Kid Gleason

The last half of Audition. All of Cannibal Holocaust.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 12:41 PM) So my wife is taking my daughter and her friend to see the Jonas Brothers tomorrow night at FMBA in Tinley. 10 dollars for lawn tickets, why not, I suppose. ....better her than me, though.....WHEW..... Of most kiddie acts, they are of the lesser evils. I would take Jonas over Miley Cyrus any day of the week.

I'm adding Django Reinhardt, just because he is unfrigginbelievable. Also Chet Atkins, since I did mention him, but not as a fave, which he is. Eddie Cochran also gets mention. His studio work and goofing around outtakes were mesmerizing. Pete Chramiec, guitarist with Verbal Assault, was also a fave of mine. He added little things to their songs that elevated them above the norm. Charro is also an amazing guitarist, though, I own nothing by her. It's been a long time since I have heard a guitarist that really caught my ear.

A guy came over to our house with his "family recipe" the other day: 2 cans of concentrated limeade 4 cans of beer 1 750 bottle of vodka top off with a little water You couldn't taste any liquor, and before I knew it I was an idiot. Well, more so than usual.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 11:27 AM) Gleason would probably choose Brian Setzer. Critic is dead on right. Setzer is my man. He can be just as clean as Chet Atkins, and just as innovative as Atkins, but he can also bust out some of the dirtiest RnR heard. His cool factor is also light years beyond pretty much everybody else on the face of the earth. He has also proven to be a perfectionist in the learning of his craft, and a true guitarist. Again, much like Atkins. My other faves are Andy McCoy from his first go around with Hanoi Rocks, and Brian Baker from his years through out Dag Nasty. McCoy was completely original, and was the ultimate example of how to take your influences, and pay respect to them, not rip them off. McCoy adores Johnny Thunders, but you will never hear a Thunders style riff or solo anywhere in his material. He takes the nuances of Thunders, twists them around Keith Richards, and then turns them into his own creature. Brian Baker was just doing Punk unlike anybody else. He was a very good guitarist, who happened to play Punk. So you had incredibly catchy riffs, great bursts of solos, without ever falling victim to (what my friends all called) Metal-damage. When every other Punk band was infusing Heavy Metal into their stuff, Baker just added killer guitar work. I like Eddie Van Halen, but I actually am NOT a Metal fan, nor a Hairmetal guy. I do like Van Halen, and find EVH amazing. He and they just are nto faves of mine. I do find it criminal that on that Rolling Stone "Greatest Guitarists" list from a few years ago, EVH was number 70, or something ridiculous like that. He SHOULD be in the top 10 list on something like that.

Anybody see the video of Brian Setzer performing "Rock This Town" with Conan O'Brien?

I into a friggin' rainbow in the dark the other day. Ever since Dio passed I've had nobody around to tell me to "look out" anymore. Tenacious D may love Dio, but they still suck. I agree with Critic.

I haven't been around these parts for a little while, and I apologize about the tardiness of my "thanks" for the acknowledgment! I appreciate it! Thanks for the kind words there Shipps!

I haven't been around much for a little while. So tell me, is the general mood around these parts as "funky" as I am expecting it to be? This is more frustrating than last year for some reason.

I use a laptop and a desktop. Depends on what I am doing. My magazine programs work better on the desktop and I prefer working on it there. Heck, I actually prefer a desktop to a laptop.

First two things off the top of my head: Brian Setzer Orchestra - Songs From Lonely Avenue The Last Vegas - Whatever Gets You Off

Guitar: '74 Hagstrom Viking '67 Hagstrom 1 '88 Alavarez Yairi 12 string '04 Epiphone Zephyr Blues Deluxe '84 Ibanez DT-350 Hondo Les Paul Jr. copy, year unknown and re-built Running througn a Marshall Plexi re-issue, driven by nothing more than a RAT pedal. Pure simplicity.

Huh...so far I like 2 of the bands listed and despise a bunch of the others. Maybe I am not such an "Old Guy" after all.

I take it that it is too late for voting? Kind of funny...I don't own anything by any of the bands listed so far... Oh...I do have Pearl Jam 10 on cassette somewhere in the crates in my basement. Might have a souple Fleetwood Mac's down there also on cassette.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 03:11 PM) Very hard to do nowadays. I was just explaining how I ended up in my situation. Trust me, for as frustrated as I get about people and their college hang-ups, the last thing I want is for my kids to NOT go to college. Every so often (O.K., every f'in day) I wonder how much happier I might possibly be if I had gone to school and actually accomplished my dreams. If I had actually gained that degree in art. But then I also stop and think "O.K., but what if I did do that, and I was miserable doing what I thought I would LOVE doing?". I don't think anything would have crushed me more than always dreaming of becoming an artist, making a living doing cartoons, then finding I hated it as much as this b******t career I have now. The way it is now, I can atleast escape to the hobbies I love. It's a bad day today...sorry.

