Odd Winter

I'm totally going to ruin it with this post, but we've had just about the best Winter in recent memory so far. Weather-wise, that is. And by "best", I mean warmer than usual with no snow.

In fact, we had our first snowstorm of the year over this past weekend. A convenient little storm that began overnight on Friday and into early Saturday afternoon. All that meant to me was staying home with my woman and our recuperating cat (Wolowitiz is doing much better now, thanks), and drinking a whole mess of bourbon. Slept in Saturday morning and then went out to shovel about 4 inches of some dry powder.  It was glorious. The easiest snow removal day in memory.

I don't know why I even bothered, though. The weather forecast was for rain and 50 degrees on Monday, which is exactly what happened. By the end of the day, just about all the snow from the weekend was a memory.

I've been actually appreciating the warm weather even more than the lack of snow, even though those obviously go hand-in-hand. Went out to get the mail today in a t-shirt and it felt like around 60.  I'm sure it was colder, but it really didn't feel that way.

So January is almost over, and February is looming.  Normally a month when we get slammed with snow and cold weather.

But I'm hoping that this trend continues.  Right through the Winter and into Spring. 

A mild Winter is just what my soul needed.

Alright, Alright, Alright

David Wooderson is back, girls. And he's just as cool as ever. Check out Matthew McConaughey reprising his best role ever after 19 long years.  The song is courtesy of Butch Walker and the Black Widows.  Dig.

"The older you get, the more rules they are going to try and get you to follow. You just gotta keep on livin', man. L-I-V-I-N." - words to live by.

h/t: The Interrobang

Gogo/Yak?

I've mentioned before that our female cat, Gogo, is nearly impossible to catch in a photo.  Because she never sits still for even a second all day long. Yet, somehow, Gia was able to snap a picture of the elusive yak-cat with her new iPhone 4S.  We call her that because...well, look at the hair.  That's some yak shit going on, isn't it?

click to view the full horror of the yak-cat

Maybe she was sitting still because she was worried about her brother, Wolowitz. He's in the kitty hospital right now recovering from a blocked urinary tract.  Poor guy.  He went in yesterday, and we get to bring him home tomorrow morning. The house isn't the same without him.

Simon's Cat - Double Trouble

This is what every day is like in our home.

Except we have four crazy cats instead of just two. And we don't keep our litter boxes in the living room. Not even when the cats were just wee kittens.

Meow.

The smacks to the top of the head and the young kitty taking a "shiver/stare" crap in the litter box is our Gogo to a fucking T.

She generally likes to wait until we are cleaning out the litter boxes every day to do her business.  As if to say "Thank you, human. For giving me an appropriately clean place to take a shit. Now clean this mess up! I may have use for it again in an hour or so.  Chop chop!"

Bogus Globes

Every year, I like to re-post something that I wrote about the Golden Globe Awards way back in 2006. Actually, I forgot to re-post it last year for some reason. Maybe because Ricky Gervais did enough as the host to make me forget how much I despise this sham of an awards show. 

So in honor of Matt LeBlanc winning a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy last night (seriously...for acting!), here's my nearly annual rant on the event.  Cheers! - Earl



01/19/2006 8:28 PM EST - date of original post.

Sofia Vergara - insert Golden Globes joke here

Hey kids! As you may have figured out, I'm a bit of a film fan. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I like to watch the annual award shows to see who takes down the big prizes each year. I was a little bored the other night watching the Golden Globe Awards when I decided to find out who/what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is all about. If you are not familiar with the group, the HFPA is the organization that determines the nominees for each award category and subsequently votes on the winners for the Golden Globes. But who are they? I mean it never made much sense to me. Are they Hollywood press reporting in foreign countries about the entertainment industry? Are they foreign press working in Hollywood? Who are these people that the media focuses so much weight on around award season? Surely it must be an astoundingly large number of critics and reporters from around the world weighing in on the best that Hollywood has to offer. Hundreds if not thousands of dedicated men and women working tirelessly to hand out awards that are the pre-cursor to the big daddy of all entertainment awards, the Oscars. Right? Wrong!

