Back to Back Hits ~ MC Hammer & Vanilla Ice

 

Please Prince, don’t hurt ‘em!

All of my troubles with Amazon and with the IRS (Internal Revenue Snakes – ha, I hope they’re reading this and it makes them cry) (but if they’re actually reading this, don’t forget my name is Frank and I live in Tieland, so there!) and with the American Psychotry Association, has made me have to legally change my name over the years.  It’s always funny when I bump into someone from way back and he calls me “Fatt Jo Tomas” and my wife will be confused.  She has long since refused to change her name with me (even though she knows they could bust in here any second now – and they’d probably TAKE AWAY ALL OUR BOOKS!)  At first she said she would “humor” me the first time I had to do it.  “Humor” me – that’s pretty funny because I didn’t find it the least bit funny (ironic!) and neither did she find it funny when the AmazonCreditBuster TM machine went to work and blocked all our spending – no thanks, it’s easier just to change your name.  My wife has refused all the name changes though because it’d be too expensive to order new checks.  So, this last name change kind of makes me sound like I’m Prince.  And, since Phatjo 2mas kind of sounds like a Prince song (although I’m sure he’d find a way to make it “doin’ the Phatjo with a Phatho” and I guess, well, I should be flattered – thanks, Prince, I owe ya one) so I thought it’d be befitting to review a Prince album since we’re likely to be mistaken for family now (which would make me “royalty” – which only makes sense because my wife always calls me a “royal” pain and I could never understand what that meant and neither could those guards that never move when I asked them a bunch of times.)

I’ve got to tell you, though, after listening to this album, Prince sure is one genius of disguise (a “mime”) because this album doesn’t sound anything at all like Prince.  As I read in the Rolling Stones once, he keeps “reinventing himself” – which always makes me giggle at the thought of Prince sitting watching Saturday morning cartoons next to a yellow midget in a top hat and Prince says, “Reinvent me a banana” and the little man says, “OK, you’re a banana!” but of course Prince is a purple banana, oh no let’s go! 

I heard a story once that I don’t really believe.  Supposedly Prince is a really bad test taker and so he had to cheat a lot in school, so he would write cribnotes on his skin and hope the teacher wouldn’t notice.  (They’re called “cribnotes” because you write them at your “house” before you get to school.)

My wife has a Prince game she plays on long road trips.  She tries to make up Prince songs based on the license plates of the cars on the road.  I’m not sure I completely get why it has to be Prince songs, but it has something to do with her theory that Prince spent some time in prison.  I’m not sure.  I mean, there’s a song on this CD called “Cool as Ice (Everybody Get Loose)” – I mean, that’s a reeeallly long title – whoa, everybody, hold up, Prince just bought another limo!

The Fisher King

 

Actually better than King Ralph

Terry Gillian, who was the only British woman on the show X-Files, directed a lot of movies in the 80s about the Dark Ages.  She is kind of a rebel because everyone knows that movies about the Dark Ages don’t make money and she made them anyway.  You go, girl!  Just like Oprah, except Oprah makes money all the time!  (My wife says that the reason Oprah keeps gaining weight and then losing it and gaining then losing, is because Oprah bought up a bunch of squares in the Oprah’s Weight this Week office pool – and she’s going to win them all!  This week she’s skinny as a debutant, and she wins the pool – you go, girdle!  Next week she’s the weight of a small car, and she wins the pool – Yugo, girl!)  So, it makes you wonder how Gillian ever gets financing for her movies if everyone knows they won’t make any money.  That’s like going to your parents to borrow a c-note and they say what do you want the money for and you tell them you want to plant it in the lake and they say hey you know money doesn’t grow on trees and you say: exactly.  And, THEY GIVE YOU THE MONEY ANYWAY.  So, people have a lot of faith in Gillian’s incredible Talent – either that or her parents are really stupid.

