Please Shop at Anthro-Pop

If you live in Little Rock[1] and you need a CD, then please just get it at Anthro-pop. Rod can special order anything in the world and usually have it in faster than Amazon.com. Sure Amazon is cheaper, but then there’s that whole shipping charge, isn’t there? Sure you could shop at Best Buy, but you must realize that if you do so, you are effectively crushing music stores everywhere. Remember music stores? Remember High Fidelity? These places are getting fewer and further between because Best Buy loses money on every disc they sell. They just want to get you in the store to buy an appliance or a computer. It’s a shrewd business model, but if you care about music then you’re not necessarily concerned with business excellence are you? Do you want to watch a movie about John Cusack and Jack Black working at Best Buy? I would hope not.

The sad state of music retail aside, I say all this because Anthro-pop is a fabulous place to spend an hour or two and because Rod is an exceptionally knowledgeable and generous guy. I bought a couple of CDs and he gave me Season 3 of Land of the Lost on DVD for FREE. It was a promo thing he got for free, but still. Fun excerpt from the back of the box:

“Behold the fire-breathing dinosaur Torchy – menace to Human, Pakuni, and Sleestak alike!”

I have no idea what that means but how can it not be awesome!? Thanks, Rod!

1.) If you live in North Little Rock, then please buy from Bill at Arkansas Record/CD Exchange.

I am Lane Meyer

You know that scene in Better Off Dead where John Cusack has been dumped and he’s driving along and every song on the radio is a breakup song? That happened to me this morning, except that every song came from the same album, in this case one of my all-time favorites, Sugarbomb’s Bully. I had never noticed that the record is populated almost exclusively by breakup songs. Witness:

“Waiting”

Waiting for the phone to ring (refrain x 3)
and I hope it will be you

“Hello”

One thing’s for sure
What I would give to simply open my door
And see your smiling face

“Mail Order Girlfriend”

It’s over I feel it
She’ll never come visit

“What a Drag”

What a drag how people change
Once you really get to know them

It gets even worse when you get into “Poster Child for Tragedy” so I’ll spare you that one. Suffice it to say that the defunct Dallas band made one of the great one-album wonder classics. If you can find a copy, it has my highest recommendation.

The 10 Most Influential People

My friend Thelton teaches 6th grade and they asked me to give them my Top 10 Most Influential People in Human History. So here’s what I came up with. In no particular order. OK, maybe there’s an order. For me personally.

  • Philo Farnsworth
  • Isaac Newton
  • Socrates
  • Jesus Christ
  • Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
  • Charles Darwin
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Julius Caesar
  • Adolf Hitler
  • Alexander the Great

We’re All Astronauts

That’s the overriding thought pattern in my head whenever I’m working out in the small office gym we’ve set up. Our jobs are so physically undemanding, we’d turn to jelly if we didn’t work out. As a kid I remember thinking it was funny that astronauts in zero G had to work out regularly to keep their muscles from atrophying. But these days, in any tech-based job or other cubicle farmhouse, it’s only slightly less essential.

The Continuing Saga of 101.1 FM

Remember awhile back when I complained that my favorite radio station was gone? Well it changed again. For a few months it was a modern rock/pop station, but over the weeked, a rather bizarre transition occured. For about 24 hours straight, the station played Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

Definitely the weirdest format change I’ve ever witnessed in this town. Especially after giving the previous format such a short span to in which to work.

I still haven’t heard any DJ’s on the air, just the FCC-mandated call letters and city. I also can’t get a fix on their format. You tell me what kind of station has this playlist:

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – Big Girls Don’t Cry
Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Come on Eileen
Sweet – Ballroom Blitz
Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough
Chic – Le Freak
David Bowie – Let’s Dance

Everything else I’ve heard has been mostly 70’s disco tunes with names I can’t recall. Weird.

Movies and Days in Review

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a marvelous thing. Guns, action, sexiness and subtext. What the movie never quite says (and what perhaps it may not even know) is that the film is an exaggerated metaphor for all marriages. Being married means surrendering yourself to one person and trusting them not to kill you in your sleep. When Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staring down the barrels of each others’ guns, they have to give in, they have to make a leap of faith and surrender to one another. It’s a cute conceit, tied up in shattered glass and head trauma wrapping paper.

Batman Begins is another winner. Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane seriously wigged me out, and Liam Neeson takes his Star Wars mentor bit into a darker place. Michael Caine rocks the house, although his Cockney accent seems out of place for a butler. Christian Bale is a better playboy than Michael Keaton and a better Dark Knight than George Clooney. And Katie (I’m the non-British one) Holmes…well, our little girl is growing up. May God save her from being eaten alive by the increasingly batty but still totally not gay Tom Cruise. As a bat-nerd since 1990, I have to say this movie surpasses the original Tim Burton version.

Land of the Dead marks the first time I’ve seen a real B-movie in a theater. It’s truly a fun crappy film.

In other news, Matt leaves for Salt Lake City tomorrow. There needs to be a word for “sad for me but happy for you.” Reverse schadenfreude?

Oh and I interviewed the Boondogs for Localist on Sunday. Check them out. Moody, low-watt power pop.

867-5309

It’s easy to take for granted what the invention of the telephone has brought to courtship and human relationships. Getting a phone number from a member of the opposite sex is such a crucial first step in the dating process; how did we ever date without them?

And how will the Internet change this? Obviously the exchange of email addresses is taking on a status similar to that of the phone number exchange, but I truly believe that the Internet will affect the very way we meet people. Why go to a bar and hope to find someone interesting enough to ask for a phone number? Why not flip through profiles and web pages of people so that you can move quickly past their physical exteriors to get some idea of who they really are? Sure there’s the likelihood of subterfuge, but it will always be smaller than that of its outdoor counterpart. Assuming of course that you’re looking for a personality to match yours, and not just an attractive body.

Consider this. Jamie B started a profile at Nerve.com for her sister Amy (the twins mentioned in the June 16 entry), whom I then met and with whom I became good friends. I later got onto Orkut.com (wherein I met my other Jamie) and pulled in Jamie B, wherein she met her now-fiancee Charles. I’ve also made a few new friends via myspace.com. So it’s already happening. And it’s not just for hopeless nerds who never leave the house. Not anymore.