The HFPA is a non-profit organization of somewhere around 90 international journalists based in Hollywood whose purpose is to disseminate information about film and television to a world-wide audience. 90 JOURNALISTS! Are you kidding me? These 90 men and women are the only voices and votes for an award as seemingly important as the Golden Globes? Now don't get me wrong. The HFPA does some fine work, I guess. In 2005 they donated $1 million to various arts and cultural programs around the world in an effort to further the advance of the film and television. They also donated $250 thousand to the Red Cross. That's mighty white of them.

Where do they get the funding for their charitable work, as well as the funding needed to run the non-profit organization, you may ask? Well, they receive a sizable licensing fee from the networks to run their annual event...the Golden Globe Awards. They also receive licensing fees from various cable networks for allowing them to report from the red carpet. Hm-mm. So let me get this straight. The HFPA (all 90 of them) collect licensing fees from an award show that they run in an effort to award excellence in a field that is already swimming with too many awards. And they give out those awards in the award show that they sponsor, which in turn provides them with the revenue that they need to keep handing out awards the following year? Holy self-sustaining stroke-fest, Batman! And I thought I used to get confused with The Terminator and all of its time-line questions. Wait...how was John Connor born if he needed to send his own father back in time to be with his mother in the first place, and, and, and...system failure!

This is bogus, my friends. It's just another example of mutual masturbation that the media machine that is Hollywood has fashioned out of thin air. It made me sick to read about this, and if I ever see another weepy, blathering idiot of a winner (like Felicity Huffman this year back in 2006) crying about how this is the greatest night of their lives I may actually vomit on my television screen. "You really, really like me...all 90 of you! You really, really like me!" Actually, it's possible that only 25 of the members liked you, honey. Or whatever number of voters that is needed to beat out whomever came in second place. What a piece of crap award this is!

Once again, feel free to applaud the charitable work that the HFPA does. But let us not kid ourselves. Most of the money isn't going to help poverty and starvation in Africa, or to help relief efforts in India Haiti. No, most of the money is handed out in the form of financial grants to cultural institutions to help further their own causes. There is some good stuff in there, but most of it isn't of the do-or-die type of relief.

You can find out more about the HFPA on their website, that is if you can stomach it. Me...I'm done with this award show in the future. I always thought that some of the choices were a bit odd (C'mon...have you seen Geena Davis in "Commander in Chief"?), but I always thought there was some kind of integrity about the awards themselves. I don't know what goes into the voting for the Academy Awards, and I'm sure it ain't perfect. I just don't know if I have the heart to do any research on that right now. Sigh.

Oh, and if you were wondering why I placed a picture of the stunning Scarlett Johansson (decked out in stunning scarlet, thank you very much) Christina Hendricks Sofia Vergara at the top of this article, it wasn't so that we could make some blatantly obvious double entendre about the Golden Globes and her outfit. I just think she's got some nice hoo-has.

Hi. How are you?

I was reprimanded by a dude who smells like a wet dog yesterday for abandoning ye olde Verdant Dude since the holidays.  That wasn't my plan.  Nor was I planning on a specific timetable for rejoining South Blogistan.  I guess his little nudge worked because here I am.

Now what?

I hope everyone had a healthy and wonderful Holiday season.  Mine was a bit fragmented.  Gia went down to Charleston to see her family before Christmas, but I stayed local to see my family.  But I made it down to SC in time for New Year's Eve and Day, so we just celebrated double then.  All good.  We've both been back for about a week now, but we still haven't really settled into a routine.  Other than watching Sons of Anarchy marathons every night.

Much like me with this here blog.

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions.  They never work out too well for me.  But I have promised myself that I would do my best to move forward.  Move forward from what?  Well...everything.  Work, family, life.  A lot of times I get into these ruts where I just remain static.  Or worse, I start back-tracking.  So a generic "move forward" is something I am striving for in the new year.  Let's see how that goes.