This movie stars Robin Williams where he plays Robin Williams the homeless guy.  And as always, who better to play Robin Williams than Robin Williams himself!  I mean, do you call in a dentist to do a hooker’s job!  No way, San Jose and the Pussycats!  The rumor in the Business of Show is that Robin Williams had just seen Julianne Moore in Shortcuts where she does an entire scene with her shirt on but no pants on at all.  The critics said she was “brave” and “talented”.  Robin Williams wanted to be brave and talented, too, so he does a scene in the Fisher King where he is in Central Park and he takes off his pants and runs around
Central Park with just his sweater on.  Then, a disc jockey played by William Hurt or Jeff Bridges (I get the two confused but I know they’re not the Tim Daly) talks Robin Williams into stealing some rich guy’s Monty Python collection – which is ironic because the director is British, too.  Then, everything comes up video,
Lydia and Robin Williams is redeemed for being homeless.

There is a heck of a lot of symbolism in this movie and you have to watch it a bunch of times to figure a lot of it out.  I’ve seen it seven or eight times already and I’m not even sure that I’ve caught it all.  It’s like going into a fish store and trying to look at all the fish in that big bowl.  There are way too many fish!  It’s like you can always either know where the fish is or how fast it’s moving, but you can never know both of these.  Fish smell like a fish store!  Some of the symbolism is very subtle – like did you notice that the movie is called the Fisher King?  Eh?!  You starting to see it?  FISHer king?  FISH store?  You see it?  I’m telling you – these guys are subtle!William Hurt or Jeff Bridges drives a Mercedes.   And someone told me that someone called the Long Island Lolita is in this movie, but I don’t remember seeing her – maybe in the dancing scene??  There is a scene where Robin Williams is in Grand Central Station – did you ever notice that all the “on-location” spots in New York all have the word “Central” in them? Central Park.  Grand Central Station.  I don’t know where the baseball teams play, but I’ll bet it’s Centraldome or something.  Sorry, I let my mind wander a bit there – but, do you see what I was doing? just like Robin Williams who lets his mind wander.  He’s a salesman by trade, but earns a little money on the side as a dance instructor – and, he’s kind of smart because he knows that the best way to make money is to do things in bulk – but, he’s apparently not smart enough to know how to collect money from the people, which is probably why he’s homeless.  Robin Williams dates a woman with a lot of tattoos.  Hey, Robin Williams, next time get the people to pay you BEFORE you teach them how to dance!  Just a little tip from Fat Joe.

Wednesday is the day Prince eats spaghetti, but Robin Williams and William Hurt or Jeff Bridges (but I’m thinking it’s probably Jeff Bridges because otherwise I think there would have been a one-man show off-Broadway Fisher King done by Robin Williams Hurt!) have dinner in a Chineese restaurant.  I heard that this scene was originally 8 hours long, because Robin Williams kept cracking everyone up by impersonating Charlie Chaplan.  But, the Charlie Chaplan state sued him because they said he was ripping them off – but, Robin Williams said it was just a tribute – but, they didn’t go for that and that’s why Gilliam had to cut this scene down and take out all the funny parts and that’s why this scene isn’t all that funny.  The DVD extras doesn’t have the 8 hour scene but that’s probably because somewhere in Charlie Chaplan’s state they have a DVD player.

So, anyway, there is a lot of symbolism throughout and the story of the fisher king is an exact parallel to the story of the two guys in the movie except that the fisher king wasn’t a looneytunes  homeless guy and back in the days of the ancient fisher king they didn’t have radios.  But, they did have Red Knights which is symbolic of William Hurt or Jeff Bridges because he is a horse jockey – who rides a horse.  And, William Hurt or Jeff Bridges is a disc jockey – who rides discs??  That seems silly, but see I told you the symbolism was subtle.  Their duty is to banquish the Red Knight which I have to assume has something to do with a lot of food.

