Put your thoughts down and respond to the nomination categories for Mr Trivia's Curmudgeon Awards 2009. Go over to the other blog and see what all the fuss is about.
DailyCeleb.com & David Edwards Hey Zeitgeisters, Bet you thought this blog would never top “ What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair? ” For those of you who weren’t part of that historical blog entry, it was the glittering moment where I wondered what’s with West Wing star Bradley Whitford’s hair. Good times. However, tonight, while watching the current series (in Australia) of CSI :Original Recipe , I was forced to witness the unpleasantness of George Eads’ new(ish) 'do and I felt compelled to blog on’t. George plays the part of Nick Stokes and has spent some 5 or 6 seasons with a haircut “you could set your watch to,” as Grandpa Simpson might say. It was always short; it always had that US Marine Corps vibe; it was always as dependable as the ebbing and flowing of the tides. Now in something of an El Nino effect, I note that someone in Jerry Bruckheimer’s organization has decided to mess with the length of George’s crowning glory. Although I chiefly watch CSI wa...
Okay, Zeitgeisters, that’s as shallow an attention-grabbing start as one could ever want, but I really want to know. And sure, I’m really talking about Josh Lyman’s hair. (I’m like one of those people who insist on calling an actor by their character’s name – only in reverse. e.g. “Go Knight Boat!”) Whitford plays Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman, in the Aaron Sorkin -created, NBC television series The West Wing . He plays this part to a tee and now he’s set to do great things in the new Sorkin drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip . I know this last bit because the Angriest Ex-Video Store Clerk in the world told me. Oh, and Whitford ’s married to the awesome Jane Kaczmarek who plays mom, Lois, in the series Malcolm in the Middle. So Mr Whitford’s your regular pop-cultural icon and yardstick for excellence. We’re here in this, frankly, puzzling cultural landscape, because I’ve just finished watching season four of The West Wing on DVD. And Josh Lyman’s hair has bothered me througho...
So Zeitgeisters, Miss Raspberry Beret and I were driving down Venn Street in North Perth. I said, “Venn diagrams” in that way you do to work your mouth and you have no connecting thought. Fatally, Miss RB asked, “What’s a Venn diagram ?” And I said, “Well you have these two circles see. And there’s things inside them. Points. You know the circles overlap. And where they overlap…hold on. There’s these different objects. Some are in one circle and some are in the other. And there’s an array. No there isn’t. Forget everything I just said, there’s no array and I know f**k all about Venn diagrams.” Everything I learned in high school twenty years ago has dried up into tiny particles which leak out of my ears while I sleep. Elevate the Insignificant, Mr Trivia
Zeitgeisters, I don’t mind it when Miss Raspberry Beret asks me if what she’s wearing is hot, happening, kicking out the jams, etc. This is a dread area for many guys but I’ve watched enough Trinny and Susannah or QUEER EYE to give it a red hot go. However, I can’t answer any of her questions about hair. Freakin’ hair. A Woman’s Crowning Glory etc. When posited a follicular styling question, I revert to being Mr C from HAPPY DAYS, or Fred Mertz from I LOVE LUCY or Fred MacMurray from MY THREE SONS (more on MacMurray soon). That is to say, as hapless as any iconic 1950s television husband when faced with something feminine. So the other day we’re getting ready to go out and Miss RB says, “I don’t know what to do with my hair. What do you think?” I try severally to weasel out of it. I distract with light chat about climate change. I attempt to make it a feminist issue that simply doesn’t involve my input. “But I value your opinion,” Miss RB says. So I employ hyperbole. “This c...
Zeitgeisters, Its winter in the Southern Hemisphere or SoHem as we like to call it down here. Which means its soup-making time. I like to get a ham shank and a leek and some magic beans and boil it up for a couple of hours and then freeze the result in a number of containers. Not quite the way granny would’ve done it, but its as close as I get. Last winter I was doing this very thing on a particularly cold night and managed to mist up my small flat. The windows, the computer and the front of the microwave all had a fine layer of moisture on it. I opened all the doors and windows thinking that equalising the temperature outside and would be in some way effective. You know that way you seize upon half-remembered scientific principles learnt years ago in school? I went about with a towel and dried light switches, the desk lamp and the telly etc. Then I sat on the sofa in a my thickest jacket while a chilly wind blew through the flat. I managed to catch a pretty good documentary on SBS a...
