occasionally scored on him.

Somehow, that made him worthy of being dealt to the Islanders straight up for Ron Hextall in a trade that probably happened mainly because nobody has any recollection of Hextall being an Islander in the first place. Soderstrom would spend two years as the Islanders' starter and wasn't bad, and to this day many fans probably remember his big white Jofa facemask. He once got into a fight with Corey Schwab.

As you can see, he didn't do all that well. But for the record, he didn't get destroyed by Dan Cloutier. That was also Tommy Salo.

Soderstrom would play a single game for the Islanders during the 1996-97 season—according to hockey-reference.com, his appearance lasted all of ten seconds—and that was it for his NHL career. He'd head to the IHL, and then back home to Sweden for several seasons.

According to his Wikipedia page, he apparently appeared on a Swedish reality show in 2014. I don't read Swedish so I don't know what the show is about, but I'm going to just assume it featured him and Tommy Salo living together while doing the Spiderman pointing meme and trying to figure out which one of them it was that Mike Milbury made cry during an arbitration hearing.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: NBC released their 2018-19 schedule. The outrage: Your team isn't on it enough. Is it justified: Kind of, in the sense that fans are fans, and you're supposed to want your team to get as much airtime as possible. Even if it doesn't really affect you—and let's face it, it doesn't, because you still have your local broadcast—it feels like a respect thing. Your team is great, or at least better than everyone thinks, and NBC should love them as much as you do.

Of course, in the real world it can't work that way. There are only so many games to go around. And while it would be nice if the games were handed out based on merit, ratings still matter and some teams do better than others. So sure, the Blackhawks are the most heavily featured team, as always, even though they missed the playoffs last year. And no, you won't see struggling Canadian teams like the Canucks or Senators at all. That's not fair, but life's not fair, and hockey fans know that better than anyone.

Still, the overall schedule is… not bad? I'm going to go with not bad. NBC made some smart moves, including the decision to scrap the Wednesday Night Rivalry that sounded great in theory but never really worked in reality because there hasn't been a good NHL rivalry since 2012. And while they're still giving you the Blackhawks out of a firehose, they've done a better job of spreading the love around. We've even got a game between two Canadian teams on the schedule, as the Leafs and Jets face off in October. That's the sort of matchup the league should want to see promoted, since it features two teams packed with young stars who should be good, and could even end up playing in a Stanley Cup final someday.

We're also getting more of fun teams like the Capitals, Predators, Golden Knights, and Lightning, and less of traditional teams like the Red Wings and Canadiens who figure to be iffy or worse. It doesn't all make sense, and nobody can quite figure out what's going on with the Kings, but it's a decent effort. So yeah, not bad.

Will "not bad" be enough to keep hockey fans from complaining? Of course not, because it's August and the only other things to talk about are Andrej Sekera's achilles tendon and Max Pacioretty's golf tournament. So we squabble about the TV schedule, if only to remind ourselves that meaningful hockey will return some day. That's as it should be. At least until the Senators and Canucks are playing in the Stanley Cup final and NBC can't figure out why the ratings are so low.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Hey, who wants to close things out with a bizarre short film about hockey, made by a Canadian celebrity, and aired at a late-night talk show hosts film festival? Why not. Let's get weird.

I'll be honest, I don't have a really strong grasp on what exactly this is or why it exists. Let's cover the basics. This is a short film that was produced by Michael J. Fox for David Letterman's 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival, which aired in 1986. The film is called The Ice Man Hummeth. And yeah, it's going to get strange.

Why yes, David Letterman apparently did have his own film festival, or at least a TV special that was presented that way. He had two, in fact. The first aired in 1985, and this one followed in 1986. You can watch the full thing here.

So on to the film. We start things off with Fox arriving at a rink, looking suitably badass given he's fresh off of Back To The Future and is pretty much one of the biggest movie stars in the world at this point. But that doesn't last long, because once he gets to the door he's suddenly a mild-mannered guy in a suit. But he's in a hockey dressing room. But he's not. We've got some sort of Westworld-style dueling timelines deal going here, with Fox as both a hockey tough guy and a classical musician. He's basically David Schultz with slightly more high-brow tastes.

We cut back and forth between the two scenes, including a shot of Hockey Fox's locker, complete with an autographed Letterman photo. That gets the first laugh from the audience, albeit a confused one, as they're clearly waiting for some of that Alex P. Keaton magic. Where's Uncle Ned and his maraschino cherries when you need him?

The next joke gets a better reaction, as Fox has to return a jock strap for something larger. Because the other didn't fit his oversized junk, you see. Look, it's his movie and Back To The Future made $210 million, he can write himself a big package if he wants to.