The Life and Legend of Jay Gould by Maury Klein (in response to Tim Gracezski’s review)

 

Jay Gould doesn’t like you and he doesn’t want a Valentine

Bravo, Mr. Klein, bravo.  You should be on the Bravo Channel.  Or, the Trick Channel.  Because with this book you have carefully crafted one heck of a clever trick.

At first glance, you might think that Klein is trying to resurrect the image of the archetypal — but now largely forgotten — “robber baron.”  You might even think he’s trying to “set the record straight.”  A less experienced reader might think all these things and then let their comments degenerate into an inappropriate monologue about bodily embarrassments.  But, then you’d be wrong, and you’d be a platypus-brain.  You have some serious thinking to do – are you sure you even want to continuing being a reader anymore?  Maybe you should find a new hobby?  Can we even trust you to read a menu – “oh, sir, I’d like some Rockafeller soup, please.”  Listen, pal, we don’t serve Rockafeller soup.  I don’t think there is even such a thing as Rockafeller soup!  Those people were way too busy robbing the barons than to bother with soup.  Do you even know what you’re talking about!  Can I see your reader’s license and if you don’t have one, then you certainly shouldn’t be reading my comments here – ah, ha!  gotcha!

This book reminded me of Monopoly.  This is a fun game, but make sure you have a lot of time to play it, because this is no Tic Tac Toe, joe!  Perhaps you should bake a pie and let it cool while you play.  Better yet, bake 15 pies and let them cool because you’re going to need all the cooling time you can get once you get started on Monopoly.  You know what? keep the pies in a fireplace near the Equator because you really really really need them to cool slowly to play a full game of Monopoly.  Usually, when we play we don’t even end up finishing a game because by now everyone is tired anyway and who cares about the game once our clothes have been “mortgaged” to the bank and a game like this is how I met my wife!  I said, “Take a chance?” and she called me a “Community chest” and next thing you know we’re showing picture identification to Elvis.  Oh, and, Free Parking is not in the official rules, but do you guys play this way that when you land of Free Parking you get to rip pants on the other player’s face?  My dad used to play that way, but he said that you only had five seconds to do it and I could never mustard up the gas in time to do it.  Mustard gas?!  That’s an ironic and it’s just like Clue, that other game – with the secret passageway between the Conservatory and the Study where you had to rip pants on the other players if you went through there.

Klein is great because he doesn’t waste a lot of unnecessary time with such names as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan.  Who’s ever heard of those guys?  He might as well talk about Bobjohnjoe or Mr. Nabisco the Cookie Head.  You know these guys?  Neither do I – but, if you see Mr. Nabisco the Cookie Head tell him you think it looks like rain – it always cracks me up when he panics and looks up into the sky “Where?!  Where?!”  Poor guy.

And, come on guys, he’s a man not a Herculean!  Let’s put an end to that rumor right now!  It saddens me that so many people have to get this wrong.  Sure he maybe lived in a gilded cage and that’s why he sings.  But, it’s great how the author doesn’t mention Gould’s family because Gould didn’t have a family.  Unless you want to count the Feud, which to this day remains his favorite show.

This book is brilliant, masterful and unexpected.

Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser, introduction by E.L. Doctorow

 

You’re motorin’ – what’s your price for life!

I love the song that inspired this book and now I love the book too!  This is a book about a “homewrecker” which is kind of like Tony Shalhoub because she always scratches up stuff even though my wife says we should get her a spade, which would be a big mistake because then think of the damage she would do with that thing.  If I ever found another cat for Tony Shalhoub to play with I should call it Sister Carrie just like this book!

