August 4

Sometimes, these blog posts generate themselves:


Good to fit in two birthday wishes, but this post is for Helen Thomas, who has sat in White House press conferences since the Kennedy Adminstration. Plus, she was born in Winchester, Kentucky (down the holler from me), so she gets some hometown love.
Here's a great encapsulation about her career, and its recent (and controversial) ending:

However you interpret her statement, she conceded the insensitivity of her remarks. (But that's kind of common for folks her age; that's why we retire them [See what I did there? Just to be clear, that's an attempt by me to offer humor through a sarcastic ageist statement... unless I'm really prejudiced against old people... or I'm trying to boost blog hits by making incendiary remarks... some of my best friends are old people...]) And because she considers herself a journalist (and not a Fox News correspondent [see what I did there? Just to- never mind.]), she retired.

I don't know if anyone is poised to pick up the torch, regarding her relentless equal-opportunity questioning of every administration of the last 50 years. And her record for crushing press secretaries' souls will likely remain unchallenged for centuries to come. (I think I might be ageist. Forgive me.)
Look at what she did to Stephen Colbert (fast forward to 04:20)

March 10

What's German for Happy Birthday? Let's say 'Alles gute zum gerbetstag!' to Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, or as he is mercifully called, simply "Uwe". Uwe happens to be a music star in his native Germany, and it's his keyboard prowess that propelled Nena onto the global charts of the 80's. Even if the girl wears the name, you can't spell Nena without Uwe, apparently...
Let's be real: what's the best part of '99 Luftballons'? Is it Nena's teutonic accent, or is it that synthesizer breakdown at the bridge? Whether it's '99 Luftballons' (literally '99 Toy Balloons') or '99 Red Balloons', it's Uwe's music that carries the lyrics. [BTW, I'm going on record as preferring the 'Red Balloon' version.] But even this 2008 version is fetchy:

Resurrecting Nena the band is only one thing on Uwe's itenerary. He also worked on the comeback for Kim Wylde, produced soundtracks for Television and movies (including the North American releases Igby Goes Down and All the Queen's Men,) and appeared as a judge on Germany's version of Popstars. So he's a big deal in Germany.
In fact, I wanted to find something with Uwe's face, and found this German animated cartoon, featuring a dinner party at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's place. He's the fauxhawk on the left.

So get a red balloon today and let it fly. Unless you live on the 38th Parallel.

December 4

Today's Fred Armisen Day, who's pretty much locked in his job on Saturday Night Live for the next three seasons when he became the official Barack Obama impersonater for the show. And that's why I picked him to talk about today, because I wonder what it means that there's a white guy that basically performs in blackface every week on national TV, and there aren't riots in the streets. Is it a step forward for America, or backward? Is Armisen's impersonation that good? Is Obama really black? Is anybody still watching SNL? Besides the Digital Shorts?
Seriously, this was a pretty good political skit that opened SNL a few Saturdays ago, although Jon Stewart would have made the same point in 20 seconds on the Daily Show.



Maybe the reason it hasn't raised any ire is because the joke about Obama is that he's always the straight man in the joke, the sane guy in the room that stands there and takes it as the universe keeps throwing pies in his face.

Anyway, while I was digging up stuff about Armisen, I found this video for the band Man Man. I was going to dig up a video of one of the bands he's drummed in, but I like this little film too much



You know what today's blog needs? PORCELAIN FOUNTAINS!!!



Now that's class...