ICONS

Then

And Now

And while we're at it, someone should make this picture poster size. I would buy it, frame it and hang it in my home. In a heartbeat. It's one of my favorite pictures ever. It may even replace FDR.

DANGEROUS MINDS

EDIT: Nope, down again. One of these times I'm going to figure out how to just rip the tracks from the YouTube videos and upload them myself. Then ABKCO will come after me for billions of dollars, because God knows Kieth Richards and Mick Jagger don't have quite enough money.

I think the Dangerous Minds blog is going to be my new favorite website.

Yesterday, they had a post in which they isolated every track from "Gimme Shelter", which is probably the second most popular Rolling Stones song behind "Satisfaction" and it's brilliant. Even though that song has been overused in just about every movie trailer of the past 20 years, it's still a great song and one of my favorites. To hear everything isolated the way like that is really something cool. I've always appreciated the subtle nuances of that song and to be able to hear it all piece by piece makes it even more impressive, I think.

The vocal track is probably the one that stands out the most, though.



The rest of the tracks are posted here and I suggest listening to them all. Even Charlie Watts' drum track is listenable on its own.

I get the feeling a lot of people were stoked on this, because they posted another one today. This time, it's The Beatles "Helter Skelter" and once again, the vocal track is probably the best one. Although, John Lennon playing bass with no subtlety whatsoever is also pretty cool to hear. I've embedded the vocal track below, but you can hear the rest of the tracks on the Dangerous Minds blog post.

I HATE GUITAR CENTER

Let me tell you a little story. This started about two weeks ago and came to the stunning conclusion yesterday afternoon. I've been alluding to it for the past little while via Twitter, and now you'll finally get to hear the entire thing, but it's a long one, so bear with me. It's the story of a guy and his guitar...

The first guitar I ever owned was a Washburn acoustic that I got for Christmas when I was 12. I didn't do much with it for the first couple of years; I knew how to play the basic chords and could cheat my way through "Wild Thing" and "Gloria" and easy stuff like that, so it was fine. When I was 15, I got an electric guitar (which I still have) and the acoustic rarely got touched after that. The Washburn was a good guitar, but it wasn't very fun to play.

The strings were really hard to push down and I couldn't file the nut down without the strings dragging along the frets, so it got played less and less. Then it just started to break down. One of the tuning keys broke off and I had to replace it with one that looked nothing like the rest of them. Another time, my friend Chad came over, put on Motley Crue, grabbed the guitar and started dancing around and hit the bottom on the corner of my desk. It put a nice sized hole in the body, but didn't affect the way it sounded, so I wasn't too bummed.

Cut to all these years later and I don't really have a band anymore and I live in an apartment, so I never hook my guitar up to an amplifier. I tried playing my acoustic a few times and it just wasn't fun. Still hard to play and even harder to keep in tune. So I decided I needed a new one, especially if I was going to become a successful singer/songwriter like that dreamy Dashboard Confessional fella.

I've never been a huge fan of Guitar Center, but I feel its a necessary evil. Whenever we had to stop there on tour was always my least favorite thing to do. We'd end up there for hours and about halfway through, I'd always be back in the hot van waiting for the rest of them. I drove to the one in Salt Lake a couple of weeks ago, which takes about 20-25 minutes to get to from my house. Not a huge deal, but it's not a quick trip either.

I went in to the acoustic room, looked around and played a couple for a few minutes before I found one that I really liked. I grabbed it and the guy behind the counter (who was one the phone) waved me over. I stood there for about 5 minutes while he finished his phone call before he started to ring me up. My GC card had been deactivated, so I had to go through the process of reactivating it, which wasn't a big deal, but I had to follow him to three different spots around the store before we finally got back to his counter in the acoustic room. He asked if I wanted a case and the three-year warranty in case anything happened. I agreed to both of them, he grabbed the guitar from the back and case from next to the counter and sent me on my way.