This is a true Cinderella story.  A couple of years ago there was a lonely bakery man named E.L.Fudge who worked for Keebler and he didn’t have many friends.  He was supposed to come up with new and exciting tasty treats but he was fixed on sandwich cookies.  My wife says that Oreos are made out of lard but that’s silly because lard sandwich is what my uncle used to call it when he would sit on my head and Oreo’s taste really really good.  The bakery guy invented a new cookie which is like an Oreo cookie except it’s shaped like an elves, which is good thing he didn’t work for Tang because no one wants to eat a cookie shaped like an arangutang.  They liked the cookie so much in the tree they named it after the bakery man.  But, then the bakery man got bored (there are only so many combinations of cookie and smoothy cream filling you can invent before someone is going to catch on that you just have a food coloring fetish) and decided to write a book.  But, since he doesn’t know how to write books (recipes, sure – but books!  First of all there are a lot more words in a book than a recipe!) he teamed up with the guy who wrote American Beauty and they wrote Sister Carrie together.  I’m not sure what it’s about but there are homewrechers and “the vapors” and suicide and the women couldn’t show their ankles.  When Emma Thompson smiles you can just tell she wants to pop your eyeball.  But, that still doesn’t mean that Kenneth Brenda should have cheater on her.  Maybe he should read Sister Carrie and he will be afraid of cats.

Enemy of the State

   

Old Erkle good – new Erkle bad

You remember Erkle from the television a long time ago?  Well, he’s all grown up now and doing Henrick Gibson plays and he’s a movie star.  Remember Erkle O’s?  Remember Activision?!

This is the story about a man who invents a printing press and must now face the dilemma: hey, if I go ahead and print this stuff, someone might read it!  I think about this dilemma every waking day.  It is a Big Responsibility.

Imagine if I were standing next to you at the video store and you picked up this movie and started to read the cover and I was standing there and I said, “New Erkle stinks” you would be pretty mad.  That’s annoying!  I’d annoy you and a side order of fries!  And, I can’t be next to you everytime you want to buy a book or a movie or a CD or whatever!  Imagine!  How could you afford to feed me?  We’d argue about shotgun all the time!  (Shotgun infinity!  Gotcha!)

So that makes no sense.  Why would anyone want to hear me standing there telling you new Erkle stinks?  Now, what would REALLY be annoying is if I protested.

“We’ve got a new Erkle!  We want an old Erkle!”

“What do we want?  Erkle!  How do we want him?  Old!”

“Hey hey, ho ho, we want Erkle, not new but old!  Hey hey, ho ho…”

I guess the point I am making is that if I stood next to you in the store and told you my review (“Hey, buddy, new Erkle stinks”) you would be very annoying with me.  But, when I WRITE IT DOWN, you people come from all over the place to read this stuff!  New Erkle stinks.  There – I’ll bet at least 20 people read that and now they know.  Maybe even Erkle read that.  If I told him that to his face, he would have knocked me into Til Tuesday!  But, if you write it down, people are polite.

Ah, but that is the dilemma of this movie.  I now have a responsibility to tell you the truth because I am writing it down.  I can tell you that new Erkle stinks and later I could deny I said it.  But, if I write it down, I can never deny that Erkle used to be funny, and now all he does is run around buildings and buy lawngeray.  And that’s why the pen is mightier than the written word.

Feelin’ Alright: The Very Best of Traffic

 

A soundtrack for the ages

If you’ve read any of my reviews lately, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t talked about Tony Shalhoub lately (I’m mad at her!  Why?  Don’t tell, jail cell!) and you’re probably really mad about how they have been cutting out big chunks of my reviews in order to use their cutesy little symbols.  It makes me mad!  Everytime I mention narcotics – except, I usually use the “d-word” – they take out all my words and replace them with (…)  I mean, what kind of smiley face is that?!  I was so mad!  But, then I realized that it’s probably a line of cocaine they’re supposed to be drawing there and that’s a pretty good representation – let’s see you do better smartie!  Can you use punctuation to draw an elephant?  I’ll bet they can!  Let’s see if they swap it in here.

 

So, I wanted to put these comments up on this movie soundtrack because it is all about drugs.  And, it sometimes tints the screen red, yellow or green (depending on the “symbolism” for the time) which is how it gets the name of the movie.

Trust Your Children : Voices Against Censorship in Children’s Literature

 

A few choice words for those who censor reviews!