Zeitgeisters, time for the confession. I watch CSI once a week. Any of the CSI 's. It doesn't matter which one. I don't really care if it's Miami, New York or Original Recipe. Although I know the Original Recipe crew by name. And I am even prepared to diss their hair when necessary. I watch CSI Miami because I love things shot in an orangey palette. I also love the way that Horatio Kane (David Caruso) does that dog-with-head-tilted look. Unfortunately this look stands in for a number of emotions, "I'm trying to work out if you're telling the truth"; "I know you're not telling the truth and this head-tilt is intended to psych you out" and "If I weren't in such deep emotional pain maybe you and I could have a shot at the big brass ring". Like Roger Moore's eyebrow and Bruce Willis's smirk, the gesture doesn't multi-task as well as the actor imagines. I watch CSI New York because Gary Sinise's character (Ma...
Monday. Sick at home and thus unable to educate today’s youth to not say LOL as a word. Not that I can manage this even when I’m there. I discover day-time television is as terrible as night-time television with a couple of subtle differences. Day-time TV is filled with infomercials about buying life insurance without a medical and infomercials for bagless, cyclonic Dyson ripoff vacuum cleaners that can pick up a bowling ball using just suction. Night-time telly is filled with infomercials about how the whole world is going crazy for Zumba and informercials with scantily clad ladies (some of whom can pick up a bowling ball using just suction) who want you to call them NOW for just $20.00 a minute.
Guten Abend Zeitgeisters, I work in an open plan office (it’s a loft or mezzanine style of thing) and it is a common occurrence to hear other people's mobile phones going off. Graeme downstairs has a “My Sharona” ringtone and Liz, with whom I share my office, has a Madonna ringtone. Like any other oft-heard sound, these cut into my brain like brick-saw into concrete. To be fair, my own ringtone is just as bad. If you have a Nokia 3120 , then you can sample the twittering cacophony that is “Urgency”. Imagine the sound of a finch caught on a length of razor wire, then amplify it. What I love is the reaction when anyone hears it for the first time. “Is that your ringtone?” they ask, as though I might have programmed it by accident. I have very purposely chosen a high, “top-endy” sound so it cuts through the background noise. I propose a new piece of cell phone etiquette. Much in the same way that one doesn’t comment on how other people raise their children – especially not ...
Zeitgeisters, Bert (below right) and Ernie of Sesame Street. You gotta love them. For many of us this was the first comedy duo we ever saw perform. When I was six years old these two were my Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, Morecambe and Wise. Ernie was my favourite, naturally. I couldn’t understand why Bert was always trying to spoil Ernie’s fun. Ernie had energy, liked a laugh and knew how to enjoy life. Bert was a good guy, but he had an authoritarian bent. I was tidying up around the house yesterday and I turned up a miniature Ernie Plushie that I bought a couple of years back. He’s something like the one pictured, but mine looks a little sadder and in need of some help from a charitable organization. I picked up charity case Ernie and was working out where to place him (on top of the fridge? Computer?) when I had an epiphany. I realised that I had shifted from identifying with Ernie in my youth to being someone who embodies more of the qualities of Bert in my adulthood. I am...
Note: If you’re here, you were connected with Perth’s Film and Television Institute at some point. The FTI in the form that we know it, is being wound up and some of its functions are being taken over by ScreenWest. This is my idiosyncratic tribute to the FTI as it was formerly. I’m not someone who plans things. Depending on how well you know me, you might be saying “Amen to that” right about now. There was no plan to have anything to do with filmmaking when my friends and I entered our first efforts in the WA Film and Video Festival almost 35 years ago (forerunner of the WASAs). We made experimental films on Super 8 movie film; in-camera editing, falling down sand dunes, raw meat and tomato sauce representing the terrible effects of our filmic violence. Super-8 was the cheapest type of movie film. 8 millimetres in width. You could shoot two-and a-half to three-and-a-half minutes depending on your frames-per-second. We had no money, so shot “longer” at 18 fps. Our ti...
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