When I got home, I immediately opened the box, excited to embark on my solo career. One problem: it was the wrong guitar. It was the guitar that I picked out, just not the right color. Not the biggest deal, but if I'm buying a guitar, I want it to be the one I want. So I called back out there, talked to the guy that sold it to me and asked if they had the right color. He assured me that they did and told me I could come back out to exchange it. He was concerned and wanted to make it right, but I'm not sure he ever said the words "I'm sorry," but I could be wrong. I packed the guitar back in the box, grabbed my receipt and headed back out. Before I left, I got on the computer real quick and posted a little comment on Twitter. All it said was this:

Those sons of bitches at Guitar Center are really putting a damper on my future career.

Nothing drastic and I didn't think anything of it.

It was rush hour by the time I got back on the road and it took me between 45 minutes and an hour to get all the way back there. Went in, found the guy and had to wait another 10 minutes while he finished with a customer. He took my receipt and fixed it, gave me the correct guitar and I was on my way.

When I got back home, I opened the box and thankfully it was the right one. I tuned it and played it for a good half an hour or so before I had to leave. Grabbed the case, opened it and tried to put it inside, but it wouldn't fit. I stood there looking at my guitar laying on the top of case for about 30 seconds, just letting it sink in that they had fucked up twice and I was going to have to drive back out to Guitar Center for a third time.

By then, it was about 7:15 or so, and since GC closed at 8, I wasn't going to have time to go back that night. I called back and asked for the guy, again, and he eventually got on.

"Hey, so and so, this is Trevor. You sold me a guitar earlier that was the wrong color and I had to come back and get the right one?
"Oh yeah, what's up?"
"This guitar doesn't fit in the case you sold me."
Long pause.
"Dude. What happened?"
I didn't know quite what to say so I didn't say anything for a few seconds.
"I don't know man, you're the one that works there. I figured you'd know which case goes with the guitar you're selling."
"Yeah, sorry about that, you can bring it back out and we'll exchange it."

The other problem was that when he exchanged my guitar the first time, for some reason he took the case off the receipt and I asked him if that was going to be a problem because I couldn't get back out there for a few days. He said no, and I believed him.

After that, I checked my email and I had one from someone at Guitar Center. Apparently, someone had re-tweeted what I wrote and someone from GC saw it and got in touch with me. He asked what happened and I told him the story. I figured that would be the end of it, but the next day I had two e-mails and a voicemail from people that worked at Guitar Center, including the store manager. He apologized and said that he'd be more than happy to make it right and if I didn't want to drive all the way back out there, I could take it to a UPS store, send it back COD and he'd mail the correct case to my house. I said that wouldn't be necessary, but I didn't have another day off until the Monday after Thanksgiving, so that would be my earliest chance to return it. He said that was fine and that was that.

Yesterday, I finally made it back out to Guitar Center. The first employee that I encountered was the girl that checks things as you leave or checks the receipt as you come in. I told her what happened and why I was bringing the case back and her response was, of course, "there's not a case listed on this receipt."

I explained the situation and she sent me back to the guitar counter, provided I leave the case with her. I found someone to help me and told him that the guy had sold me the wrong case.
"What do you mean he sold you the wrong case."
"I mean, I got home and tried to put my guitar in the case and it didn't fit."
"How didn't it fit?"
"The guitar is too big."
"Oh, well you'll probably have to bring the guitar in so we can make sure which case you need."

At that point, I was livid. I don't like taking things out on people that don't deserve it, but Jesus Christ, that was the third time I'd been there for something as simple as a guitar and a case. It's fucking Guitar Center. All they do is sell gear. They should know which piece goes with what, for Christ's sake.

I asked him to just look it up on the computer so we could just finish and be done with it. When he went to look it up on the computer, he noticed the same thing, there was no case on my receipt. He passed me off to someone else, and it took him a few minutes but he figured out what had happened.
Then, he asked me if I wanted to buy the 3-year warranty for an extra $60.
"I bought that the first time. I should have."
"Nope, it's not on here. You want to get it now."
"No. I want my guitar case and I want to get the fuck out of here."
"Okay. I'm really sorry about all this."