(…)

…Baby One More Time [ENHANCED CD]

 

Great breasts!

Here’s a woman who has fantastic breasts!  And, it’s ok for me to say that now that she’s turned 25.  That makes her less than 30 years younger than me, so I can talk about her great breasts.  Keep on growing, Britney!  pretty soon she’ll be less than 20 years younger than me, and just think then what I’ll be able to talk about!

Now, I know there’s a whole controversy as to whether she has falsies (that means “fake nails”).  I don’t know if she does and I don’t care.  That’s a woman’s right to choose and if her mom wants to give her the Press-On treatment, the media and Entertainment Tonight should leave them alone!  I mean, you don’t see anyone talking about Michael Stipe’s fake eyelashes!  So, why pick on Britney?  Because she was just a kid, but now she’s a woman and so I can talk about her breasts.  They’re great!

This album has twelve tracks which means possibly twelve videos where she can get thiiiiiiiis close to showing us her breasts and then the camera cuts to a backup dancer.  Her backup dancers have almost as good breasts as she does!  but Britney has great breasts!

There is a Prince song called “I’m a Slave 4 U” which is funny because my wife says that Prince must have served time because he gets his song titles from license plates, but the song isn’t about cars it’s about breasts – which only shows you that my wife doesn’t know anything about Britney Spears or breasts.  Can I say that Britney is the Shakes Spears of breasts!  (Call up Entertainment Weekly!  They should use that as a headline!)

My wife always has something to say when I play this CD.  So, I try to annoy her by singing the Thong Song except I call it the Breast Song because that’s what Britney would do… “Breasts, breasts, breasts/breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts/breasts, breasts.”  The last crack that my wife had was that the song “I’m not a Girl and Not a Woman” was Britney’s way of saying she was going to get more work done.  Which I can agree with because she is a hard worker to have put out this many CDs in not so many years!  I mean, she’s amazing if you think about it.  Most superstars like her would have put out a Greatest Hits album or a Remixes album by now.  I mean, she HAS had two or three albums to pull material from.  But, Britney is too busy trying to keep the camera from showing her breasts in the videos.  But, hey, buck-o! don’t blame the camera!  Those are fantastic breasts!  If I were a camera in her videos I’d try to get near them, too!

So, I heard that Weird Al Yankovich did a parody song about diarrhea called “Poops – I Did It Again” and that Britney thought it was very funny!  So, she decided to do a parody song of his “I Love Rocky Road” only she called it “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”.  Get it?  They sound almost the same!  It’s parody!

I don’t think I need to tell you what “Bombastic Love” is about.  And “Overprotected” is about great breasts.  But, did you know that “Cinderella” and “Let Me Be” are about great breasts?  “Anticipating” is about great breasts.  Great ones!  Did you know that the Beatles have a song called “Let IT Be”?  You try telling me that’s a coincidence and you will be talking to the butt because the hand is walking away from you now!  And, her first single is a Neptune-helmed piece of electrofunk that promises she’ll do anything you want as long as it’s dancing.  And, don’t let anyone tell you differently about that song because I know there are people out there who will try.  The Internet is a weird city, man.  If they ever make a sequel to Driven, Britney should be in it.

(But, here’s the thing I just don’t get.  Why would they list this as an “enhanced CD” when it’s obvious that this is the one that came out BEFORE she got the work done?)

The Grinch (Full Screen Edition)

 

Dr. Suss would be turning over his gravestone!

This was a really risky film for the filmmakers because it has all the elements of a movie that is what they call in the Business of Show: “risky”.  There are no big name stars.  There is a confusing story that people aren’t all that familiar with.  And, since it isn’t based on a holiday, they can only play it on TV once in a while rather than once a year every year until you are dead because your ears were bleeding.

I’m kidding!  There’s no bleeding in here!  This movie is a smash!  In the words of Jim Carey’s character the Grinch: “It’s smoking time!”