We get more juxtaposition, until we finally arrive at game time. That leads to a reasonably clever transition from pucks on ice into musical notes on paper as the orchestra warms up. Then it's back to the rink, where Fox's team has been joined by their opponent, who are very clearly wearing Winnipeg Jets uniforms with just enough strategically applied tape to prevent a lawsuit. Players from both teams are constantly threatening to kill each other in that way that happens in 100 percent of 1980s hockey movies, but only like 80 percent of actual 1980s hockey games. OK, fine, 95 percent if it was the Norris.

Also, a mid-80s goaltender makes a save, which is the least realistic part of this whole film.

One note about all of this that's kind of neat—in the comment section from the video, someone shows up who claims to have done the music for the film and explains that he actually had to compose a song that switched back and forth from classical to heavy metal and time it exactly to the final cut. That's kind of cool, and I'm going to assume it's true because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to lie on YouTube.

The referee, who is like eight inches taller than any of the players, drops the puck to start the game, and we instantly go full Rangers/Devils.

The benches empty because it's 1986, and at one point Fox seems to take a swing at the referee. More importantly, careful viewers will have noticed that we've now got a fully classical soundtrack, meaning the clean separation between timelines is starting to break down.

Sure enough, Hockey Fox looks up and realizes that Violin Fox and the rest of the orchestra is now in the stands. That somehow turns our bench-clearing brawl into an ice-dancing spectacle. There's a joke here about going from mid-80s hockey to the 2018 version, but I'm too mature to make it.

Meanwhile, Violin Fox is getting crowded by a fellow musician, and you can probably guess where that's headed. Soon enough, the orchestra is brawling while the hockey players tut-tut about unnecessary violence. Up is down, left is right, Harold Ballard does something nice, and we're done.

In the full version of the show, Fox gives a little more information about how this was all made. The entire project took four weeks, the shooting lasted just two nights, and it all cost less than $40,000. And best of all, he tells a great story about how the musicians couldn't wait to fight each other. It's well worth a watch.

And there you have it: Quite possibly the best artistic interpretation of the marriage between hockey and music every filmed that didn't involve Neil Sheehy.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Players' Weekend for the NHL, Salty Blue Jackets, and Buckets published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[thatsgamingnl]

New Post has been published on That's Gaming

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Imagine Film Festival 2017 maakt 14 filmtitels bekend

Imagine Film Festival, dat van 12 tot en met 22 april plaatsvindt in EYE in Amsterdam, besteedt veel aandacht aan aankomend of doorbrekend filmtalent. Op dit moment telt de selectie voor 2017 maar liefst veertien speelfilmdebuten uit vijf verschillende landen. Dat Imagine een scherp oog heeft voor nieuw talent, is de afgelopen festivaledities bevestigd: maar liefst drie van de vier publieksfavorieten waren debuutfilms. Dat biedt zonnige vooruitzichten voor de veertien debuutfilms die Imagine tot op heden heeft geselecteerd.

Tot de selectie films behoren onder meer twee animatiefilms: het handgetekende Nova Seed, waarin de mensheid de wereld moet redden van Mad Doctor Mindskull en de uitbundige coming-of-age fantasie My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea. Hierin verdwijnt een high school door een aardbeving langzaam de zee in (met o.a. de stemmen van Lena Dunham en Jason Schwartzman). Een andere coming-of-age fantasie is het Australische Girl Asleep, over Greta die op haar 15de verjaardag in een parallelle wereld wordt geslingerd. Ook uit Australië komt The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, over een man die tijd achterstevoren beleeft en zich alleen de toekomst herinnert.

Daarnaast zijn er drie Amerikaanse Indie drama’s met een fantastisch randje. In Man Underground maakt een eenzame man een speelfilm over zichzelf. The Transfiguration gaat over een jongen in een arme buurt die een vampier blijkt te zijn. En in Always Shinegeven twee actrices hun rivaliteit een nieuwe twist. Daarnaast zijn er de festivalfavorieten: Are We Not Cats, met outsiders die hun eigen haren eten, The Eyes of My Mother over een meisje dat de dood van haar moeder op geheel eigen wijze verwerkt en The Greasy Strangler, voorlopig de meest ranzige film van Imagine 2017.

Ook elders ter wereld zijn sterke debuutfilms te vinden: het Hongaarse Loop koppelt tijdreizen aan een kritische kijk op onze maatschappij. Het Iers-Britse K-Shop verpakt zijn maatschappijkritiek in een fascinerende kannibalenfilm. Die andere kannibalenfilm en dé horrorsensatie Raw is eveneens bij Imagine te zien. Beduidend kalmer gaat het toe in het absurdistische Aloys, waarin een eenzame detective verstrikt raakt in een telefoonspel.