That was the first time I'd heard a sincere apology from anyone other than the store manager and some random GC guy in California the entire time I'd dealt with them. He fixed everything, gave me my correct receipt and sent me on my way.

I got back up front, handed my receipt to the girl at the front and she looked it over. When I first came in, I had a case, but there was no case listed on my receipt. As I was leaving I had a new case but on my receipt there was a case and guitar. So, naturally, she didn't know what was going on and I had to wait at the front door for another 5 minutes while she figured out what happened.

I'm grateful for the two guys from Guitar Center that actually showed concern, but the rest of the employees treated me like I was an asshole for trying to fix what they fucked up in the first place.

The entire experience was fucking awful and I guess the moral of the story is, don't shop at Guitar Center anymore. I won't be.

But on the bright side, I've got a new acoustic that is really fun to play. I just wish I'd bought it somewhere else.

*UPDATE* I wrote an update about how this whole ordeal played out over here. Jeremy and Mike were awesome, helpful and did everything in their power to make it up to me only to see their employees tear it right back down. Still, I appreciate what those guys did.

PEOPLE SAY

As usual, I think I'm a bit late to the party with this band. I heard this song for the first time the other day and haven't been able to stop listening to it. I think the acoustic version is better (hence me posting that video) but I like the official version and video as well.

And the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I wrote an article on Portugal. The Man for the Daily Utah Chronicle sometime in 2008-09. Unfortunately, since the Chrony's archive is so utterly fucked up I doubt I'll ever be able to find it.

When I enter my name into the search box, it brings up a whole bunch of articles from the past month that have absolutely nothing to do with me. It's really shitty and something they've known about for two years but never been able to fix or just don't care to. I'd like to search through some of those articles and see what else I forgot, because this band is definitely one of them. I'm sure of it.

THE RUNDOWN

I've been slacking over the past couple of weeks. Sorry about that. Not wanting the blog to go straight downhill, I've been posting things here and there, but they've mainly been lazy, quick posts or videos. Nothing wrong with all that, but those posts are kind of boring and usually the ones I skip over when I read other people's blogs. And I don't want you skipping over anything, let alone never coming back because I'm falling behind. That would be awful.

Besides, you're all dying to know what's been going on the past couple of weeks, right? Right. 

In short, my lack of posting has been due to an awful head cold that killed my two days off, then just as I got over that, I had to work for nearly two weeks straight (with the exception of Thanksgiving). And work usually drains me of any sort of creative energy (yes, I did just use the term 'creative energy') and I waste all my good small talk and quick jokes on undeserving customers who I hope will reward me with money for being clever. Sometimes it works.

That's not to say I didn't do anything during that time, I just didn't write about it. Here's a little rundown of my life the past couple of weeks, since you're dying to know.

Read on...

127 HOURS

James Franco is a strange guy. Sometimes I'll see him act and it's downright bad (SPIDER-MAN, for example), but then along comes something like 127 HOURS and he's fantastic from start to finish.

He plays Aron Ralston, a hiker that gets his hand stuck between a rock and a wall and eventually has to cut his own arm off to escape. It's a great story and Franco does an amazing job of holding the audiences attention for the full hour and a half, mostly all by himself. The actual scene of him breaking and cutting his arm off was pretty intense, mainly thanks to the sound effects, and I had to cover my eyes like a child a few times but overall it was a good movie. I joked that it was the same movie as SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE in that in order to overcome a tricky situation the main character had to rely on things from his past for help. I was joking, but it's still kind of true.

I don't think Danny Boyle is the greatest filmmaker of all time like some people, but he does have a pretty amazing track record, and I'll always at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

BAD RELIGION/BOUNCING SOULS

I went to this show really excited to see the Bouncing Souls and indifferent about Bad Religion. I left the show stoked on Bad Religion (again) and really bummed about the Bouncing Souls.

