My Old Kentucky Home

Nothing I can write here can properly sum up tonight's game and it's meaning for us Kentuckians. It's just too big. Too big of a moment for a state that has so little impact in the grand scheme of things. But nevertheless, tonight I hope my Wildcats emerge victorious. If they do not, then I guess I hope Louisville wins it all, because it wold be great to have the national title in the Commonwealth, if not in Lexington where it belongs.

With that, the song that brings all us Kentuckians to tears.

Friday Funnies

OK, bear with me, this is a long video.

I love Kevin Smith. I watch all his movies, listen to his series of podcasts and also watch a ton of Q&As with him. He's hilarious, has no filter whatsoever, and while super knowledgeable about Hollywood and comics he can at times come off as so disconnected from the lives at real people that it's hilarious when he talks about food shopping or dealing with anyone that isn't on Twitter.

Anyway, one of the best stories I've heard him tell was way back in the day during his first "An Evening with Kevin Smith" Q&A movie. In this clip, he talks about how he was commissioned to write a Superman movie starring Nic Cage and directed by Tim Burton. It's great where this ends up, and since I saw this way back when it was first released in 2002, I knew I liked Kevin Smith and his view on Hollywood.



And believe me, if you think this was good, you will not believe how awesome his attempt at making a documentary of Prince went. Just YouTube it, it's classic.

Game On: Week of March 23

My recent column reviewing Mass Effect 3 and Unit 13. Thanks to the Detroit News for publishing.

My Head and Heart

Last week a couple coworkers and I went up to Baltimore to see a Seattle band called The Head and the Heart. They are a cool folk/rock hybrid band that has a way bigger following on the east coast than I would have thought (the club was PACKED and very engaged throughout the show). I had never heard of the band before so this was a new band and a new venue to check out at the same time (Ram's Head is a lot like 9:30 Club in DC only larger and more odd little nooks for getting squeezed into, which can make the music a little difficult at times to hear).



What I may end up remembering the most from the show, however, was the witnessing of probably the worst opening act I have ever seen. These fools, named Drew Grow and the Pastors Wives, put on such a shitty show that I cannot properly write it all out. The lead guitarist played three songs straight using his tongue as a pick. And it sounded like it. The crowd was not into it and the best part may have been that this band was the first I've ever seen have this sequence:

Lead singer: "OK, thanks everyone for coming out tonight. Sorry we were 10 minutes late but we figured, hey, this is Baltimore and you all are tough and can take it."
Random Crowd Comments: "Boooooooo." "You suck." "Go fuck yourselves." "Showing up on time wouldn't have helped."
Lead Singer: "We've got one more song for you, have a great night."
Crowd: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Lead Singer (after pacing the stage a little and talking to some guy on the side of the stage and then to the drummer, who was beyond question the only person with an ounce of musical talent): "Thanks a lot everyone, good night!"

Oh yeah, these fools got the hook. The crowd hated them so much they got themselves booed off stage after playing about 25 minutes of they set. It was awful. Shame that that was my lingering memory from an otherwise great show introducing me to a whole new band I like, but damn that opening act was awful.

What I've Read: The Last Stand

My journey down the corridors of history (how's that for some schmaltz?) takes me out West, as I explored the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which was one of the major turning points in American/Indian relations after the Civil War.

Part of my work at CFED over the years was designing reports for Tribal areas and I've been quietly fascinated by the history of Native peoples in this nation. My learnings got a little deeper when I read Mayflower last Fall, but like many of my generation I've been enamored by war and the effects it has had on peoples. Some of my favorite bands have sung songs about Wounded Knee and HBO has shown documentaries about other conflicts between those who choose to live on reservations and those who have tried to stick it out and survive off the land. It's really fascinating stuff, and The Last Stand is another example of how decisions by men on both sides of a conflict can have long-lasting effects on people generations after they have left this place.

Primarily, The Last Stand is about Gen. Custer and his infamous last stand, and Sitting Bull, the Lakota warrior who led his people. On the surface, Custer was a moron, tactically deciding to split his army into several squads that were never coordinated and thusly were routed in a bloody battle they had no chance of winning when outnumbered nearly 8-to-1. Sitting Bull, conversely, never wanted a fight with the white man, but knew it was inevitable and so he did what was necessary when the government forced his hand. He would not go without making some poor choices of his own (some which eventually cost him his life), but to read into the detail of both these men (and those advisors around to them) is to see how culture, armaments, strategy and history all played pivotal roles in the setup and result of this battle.

It's a long, dense read (what can I say, it's the Philbrick way) but the amount of information and the buildup to the eventual battle is great stuff and I highly recommend it for history buffs or anyone as fascinated by the plight of Native people as I have become.

Friday Funnies

When I was in the 7th grade, a friend of mine's older brother introduced us to the hilarity of Amazon Women on the Moon. It's a weird movie that didn't have enough story, so apparently they threw in some sketches now and then to pad it out. No matter, the best part of the movie in my mind was first few minutes when a young Arsenio Hall comes home to a ringing phone. For a 13-year-old, this clip is filled with tons of moments I could not stop laughing at.

