Author Archives: Rob MacD

The Fam and I went to see King Kong at a Wednesday afternoon matinee.  I like the holiday matinees because they usually aren’t as busy as regular movie nights and matinees.  There weren’t a lot of people in the theatre for this showing, and that is always good.

The movie was fantastic.  Yes, perhaps a bit too long (but still entertaining) to get to Skull Island, but man oh man what a rip-roaring old-fashioned adventure once we got there.  It was pure excitement and thrill.  Fun fun fun.
My only complaint with the movie were the actions of the heroine at the end of the movie.  Without spoiling it for those who haven’t seen it, I’ll just say that the efforts she makes at the end of the movie are wholly not believable.  I don’t care what your motivations are, but when you’re standing on a 15 foot wide dome plate, a thousand feet in the air, you’re going to act like you’re afraid of falling.  And, I may be wrong, but I believe the winds at the top of the Empire State Building are blowing a lot stronger than it appeared in the film.

So, a great adventure movie that is only slightly tarnished by the ludicrousness of the final scenes at the top of the building.

Absolutely worth seeing at the theatre.

You know how a lot of people who are overweight complain that their problem is glanular?  It’s not that they overeat or eat bad food, necessarily, it’s just in their genes.

Well, what happens to starving Africans who have the same glanular problem?  Do they end up being Super Models?

Maybe this will kick start my desire to post to this blog again.
Here we go, the first ten songs to randomly show up on my iTunes playlist:

1)  Elvis Costello – Tokyo Storm Warning:  I quite like this song.  It “moves”, you know?  Elvis’s voice is fully there, vitriolically spitting out the words, as only he can.  I think Costello has one of the best voices in Rock.  I’d put him up there with John Lennon and Joe Strummer.  This is from his Blood & Chocolate LP.  I have the impression that this album was underappreciated.  Not by me, though…. Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve heard this song, and after typing all this, it’s still on.  I realise it’s 6:25 long.  Probably a minute or two too long.  I like quick, in and out songs, and this one just wore out its welcome at the five minute mark.

2) The White Stripes – Let’s Build A Home: From the De Stijl album.  The White Stripes were all that for a couple of months.  They are still churning out some pretty good material, but I’ve pretty much lost my woody for them.  This song is pretty much a bit of nothing.  But well done, rocking nothing-ness.

3) The Dry Branch Fire Squad – We Believe In Happy Endings:  I don’t know anything about this group, but it comes from a compilation album of Rounder Records recording artists.  This is a right purty song, kind of a slow-tempoed bluegrass thingy.  Nice close harmonies, simple instrumentation.  I could listen to this kind of music all day long.

4) Baaba Maal/Monsour Seck – Lam Tooro:  Apparently this comes from an album called Djam Leeli.  This is one of those tracks that I read about, positively reviewed on some music blog, and download out of curiosity.  It then gets added to my large library and gets forgotten about until it pops up in some random shuffle, like this one.  This is World Music, I suppose.   It’s not doing much for me.  I’m trying to decide whether to keep it in my library, or delete it.  I’m kind of like a pack-rat when it comes to songs.  I hate to delete anything, unless it is really unappetising to me.  Because you never know, the next time you hear it, you might be in the right mood and there it’ll be.  But, you know, I don’t think I’m going to bother to save this one.  It’s just a bit too much of a repetitive loop of a guitar phrase, going nowhere really.  To the Dust Bin with you.  Nothing personal, ‘kay?

5) Neil Young – Sugar Mountain: From the Decade album.  Classic live acoustic Neil Young.

6) Hank Williams – I’m A Long Gone Daddy:  Hank has at least three types of songs.  Heartbreaking songs of misery.  Lighthearted songs of misery.  And religious songs of misery.  This fun song falls into the middle category.  A great song.

7) Tears For Fears – Head Over Heels:  One of those 80’s duos where you wondered exactly was the other guy’s role.  This song has a great big 80’s sound.  Just listen to those trumpet-blast keyboard stings.  Somewhere, right now, Molly Ringwald’s ears are perking up.  In 2 more minutes, they’ll perk down and she’ll return to present-day anonymity.

8) They Might Be Giants – Chess Piece Face:  TMBG make kids music for grown-ups.  Totally off the wall nonense type stuff a lot of the time.  What the hell is this song about?  Whatever happened to Chess Piece Face?