They've fallen into the same trap that doomed so many punk/hardcore bands I really liked growing up. They spent so much time on the road playing shows and being punk rock that they don't know how to do anything else. They don't really like doing it, but there really aren't any other options for these guys. It's strictly a paycheck gig for them and it shows. They go through all the motions but there's no heart in it at all. Maybe they just had an off night when they were here and the rest of the shows were great, but somehow I don't think so. It's the same thing that happened to Slapshot and it came out in full in the documentary that was made about them. They all hate playing in the band, but they get paid lots of money to do it from time to time so they keep on going. It's sad, really. I'd rather never see them again and remember them fondly than see them do a half-assed version that leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Bad Religion, on the other hand, was far better than I expected. These guys, to me, are the exact opposite of the Souls. Greg Graffin, the singer, is an author and college professor and Brett Gurewitz owns one of the (still) most successful indie labels putting out music right now (Epitaph). These guys have other things to keep them busy and only tour once in a while, aside from Warped Tour. And you can tell that it's just a huge release for them. It's fun for them to do and they don't look like they're bored to death on stage. I had planned on catching the first half of the set and then bailing, but they were too good. I had to see it through to the end, and I'm glad I did. Fantastic show by them.

MONSTERS

I'm torn on this movie. I'd been looking forward to it for quite a while and I thought everything about it was fantastic except for one thing - conflict. It just never got me feeling like any of the characters were in any sort of real danger. It looked amazing and the effects were better than some of the ones I've seen on big budget movies over the past couple of years (I hear the total budget of this movie was just under half a million dollars). I'd still recommend seeing it for the sheer fact that it's a hell of an accomplishment for an indie movie, but it did leave me a little cold. I just wanted something more from it.

THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT

I've always been fascinated by the craft of stand up comedians and late night talk show hosts and the whole Tonight Show debacle from earlier this year had my attention the entire time. It was just one great thing after another. Bill Carter, a journalist for the New York Times, wrote an excellent book on the whole situation and I tore through it in a matter of a few days.

I've never liked Jay Leno and after reading The War For Late Night, I'm Dying Up Here (about the early LA days of comedy clubs like The Comedy Store and The Improv) and having started The Late Shift (about Leno and Lettermad battling for Johnny Carson's chair in the early 90s, also written by Carter) I like him even less. Sure, he's a hard worker I guess, but he doesn't really seem like a guy you'd want around. He'd tell the same bad set up, pause, raise your voice for the punchline jokes he makes in his monologues just so people like him. He desperately wants to be liked by everyone, but doesn't want to be friends with anyone. He doesn't want to be a bad guy but doesn't do anything that shows he has any real integrity.

The book doesn't let anyone off lightly and everyone gets their time to shine but it mostly focuses on how Conan got the short end of the stick. Not so much screwed, but just treated unfairly, Conan is the guy that comes across as the one with the most integrity and the biggest heart for the job.

It goes into detail about all the late night players and I like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (who Carter believes will be the future of network late night as soon as he decides he's through playing second fiddle to Stewart, which he shows no signs of doing right now) even more and have newfound respect for Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson.

I did lose a little respect for Letterman though, unfortunately. Always been a huge fan of his (he and Steve Martin are my two favorite comedians of all time, I think) but it just seems like he's gotten lazy in his old age. Every once in a while he gets fired up about something and he shows the brilliance we know he's capable of and becomes literally untouchable to anyone else in the game, but those moments are few and far between. And the fact that he tapes his friday show on Monday night so that he can fly home to Montana immediately after the Thursday taping left a bad taste in my mouth.

The saddest part about the whole book is that you get the feeling that Conan really wanted to push the boundaries of late night talk shows, but NBC didn't want to let him or didn't think he deserved to try. Not while they had Leno ready to go back to try and bring up the ratings he dragged down with his awful primetime show. Leno came across as apathetic about the whole thing and just wanted to keep doing what he's been doing, which is that he wants to tell jokes on TV every night. He doesn't actually care about anything after that opening monologue, but that's what he wants to do. And Letterman just doesn't want to admit defeat even though he enjoys it less and less as time goes on.