I didn’t really want to see this movie because Dr. Suss was a drug addict and he liked to draw acid trips down memory lane.  And, I will have nothing to do with drugs or the horse they rode in on.  No matter what Jack Jack will tell you – he is silly, but I like him because he is a friend.  And, I didn’t think the commercials made this movie look all that good because Jim Carrey looks like the time I dropped that little green troll keychain in the toilet and it got wet.  And, his voice sounds like Richard Nixon doing an impersonation of Sean Connery.  But, then maybe it’s Sean Connery doing Richard Nixon.  But, actually you realize it’s Jim Carrey doing an impersonation of a wet troll who’s Sean Connery and Richard Nixon all at the same time.  And, that’s when you realize that this man is brilliant and you should just get over your bad bathroom troll experience and enjoy the holiday fun!  Just like Suzy Who’s on First.  And, that’s why they call Jim Carey the Man of a Thousand Jim Careys!  And in this one, he’s the wet troll Jim Carey and that one is funny!

You probably already know the story of  the Grinch because you got sick of It’s A Wonderful Life, too, and there’s nothing else on.  (Except the very special Christmas Blossom where Joey gets his finger caught in a condom machine – that was a good one!)  But, in this movie, they added some extra stuff because movies are longer than TV shows with commercials.  So, they put Cybil Sheppard in there as the woman who loves the Grinch.  And, it turns out the Grinch hates Christmas because when he was a kid he had a beard and Santa came sledding down the hill in the Norelco electric razor and shaved him too high so now he has long hair growing out of the tops of his cheeks. 

I’m surprised they didn’t get Tim Allen to play Santa in this movie because he used to sell drugs too just like Dr. Suss.

Overall, the movie is kind of funny and the guy they got to play the dog does a really good job but all the Who’s on Firsts look kind of the same so I couldn’t keep track of them.  And, Jim Carey should be discouraged from singing even in
France where they aren’t too picky about that sort of thing.

By the way, I bought the “Full Screen” edition which I think is a polite way of saying the movie is for heavy people.  I don’t know why there would be different versions of the movie depending on your weight – unless maybe they know that I tend to nod off a bit in front of the TV so maybe this version cuts out the slow parts!  Which would be fantastic!  I usually rely on Blockbuster to cut out stuff for me!

Metallica (Black Album)

 

I can’t believe it’s not better!

Actually, it can’t be better because it’s rocktastic!  I had this album when I was a pimply-faced teenager.  And, trust me, I had a lot of pimples.  People used to call me Pizza Joe Thomas.  (That was my nickname before Smitty, Toto, Jo-T, the short-lived and self-imposed Fast Joe Thomas, the Notorious FJT, and finally Father Joe Thomas which my son shortened to Fat that one time I had that seatbelt thing.  This was long before Blossom was such a TV hit that you Goddard believe it, because otherwise some wisecracker would have given me that as a nickname, too.)

My favorite song as a kid and still my favorite song on this album is You Shook Me All Night Long.  It still makes me grab my air guitar in my underwear (ok, don’t get any weird thoughts – my air guitar is not actually IN my underwear! it’s in my closet next to the Jarts I’m trying to hide from the authorities.)  “She was the best machine, she kept the motor clean, she was the best dang woman that I ever seen.  She had those fancy thighs telling me no lies and knocking me out with those American pies.  Take another chance, she had me coming for air, she told me to come but I was already there.  And, the walls were shaking the earth was shaking, my mind was shaking and we were shaking when You Shook Me All Night Long!”  Oh, the memories – I haven’t been to a hockey game in ages.

A friend, Jack Jack, told me that this was Metallica’s response to the White Beetles Album because they said oh yeah you want to put out an album that is all white well we will put out an album which is back in black because we are metal players and you are sergeant peppers and metal is black.  Jack Jack is a historian when he’s not working weekends at the deli.  And I told him that rock and roll isn’t noise pollution, rock and roll ain’t gonna die!  Which my wife doesn’t completely understand but that’s because she is The Man.