Wednesday, September 29, 2010

“Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.” - ON YOUR BLOG.


Last night when I was making tofu pups at 11pm after the gym, “Boys of Summer” came on my ipod (don’t hate, some of us love Don Henley) and I was thinking about the lyric:
“Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.”
Did you know Wiki considers that to be the most famous lyric of the song?  The wiki entry even explains the line, in case you never thought about it while sauteeing processed tofu in spray-olive-oil:
After a mid-way instrumental break is perhaps the song’s most famous lyric: “Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.” This image of once-countercultural Deadheads driving establishment status symbol Cadillacs immediately connected with Henley’s age group, and neatly encapsulated the song’s feelings of loss and aging. It is rumored that this line was inspired by Henley seeing Joe Walsh driving a Cadillac Hearse with a Grateful Dead sticker on it while on Sunset Boulevard, despite Walsh’s 1978 driver’s license revocation.
Anyway. We all get it — a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac (don’t look back, you can never look back) is pretty self-explanatory.

So then I thought — what if there were things like Foursquare badges, but more like stickers that you could stick on to people’s blogposts or tumblrs? Like a sort of shorthand commentary — if someone goes to see, I don’t know, Lou Reed perform at that Boom Boom Room thing on top of the Standard and they’re all like “It was all fashionistas and anorexic girls in PR and people only knew the words to ‘Sweet Jane’ and then they didn’t even use the right shape of icecube in my scotch” then you could stick a “Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” badge onto that post.

There could be other commentary-stickers, of course, but I only got as far as thinking about how I would to maybe stick a “Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” badge onto certain blog posts (not yours, though) and then my tofu pups were done.

It’s badges for tumblr! Or stickers for tumblr! Badgr? (hat tip to Josh!) Or Stickr?

N Train Pretzel Epiphany

This morning when I was going to work from thurpy on the N train, I realized that the (N) on the LED sign looks just like a DELICIOUS NEWMAN’S OWN PRETZEL.

This is maybe a sign that I should allow myself to start eating carbs again.

Just wanted to share!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

That Giant Cat Goes Everywhere!

Remember that time Josh and I were 18 and frosh at Wesleyan and we took that giant cat to this Bare Naked Ladies concert in Hartford for Earth Day and then we met Jim Creeggan AND WE ALSO HAD THAT GIANT CAT WITH US?

Best earth day EVER!

GPO-Your-Family-And-Also-A-Giant-Cat Tuesday!


This is a photo of my family from this weekend when I was the Rabbi/Minister at a wedding. I have been making getting-a-giant-cat noises for a long time, so, in order to persuade me to follow through on this plan, my best friend Josh photoshopped a giant cat into the portrait.
He says: "artist's rendering of what it would be like with a giant cat."

Oddly enough, this is EXACTLY what it would be like if there were a giant cat in this family portrait. My brother and I would be thrilled and my dad would be making a face like "Ooooh Nooooooooo, does there REALLY need to be a giant cat in this family, REALLY?"

GPO-Your-Family-And-Also-A-Giant-Cat Tuesday!

The Scary Mask Lady Thing in that Snickers Ad is SO TOTALLY Viola Swamp, just an FYI.


Last night at 2am when I was watching HIMYM on my DVR, there was a terrible terrible scary Snickers ad with this weird creepster mask lady. And I was like: “That is not just a mask lady! That is the evil substitute teacher from a book that perhaps I read when I was six!”

Nearly 12 hours later, I realized I thought the mask lady looked like Viola Swamp from “Miss Nelson is Missing,” because this is apparently the way my brain works.

You are so welcome!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Craig Finn Sings About Baseball!

Attention, The Hold Steady fans who also love baseball and also the music of people like my buddypal Scott McCaughey! When I saw Scott last week, he was telling me that Craig Finn wrote and recorded a song about the Twins (the Minnesota Baseball Peoples, not, like, the identical peoples in the doublemint gum commercials) for his band The Baseball Project, and it was already getting played at Twins' games and now it is on the internet for your listening pleasure. Listen to Craig Finn sing all about the Minnesota Twins. I have no idea what most of it means because I don't speak baseball, but apparently the moral of the story is: Please don't call them twinkies.




Wednesday, September 22, 2010



You know how when you are a little, little kid and you have the flu and you're sort of semi-delirious and you are watching tv with your parents because your sleep schedules are all fucked up because you're taking all that childrens' tylenol along with your antibiotics and you see a thing where Joe Piscopo sings a song to Tony Denono with the lines "Tony Denono, I can't believe that's your name" and then NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN THIS even though you talk about it all the time and you are convinced you hallucinated it?

It motherfucking exists. Somehow I feel like a large chunk of my life has suddenly shifted, rather satisfyingly, into space.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Happy 9/02/10

Here is my contribution to 9/02/10!
A few years ago, I was lucky enough to cowrite and codirect a spot for I Love the 90s. It was set at a recreation of the Peach Pit and starred none other than Joe  E. Tata, better known to you as Nat!


Joe was a pleasure to work with, a consummate pro and a total sweetheart who regaled us with tales from the set during the 90210 glory days. He even humored me when I joked about the Peach Pit offering a dish called a “Joe E. Fritatta” for brunch.

A week or so after the shoot, a box arrived at our office. We opened it up and it contained a thank you note from Joe, along with an autographed headshot and his “Nat” shirt from the Peach Pit, that he signed. I always meant to frame it, but instead it has been all crumpled up in a box for several years. Until today. Happy 90210 Day, peach pitters.
(inspired by Emily,  inspired by Slaughterhouse 90210)