Great book if you're interested in any of these guys or about the situation in general. I'll even loan you my copy if you want.

THE HOLD STEADY/COMPANY OF THIEVES

Every time The Hold Steady has come through Salt Lake over the past two years, I've been out of town or working or just unable to go. It's been a real bummer. But they finally came through while I was here, in town and ready for them, albeit a little sick. They put on an amazing live show, too. No bells and whistles or light shows or anything like that, the band just played a solid, fun set for nearly an hour and a half (about 23 songs). It was in the small side of Bricks called Club Sound which was perfect for this show and The Hold Steady did not disappoint. Definitely worth the wait.

The first band of the night (can't remember what they were called) was some local group and they were absolutely terrible. I thought funk-rap died sometime in the mid-90s, but I guess I was wrong. The second band though, Company of Thieves, was downright fantastic. I'd never heard them before, or even heard OF them for that matter, but I loved every second of their set. The girl that sings for that band had so much energy that I couldn't take my eyes off the stage (didn't hurt that she was pretty easy on the eyes, either). Their stuff doesn't translate as well to the recording, but it's still good. One thing is for sure though, I will never, ever miss Company of Thieves live.

DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'... IN ROBOCOP

CHRISTMAS TIME

I put up my Christmas lights over the weekend. Took a little bit of time, but I think they turned out pretty good.

A BATTLE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!

Who will win? The Cat? The Crows? The... Other Cat? Watch below and find out!

1926 - 2010

Rest in Peace, sir. One of my favorite comedians growing up. Surely, he'll never be replaced.

TAMERLANE - "CLOUDS UNFOLD" - 12/11/10

Off and on since 2004, I've been playing guitar for a band called Tamerlane. It's been a lot of fun, but we haven't done nearly as much as we should have for being together for 6 years. In the fall of 2008, we took the 10 songs we had written to Andy Patterson's studio and set out to make an actual full-length record. We worked on it for about six days, but it still wasn't done. We didn't work on it again until the fall of 2009, and even that was to only finish one song for the GCA Mixtape that I put out last year. 

In January of this year, I quit playing for the band. I just had too much to do and we weren't really getting anywhere. A couple of weeks ago, our friend Blake started putting together the Sub For Santa benefit show that he does each year and asked Tamerlane to play. The band hadn't really done anything since I quit, but they asked me to play with them again so we could play the show and, even better, finally finish the record.

We went back into the studio this week and got it as close as possible. There's a few minor mixing things to finish, the track order and the mastering still to come, but it's pretty much done and the artwork is being done by the awesome Dan Christofferson (of Beeteeth fame). We'll have it at the show on December 11 at Club Sound, but to tide you over, I've put together a little bit of every track on the album just to prove that it's almost done. 

It's about three years in the making, so I hope you enjoy it.

 Tamerlane Teaser by trevorhale 

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Jon Favreau struck gold with Iron Man and I have no reason to believe this will be any different. Daniel Craig in a pretty authentic looking western until, you know, that alien spaceship shows up. And Harrison Ford is (apparently) the bad guy. This is going to be fantastic. Better than Green Lantern? It already looks that way.

FISTFUL OF MERCY

"SKATE MEAN, LIVE CLEAN"

LET IT BE

In honor of iTunes finally winning the battle and making the entire Beatles catalogue available for purchase, I've spent the morning illegally downloading every one of their albums. I'm a true American citizen.

DEATH BY DOODLE

This is my man Peter Bryner over there to the right.

He has a blog called Death By Doodle that you should all be following (because everyone has jumped on the Tumblr bandwagon to some extent by now, right?). I worked with him the past two summers and once or twice a week I'd come in to find a new drawing/cartoon of someone that worked with us or something that happened while we were there. He always had a unique way of boiling the essence of someone down to a single image, like all good cartoonists should be able to do, and I always looked forward to them.