9) Elvis Costello – All This Useless Beauty:  A second Elvis song in the ten.  Well, whattya know.  I’ve always loved the title of this song.  The song itself is a lovely piano ballad.  What shall we do with all this useless beauty?  I’d like to see the musical that this song could be from.  Which reminds me, I’ve had the idea to write a musical but use already exsiting songs from other artists as the score.  It would be great!  Yeah.  It would.

10) John Lennon – Real Love:  From the posthumous Wonsaponatime album.  This sounds like a demo version of the song.  Sometimes I get sad thinking that John Lennon is gone, lamenting all the great songs that he might’ve written if he were still alive.  This song usually takes me to that sad place.

Maybe this will kick start my desire to post to this blog again.
Here we go, the first ten songs to randomly show up on my iTunes playlist:

1)  Elvis Costello – Tokyo Storm Warning:  I quite like this song.  It “moves”, you know?  Elvis’s voice is fully there, vitriolically spitting out the words, as only he can.  I think Costello has one of the best voices in Rock.  I’d put him up there with John Lennon and Joe Strummer.  This is from his Blood & Chocolate LP.  I have the impression that this album was underappreciated.  Not by me, though…. Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve heard this song, and after typing all this, it’s still on.  I realise it’s 6:25 long.  Probably a minute or two too long.  I like quick, in and out songs, and this one just wore out its welcome at the five minute mark.

2) The White Stripes – Let’s Build A Home: From the De Stijl album.  The White Stripes were all that for a couple of months.  They are still churning out some pretty good material, but I’ve pretty much lost my woody for them.  This song is pretty much a bit of nothing.  But well done, rocking nothing-ness.

3) The Dry Branch Fire Squad – We Believe In Happy Endings:  I don’t know anything about this group, but it comes from a compilation album of Rounder Records recording artists.  This is a right purty song, kind of a slow-tempoed bluegrass thingy.  Nice close harmonies, simple instrumentation.  I could listen to this kind of music all day long.

4) Baaba Maal/Monsour Seck – Lam Tooro:  Apparently this comes from an album called Djam Leeli.  This is one of those tracks that I read about, positively reviewed on some music blog, and download out of curiosity.  It then gets added to my large library and gets forgotten about until it pops up in some random shuffle, like this one.  This is World Music, I suppose.   It’s not doing much for me.  I’m trying to decide whether to keep it in my library, or delete it.  I’m kind of like a pack-rat when it comes to songs.  I hate to delete anything, unless it is really unappetising to me.  Because you never know, the next time you hear it, you might be in the right mood and there it’ll be.  But, you know, I don’t think I’m going to bother to save this one.  It’s just a bit too much of a repetitive loop of a guitar phrase, going nowhere really.  To the Dust Bin with you.  Nothing personal, ‘kay?

5) Neil Young – Sugar Mountain: From the Decade album.  Classic live acoustic Neil Young.

6) Hank Williams – I’m A Long Gone Daddy:  Hank has at least three types of songs.  Heartbreaking songs of misery.  Lighthearted songs of misery.  And religious songs of misery.  This fun song falls into the middle category.  A great song.

7) Tears For Fears – Head Over Heels:  One of those 80’s duos where you wondered exactly was the other guy’s role.  This song has a great big 80’s sound.  Just listen to those trumpet-blast keyboard stings.  Somewhere, right now, Molly Ringwald’s ears are perking up.  In 2 more minutes, they’ll perk down and she’ll return to present-day anonymity.

8) They Might Be Giants – Chess Piece Face:  TMBG make kids music for grown-ups.  Totally off the wall nonense type stuff a lot of the time.  What the hell is this song about?  Whatever happened to Chess Piece Face?

9) Elvis Costello – All This Useless Beauty:  A second Elvis song in the ten.  Well, whattya know.  I’ve always loved the title of this song.  The song itself is a lovely piano ballad.  What shall we do with all this useless beauty?  I’d like to see the musical that this song could be from.  Which reminds me, I’ve had the idea to write a musical but use already exsiting songs from other artists as the score.  It would be great!  Yeah.  It would.

10) John Lennon – Real Love:  From the posthumous Wonsaponatime album.  This sounds like a demo version of the song.  Sometimes I get sad thinking that John Lennon is gone, lamenting all the great songs that he might’ve written if he were still alive.  This song usually takes me to that sad place.

Sketch22 Christmas Poster 2005
Originally uploaded by The Annekenstein Monster.

The Sketch22 Christmas show is only a week away.
We’ve been asked a lot: “Is your show going to be sacrilegious?”
I usually start to ask: Can you define sacrilegious?, but end up just saying: “Yeah. Probably.”