Aloys – Trailer Regie: Tobias Nölle | Cast: Georg Friedrich, Tilde von Overbeck, Karl Friedrich, Kamil Krejci Zwitserland, Frankrijk 2016 – 91 minuten Een verlegen einzelgänger wordt uit zijn isolement gelokt, om daarna door te draaien in een grappige, wrange en boeiende thriller. 

Always Shine – Trailer Regie: Sophia Takal | Cast: MacKenzie Davis, Caitlin FitzGerald, Lawrence Michael Levin VS 2016 – 89 minuten Twee vriendinnen ontdekken meer over zichzelf en elkaar dan hen lief is in intens geacteerde psychologische thriller.

Are We Not Cats – Trailer – Regie: Xander Robin | Cast: Michael Patrick Nicholson, Chelsea Lopez, Michael Godere VS 2016 – 78 minuten Twee buitenstaanders vinden elkaar in een amusant en bizar liefdesverhaal, dat romance en body horror bij elkaar brengt.

The Death and Life of Otto Bloom – Trailer Regie: Cris Jones | Cast: Xavier Samuel, Rachel Ward, Matilda Brown, Rose Riley Australië  2016  – 84 minuten Het bizarre verhaal van een man die zijn leven achterstevoren leeft is een hartverwarmend liefdesverhaal vermomd als sciencefiction.

The Eyes of My Mother – Trailer Regie: Nicolas Pesce | Cast: Kika Magalhaes, Will Brill, Olivia Bond VS 2016 – 76 minuten Jonge vrouw gaat tot het uiterste om na de dood van haar moeder haar eenzaamheid te verdrijven in bloedmooie southern gothic.

Girl Asleep – Trailer Regie: Rosemary Myers | Cast: Bethany Whitmore, Harrison Feldman, Amber McMahon Australië 2015 – 77 minuten Australische coming-of-age fantasie.

The Greasy Strangler – Trailer Regie: Jim Hosking | Cast: Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo VS 2016 – 93 minuten Alles druipt van het vet in deze Sundance-hit, die de vunzigste films van John Waters moeiteloos naar de kroon steekt.

K-Shop – Trailer Regie: Dan Pringle | Cast: Ziad Abaza, Scot Williams, Kristin Atherton, Reece Noi Ierland, Groot-Brittannië 2016 – 115 minuten Indrukwekkende debuutfilm gaat verder dan Sweeney Todd en combineert familietragedie, gruwelijke horror en maatschappijkritiek.

Loop (Hurok) – Trailer Regie: Isti Madarász | Cast: Dénes Száraz, Dorina Martinovics, Zsolt Anger Hongarije 2016 – 95 minuten Een dealer komt terecht in een tijdlus nadat hij zijn vriendin heeft verlaten, in een Hongaarse mix van Groundhog Day en Source Code.

Man Underground – Trailer Regie: Michael Borowiec & Sam Marine | Cast: George Basil, Andy Rocco, Pamala Fila, Felix Hagen VS 2016 – 95 minuten Willem en Todd maken een film over Willems ontmoetingen met aliens. X-Files-premisse mondt uit in hartverwarmende tragikomedie over sympathieke outsiders. 

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea – Clip Regie: Dash Shaw | Cast (stemmen): Lena Dunham, Jason Schwartzman, Reggie Watts, Susan Sarandon, Louisa Krause, John Cameron Mitchell VS 2016 – 74 minuten Psychedelische animatie mengt een coming of age verhaal met een rampenfilm.

Nova Seed – Trailer Regie: Nick DiLiberto | Cast: (stemmen): Joe DiLiberto, Nick DiLiberto, Shawn Donovan, John Jellinek Japan, Canada 2016 – 64 minuten Onwillige superheld neemt het op tegen het kwaad in maffe, handgetekende animatie met bizarre karakters en psychedelische trekjes.

Raw (Grave) – Trailer Regie: Julia Ducournau | Cast: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas Frankrijk, België 2016 – 98 minuten Trefzekere horrorsensatie is een stijlvol gruwelsprookje waarin zusterliefde, body horror en kannibalisme hand in hand gaan.

The Transfiguration – Trailer Regie: Michael O’Shea | Cast: Erric Ruffin, Chloe Levine, Aaron Moten VS 2016 – 97 minuten De zwarte puber Milo waart als een vampier door het New Yorkse Queens. Confronterende horror tegen de achtergrond van sociale ellende.

Voor een overzicht van deze films: klik hier.