(And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited when I finally got one drawn of me.)

He's a clever fellow, that Peter, and I was really excited when I found his blog so I wanted to spread the word.

What I'm hoping is that he's able to channel all these things into something like a newspaper comic strip or something along those lines. He's already got better artistic chops than half the cartoons that still make it into the Sunday Funnies and I know that's kind of a dying genre, but this kid clearly has the wit and perception to pull off something like it. I hope it becomes something more than just doodling. Even if it doesn't though, I'll still be happy to see a new one every day.

Check them out. Death By Doodle by Peter Bryner.

NOW I GET IT!

I've been trying to figure out why that guy looks familiar since last Sunday and it just barely hit me this morning.

BIFF TANNEN: THE LUCKIEST MAN ON EARTH

It's a little bit awkward without any background music, but still kind of cool to see how much effort went into making a video that Marty McFly only watches for a few seconds before being shown the easy way inside.

DUE DATE

Zach Galafianakis has officially been typecast. Don't get me wrong, I'll still laugh at his gimmick most of the time, but if he plays it out for too many more movies, it'll be all over for him.

DUE DATE was pretty much THE HANGOVER MEETS ROAD TRIP. Tons of pointless cameos and a whole bunch of glaring plot holes that they didn't even attempt to try and explain. Robert Downey Jr. played Robert Downey Jr. again, but he was pretty good as the straight man, with some really funny bits here and there, and Galafianakis was the same guy he always is. The thing is, between little moments in the movie and IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY, I think the guy has real chops. I kind of want to compare him to Robin Williams, but at this point that might be a bit of an insult. But I do think he's capable of turning into the type of character Williams played in Good Will Hunting, funny and a bit sad. I don't blame him for doing the stuff he does now, because you've got to strike while the iron is hot, but I want to believe that he'll grow out of it eventually and that's when he'll knock one out of the park and surprise us all. A guy can hope, right?

Not much else to say, really. If you're bored on a snowy afternoon here in a few months when it makes its way to Netflix or cable, check it out. You can balance your checkbook (do people still do that?) or read a magazine while it plays in the background. You'll catch a joke or two here and there and it'll be a great way to kill an afternoon.

IT'S ALL MY FAULT

Couldn't find my shirt. Still gotta vote.

I've got a confession to make. I'm not happy about it, but I feel I need to come clean here.

Everyone that we (the good guys) wanted to win the elections in Utah lost. Not by much, but just enough to make it worse. And that's what I've got to confess to everyone.

It might be all my fault.

And not because I wrote myself in on the ballot in place of Jim Matheson, subsequently getting others to do the same and amassing a small number of write in votes. That's not what I'm sorry for. That was awesome and Matheson still won.

No, it's because I only open my mail once every three or four weeks. I opened a stack of it last night and there were three or four letters regarding the election, one of which I found particularly interesting. It was from the Salt Lake County Committee To Strengthen Utah's Democracy and they were thanking me for having a fantastic voting record and being an all-around good citizen (which might be the first endorsement on this website next summer when I officially throw my hat in the ring for the 2011 SLC Mayoral election). They also wanted my help. They gave me the names and phone numbers of 5 people that lived in my neighborhood with a so-so voter turnout record over the past four years and asked me to call them and remind them how important it was to get out and vote.

Now, had I seen this letter a few days before the election, which is when I assume it came in the mail, I'm still not sure I would have called them. What if they told me they were only going to vote for Tea Party candidates? I would have had to say something like, "Uh, I mean, I wanted to inform you that the election date has been pushed back to a different day." Or even worse, they may have started telling me all things wrong with the country and I'd be stuck on the phone with them for like 20 minutes nodding my head and saying "Uh huh. I hear you. You know, you're right." Which, I fully understand I will have to do once I dive head first into politics but it doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.

Funny side note about the Tea Party thing - A friend of mine and his brother went to their polling location and were the youngest people there by about 30 years. They were waiting in line, and the old guy, probably late 70s, in front of them had just stepped up to the ballot machine and asked one of the volunteers working the following question.