Or you could NOT go to college...take a job because you need the job, and then work your way up within that company. I never went to college.

Cartoonist - first and foremost. Pretty much my whole life was a love of cartooning. Comic strips being what were my favorite form of art. I could never get enough. You can keep your stuff like Picasso and those twits. Give me Berke Breathed and/or Don Martin any day of the week. Make-up FX artist - Thank you Tom Savini Guitarist - But even early on I always knew how un-likely that was. So I always wrote and played exactly as I pleased. Never thought in the slightest I was going to "make it". Stunt-man - I then realized I was afraid of heights, and that dream passed. I became somebody who works with numbers for a living...and I HATE math. I am the ultimate example for my kids of "find what you REALLY love and chase it...but never say you will never end up doing something for a living...as I did". I still haven't decided that this is what I plan to do forever. I can't imagine doing this for the rest of my career, and I am 39! But if I am still in this field when I am 60...I hope to God somebody is paying me A LOT of money, or somebody is getting ready to shoot me.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 7, 2009 -> 03:10 AM) Secondly, their products are the most simple and intuitive on the market. You pick up one of their devices or turn on their computers, and you don't need to read an instruction manual. Operation comes naturally. I can't express in words how huge of an advantage this is. THAT is it 100%! It is amazing how easy that is to understand once you try using anything else. I have bought my kids numerous MP3 players, and they all confuse the heck out of me and leaving me wanting an instruction manual. But the Pods have never been that way. You just knew what to do with them...somehow. One of the guys I work with just got an iPhone, and that intuitive thing isn't right there for him though. He has been lost on numerous aspects, such as voice mail. I haven't looked at it, so I don't know if it is the phone set-up or his own idiocy. Me? I'm a Verizon Blackberry Curve user. My contract is up next year, just in time for the Storm to really be figuring itself out. I figure the Storm3 will be hitting the market, and I will probably go that route. I like Blackberry, for some reason.

I scared my naighborhood quite effectively. Yes...I am very proud of it.

I have a Blackberry Curve for my phone, and one of the things that irritates the heck out of me is the extreme lack of apps. They have them, but nowhere near as many as the iPhone and Touch. It also seems that all new app builders are only going with the Apple units. Even though there is the BB Storm out there, which is a touch screen and should therefore be easy enough to create apps for both it and the Apple devices, companies still only shoot for the Apple. I say this because if apps are something you are looking into, I would say you shouldn't even think of anything other than the iTouch right now. Supposedly the Blackberry is the number 1 selling smart phone, and if app builders aren't even considering that one really, then the Zune will be a LONG time coming with getting any decent apps. My wife has an iTouch (oh...the puns that could be done with that...), and I have to say I love the dang thing. So much so that even though I do have my Curve, I am still entertaining thoughts of getting myself a Touch. The apps are plenty, and the thing is so easy to use in its natural form. Just like an iPod, you realize very quickly why they are so popular. Even if you have never used one, you know instantly what to do with it. It is a perfect creature of "common sense". As for jailbreaking, my wifes is jailbroken. A guy here at my office did it, then handed it to us and said "now...you will need to take care of the rest". Which means there are numerous aspects of it that have NOT been finished. So unless you are a techy kind of person who plans to stay on top of the jailbreak, I say don't do it. If this was MY iTouch, I would have no problems with the updates or finishing the jailbreak. But my wife is NOT a techy person, so her jailbreak is a little pointless, and in need of updating. But between the two devices you are considering...I say do the iTouch.

Is TMZ one of the worst things to ever grace TV??? I can't believe what kind of crap this show is.

As for events that shaped the world...ummmm...how about the Big Bang???

Anybody know what radio station might be carrying these games???

What's his Twitter address? I can't seem to find it, or keep finding other addresses that aren't correct. Twitter is a pain to search for people on.

I love Letterman, think he is one of the greatest interviewers ever. One of the funniest people on TV also, IMO. But I always got the impression the guy was a jerk in the real world and arrogant as could be. So this is really not a surprise at all, nor does it damage my view of him. This is a guy who always spoke poorly of marriage to begin with and more or less shocked people when he did finally "settle down".