My Movie Challenge

The Graduate (1967): For a woman who loves Simon & Garfunkel as much as the wife does, it was stunning to hear her tell me she hadn't seen this movie all the way through. "yeah, there is the great music, the guy gets hit on by the mom and it's kinda creepy and depressing" was her basic summary. I'd like to think she could come up with something stronger for this coming-of-age classic, but at least she had the main themes down pat. Obviously most everyone knows the deal: Dustin Hoffman is a college graduate who has no idea what to do with his life. A family friend (Anne Bancroft) decides to mack on him in every way possible, taking advantage of him and teasing him until he finally buckles and schtoops her. It's weird watching this in 2012 and thinking how weirdly unrealistic this plays out in the movie. Alas, their relationship is destined for drama, and soon enters Bancroft's daughter and Hoffman falls for her in about one day, but not after an epic first date where he originally tries to get the daughter to hate him. It's epic, I tell ya, as far as wickedly cruel first dates go. In the end, a guy and a girl make a crazy decision and you are left never knowing how things ended. After watching it, the wife had two reflections: 1) How crazy it is that the Wayne's World movie recreated nearly every damn scene from this movie without missing a beat and people took that seriously; and 2) Her original summation of the movie was still to the point, only with it being even more depressing than she thought.

My Childhood, Bastardized

This one is going to be rather simple. I love board games as a kid. Actually, screw that, I still love board games. Friends and I still get together now and then to play Trivial Pursuit or Scattergories or some kind of game that pairs well with drinking. My two favorite board games are Clue and Life. I actually wish my friends and I would play Life sometime, because I think it would be a different kind of experience altogether to play it in our 30s than when we did in our teens (making $35,000 as a teacher as the game said back then seemed awesome ... hell, I think a lawyer only made $100k in the original game).

In any event, this post isn't about Life or who killed Ms. Scarlett in the kitchen with a wrench. No, this is about a basic board game that has been bastardized beyond recognition. Because honestly, how the hell does one equate this:



With this:



Besides both opening with video of an actual battleship, I see no difference at all. And by golly that movie looks like shite. Oh, and this trailer makes it appear that these mechanical alien dudes pretty much can wipe out a city and a fleet of ships with little worry, so I'm already calling bullshit that America ('fuck yeah!') is magically saving the day here with a couple cruisers and Rihanna in tow.

Game On: Week of March 16

My recent column reviewing MLB 12: The Show and MLB 2K12. Thanks to the Times Record News and Pennsylvania Live for publishing.

My Movie Challenge

Duck Soup (1933): This is up there with All About Eve as an early contender for Most Pleasant Surprise movie in the challenge list. Not sure how this one escaped me, but I didn't know it was a Marx Brothers film, so just seeing the name Duck Soup on the list was a little eye-rolling. We recently only had a short amount of time so we figured this would be a quick hour-long jaunt into something bizarre, but little did we know it would be a journey into sheer nonstop hilarity. This movie was one joke or sight gag crammed into each and every second of the movie. The only time a joke wasn't being cracked was when a line was being uttered by surprise guest appearer Martin Landau, who looks amazingly young in the film and yet the same age as in The X-Files flick at the same time. The film's premise is that Groucho gets made president of a nation on the brink of war. He spends the whole of the film insulting every man, woman and child he comes in contact with, and no one is spared and the jokes cut a wide swath of personal and physical. If you have an hour, this is a tremendous entry into the slapstick comedy genre and one of the gems of this list so far.

My Nervous Excitement

The annual tradition begins once again: the hunt by my beloved UK Wildcats for that 8th national title. There are some scary names potentially in the path of my boys so here's to hoping this batch of young fellas can handle it. It'll be a nerve-wracking few weeks, but I'll wear my shirts proudly and sing the songs and all that jazz. Bourbon will be my companion (along with Dan, the wife, Luke and many others). Go Big Blue.

Game On: Week of March 9

My recent column reviewing SSX and Asura's Wrath. Thanks to the Ventura County Star for publishing.

My Movie Challenge

Part of the wife and I's movie challenge involves a pretty good number of westerns, something we aren't super big on. Sure, we like Unforgiven and the like, but we're going to have to bang through some desert chatter and John Ford cinematography if we expect to get through the list.

Stagecoach (1939): Our first foray into the western genre wasn't nearly as bad as we'd hoped. In fact, we enjoyed this one a good deal. It has a lot of interesting "Hey!" moments. Like the fact that it is John Wayne's first film appearance ever, and a better story exists in this film than I would have thought. A rag tag group pile into a stagecoach and make their way across Cheyenne-dominant land. Among the crew are a drunken doctor, a corrupt banker, a couple hifalutin socialite types and a prostitute. Oh, and John Wayne. The greatness of the movie is in its simplicity. The story is uncomplicated and while the characters are thinly written, it's got plenty of moments of humor and drama, including a thrilling stagecoach chase that climaxes the film. What I realize in watching this movie is that it has a lot of traits other, probably greater films possess. But it was made in 1939, decades before some of those other films. Orson Welles says Stagecoach was the most perfect piece of filmmaking he'd seen, and this was a movie he watched constantly before making a little film called Citizen Kane. High praise, I'd say.

Friday Funnies

When Chevy Chase movies were not on constant repeat in the Campbell household growing up, nothing brought a hearty chuckle to our movie-watching experiences like The Naked Gun. Holy crap, just rewatching these clips reminds me of the specific gags that made my dad laugh. Not surprising, it was the little things like Frank always driving into trashcans and silly sight gags like that which set him off into a frenzy of laughing. Good times.

Game On: Week of March 2

My recent column reviewing Twisted Metal and Syndicate. Thanks to the Detroit News and Pennsylvania Times Herald for publishing.