"How do I vote straight Tea Party ticket."

The woman walked over to help him (and thank goodness there wasn't an actual option for doing that. At least I don't think there was) and my friends brother said, out loud so everyone could hear him, something along the lines of "Are you fucking kidding me? They should put an age restriction on voting the other way too. You can't vote until you're 18 because you're not old enough to make good decisions so I say if you're more than likely going to be dead within the next ten years you shouldn't be allowed to make decisions that are going to fuck things up for the rest of us."

And you know what? I agree with that to some extent. I'm also kind of bummed I wasn't there when he said that. Apparently things got real awkward for the next ten minutes or so.

But back to my apology. I'm sorry I didn't call those people and tell them this election was important. You can blame me if you want.

I need to start getting used to it.

NOWHERE BOY

I thought John Lennon had always been a hippy but apparently I was wrong. He was kind of a badass when he was a kid.

NOWHERE BOY is about his teenage years in Liverpool when he decided to be a rebel, hang out with his cool birth mom instead of his uptight aunt, bang chicks in the woods and start a band. I actually really liked it, even though I am more of a Rolling Stones guy than a Beatles guy. Didn't really matter though, because the parts of Lennon's story I really cared about were there—his first meeting with Paul McCartney and later with George Harrison. Those are the moments I wanted to see. I wanted to see if they could recreate and/or capture the magic that I imagined happened at those first meetings, and by all accounts, I thought they did really well.

Unfortunately since Paul has turned into a bit of a prick about the Beatles in his old age, the movie wasn't actually allowed to use any Beatles songs (come to think of it, I'm not even sure they were able to mention the name of the band). Didn't matter much though since the bulk of the movie occurs before they had formed under the now-iconic name.

I knew nothing of this movie going in, and I was pretty stoked on it the whole way. Check it out. Even if you are more of a Stones fan.

RE-IMAGINED

I'd never heard of the website Uproxx.com before this afternoon, and to be quite honest, I'll probably never visit it again. But I'm pretty stoked on about 50% of these pictures they posted earlier this week. People from their staff supposedly found them on 4-chan (which is a website that I don't even dare go to because of the ridiculous things that pop up over there) and made up stories about the new origin.

They're fan re-imaginings of pop culture characters and some of them are downright awesome. For every mediocre one (Elmer Fudd as a homicidal maniac) there is a great one (Woody and Buzz, below). I posted my three favorites here, but if you want to see the rest of them, head over to Uproxx.com.

The writers made tried to make up stories for each picture, but most of them were pretty bad, so I left them out so you could just see the awesome.

Buzz Lightyear & Woody

Darth Vader by Eric Poulton

Pac Man by Travis Pitts

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Say you were dating a beautiful girl. She's far hotter than you deserve and you keep questioning (to yourself) why she's with you. You have lots of annoying little habits and she puts up with all of them because you've been together since high school and deep down she knows you need her more than anything in the world. Her leaving would just crush you.

Then say she leaves you. She meets this new guy and he's rich, funny, outgoing, self-assured and basically everything you're not. All of a sudden, she's not returning your phone calls, she's avoiding all the places you two used to go together, she's never at her house. One day, she posts on her Facebook that she's engaged to this other guy and then you see her riding around in that beautiful car that you'll never be able to afford with a guy you could never be. It hurts doesn't it? Even more than you could have ever imagined, right?

I kind of feel like that's how this whole LeBron James/City of Cleveland thing is playing out. James ditched Cleveland for the way hotter, way more fun guy (Miami) and Cleveland doesn't quite know how to react. Instead of getting over it and moving on, they just get increasingly bitter and I feel they've taken it to a whole new level with their response ad (which I love, by the way) to LeBron's "What Should I Do?" commercial (which I also love).

But I guess that's what happens when your high school sweetheart dumps you on national television. You just have no idea how to move on. They'll get over it. But not for a long, long time.

HE GOT GAME

Still wish Flavor Flav hadn't make me think a little less of Public Enemy.

NOSTALGIA

I decided I need to get out of the house more.

Baseball season officially ended tonight, so no more games to watch. Basketball is just barely underway, but with the exception of the Jazz there's only a handful of games I actually want to watch. Football season is halfway over, but the games are only once a week and I'm fine with only watching the highlights.

Since the big three are out of the way, I can finally venture out. Only problem is that I really have no place to go. I don't drink, so bars are out of the question and I'm sick of Coffee Garden. So, my options are pretty low on the 'things to do' scale.

Which brings me to a halfway decent idea that I had a while back—the coffee shop tour!

These are things I like to do:

         1) People watch.
         2) Dick around on the internet.
         3) Write.

So I figure what better way to combine all three of them than by hitting as many different coffee shops around Salt Lake that I can and, since it's a halfway decent idea, writing halfway decent reviews about my experience? There isn't a better way, so consider it done.

First up, NOSTALGIA (248 E. 100 S.).

I've always liked this place. It's normally pretty quiet and there aren't a lot of people here. That's not the case tonight, though. There weren't any empty small tables, so I had to park myself on one of the bigger ones around the place, sharing my space with strangers. As far as making it less solitary, group tables are a good idea. It forces you into conversation, which is a good thing.

Unless you're me. Because I'm not a fan of small talk with strangers. I do it all day at work, and to be quite honest, I don't want to have to explain to you who Shipwreck A.D. is when you see it on my screen or hear your thoughts on whatever website I'm looking at.

Luckily, the two gentlemen that were on the table with me looked like they were in the same boat. Just kept their heads down the whole time and we did our thing.

I bought a cup of coffee, but didn't really feel like drinking it. I just didn't want to be 'that guy' at the coffee shop that uses the internet and doesn't buy anything. He brewed a fresh pot of coffee for me and everything, and the few sips I had were good, but I couldn't finish it.

Then the door opened and a group of about 12 started filing in. There was only one table left and it was a round one right behind me, that seated about 5 people, and that would be a little tight. Naturally, they all decided they'd cram around it.

I've never encountered a more disrespectful group of people in my life—and I've been hanging around straight edge kids that act out for no reason for half my life. All the chairs in Nostalgia are heavy, wooden chairs and the ground is concrete. Wooden chairs on concrete are incredibly loud and annoying and these people were dragging them from every corner of the room, blocking walkways and crowding the poor girl sitting at the small table next to where they posted up. She even asked them to give her a little space, so the guy moved but another guy promptly took his place. She ended up leaving shortly after. Right after that, since there weren't any more chairs, one stray decided he was going to use the long bench I was sitting on.

First, he sat on my jacket and then tried pulling the bench closer to the other table. He realized what he was doing and it looked like he felt like an asshole—as he rightfully should have.

Eventually, I got sick of listening to them and packed up to leave.

Overall, I like this place so I'll definitely be back. I'll just have to make sure I find a better spot. Away from college jackasses.

THE ELECTRICIAN

Speak of the devil.

As I was hitting 'publish' on that last post, this song made its way through my headphones and I felt like it needed to be shared. So, you're welcome.

BRONSON

Anyone out there not seen BRONSON yet?

I caught it at Sundance in 2009 and it lasted as one of my favorites all through last year. It never got a wide distribution deal (and never played in Utah outside of the three Sundance screenings) so a lot of people missed it on the big screen.

Now is your chance to rectify that problem.

I've been involved with the Salt Lake City Film Festival since its inception last year and it's been slowly growing bigger and bigger. This year, we started a monthly film series at Brewvies called HEFFE'FILM'IN that runs the third Thursday of each month at 10 PM. It's only $5 and it's sure to be a good time.

For November, we decided to show BRONSON for all the reasons I listed above—which if you've already forgotten is because it's fucking awesome.

So mark your calendars and get ready to catch one hell of a movie.