I hope I can fill this space with interesting posts, or at least posts that don't make you want to vomit.  That's a thin line I'm constantly walking here.  I'll also try to post some more on our collaborative food blog.  I just posted a little something over there yesterday.  Then there is the radio show.  Now that the holidays are over, hopefully we can get back to a regular schedule in the Cornfield.  I'm wondering if Sunday nights aren't really the best time for this thing.  I'll keep you posted.

Other than that...I got nothing right now.  I hope you are all enjoying the New Year!

Oh, one more thing.  I got this package of old photos from when I was a kid over the holidays.  I may post a few of them here and there.  Below is one of them that I sent to a friend and she did some kind of clip-art thing with it.  It was from a cell phone picture that I took of the original, so it's not very clear.  Except, of course, for the rugged good looks.

Behold The Verdant Dude at age 6 or so in all his glory!!!

Charlie Bucket called...he wants his hair back.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Great article today from scribe Joe Posnanski about Babe Ruth and The MVP Formula.  But, as usual, my favorite part of the thing has nothing to do with baseball at all.  He compared something or other to an episode of Bewitched, and then...as he does...he had to include a Pozterisk.  What's a Pozterisk?  I'll let Joe explain:

Pozterisk (PAHZ-tur-isk), noun. An aside that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything but is thrown into the middle of the story because the author thinks it’s funny.

See?  He named it after himself because of his extremely heavy use of them. So anyways, here was Joe's Pozterisk about Bewitched:

*My daughters have taken a sudden liking to the show "Bewitched." And it reminds me of something that has always bothered me -- was Darrin insane? I say yes. He had a wife that looked like Elizabeth Montgomery and could do pretty much unlimited magic. She constantly wanted to use that magic to HELP him. And he basically yelled at her a lot and told her to STOP using that magic and become a suburban housewife? Huh? … The question goes double for Larry Hagman in "I Dream Of Jeannie?"

I've always thought the same thing.  Fools.

Image source

Bennington Claps

Here's out youngest cat doing his most special trick. He sits on his haunches, and...well, he claps.

Usually at nothing at all. Something he sees floating in the air. Something outside the window of our bedroom. We've even spied him doing it while looking at himself in a mirror. So odd.

But he will also clap on demand.  When food is involved. Check it below or go to Youtube here.

Bennington Claps for Food from BE Earl on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas!

The Pogues and Kristy MacColl doing Fairytale of New York.  Have a great one everyone!

H/T Savannah Marsh Mama

See ya after the holidays!

We had a freakin' blast of a time on Just Talking to the Cornfield Wednesday night. You should'a been there. Or maybe you were. Either way, you can catch a replay on Talkshoe or iTunes. I actually may have been semi-coherent for the show, but I'm not sure. A half a bottle of bourbon can play tricks on your mind.

So the next week and a half are gonna be busy. Gia is down in Charleston with her family for Christmas. I stayed up here to look after the cat harem and see my family for the holiday.  But I'm heading down there for New Year's Eve and Day. It's gonna be off da hook. And I'm gonna be REAL busy with work during this whole time. Year-end gets a bit nuts in my business. It is what it is.

With all that, I may not be blogging that much until the second week of January or so. But that's okay. You're a little sick of me anyway, right? RIGHT?

But I'll still be reading and commenting every once in a while. So don't you go changing.

Bottom line...Seasons Greetings, everyone!  Have a great Holiday season!

Happy Holidays from the Cornfield

Join the Colonel and I on Wednesday, December 21st at 9PM EST for a special Holiday Edition of Just Talking to the Cornfield.

It's all gonna be about the Holidays. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Saturnalia or another of the Winter Festivals or holidays. Or if you just want to hear a couple of idiots ramble on about holiday food, holiday booze and/or holiday films.


We plan on sharing the pulpit with some very special guests as well. So it will surely be an episode that you won't want to miss.

Photo source

Baron Ambrosia

Those of you outside of the NYC/Metro area may not have heard of Baron Ambrosia. Hell, I live nearby and I had never heard of him until Wednesday night.  Now...everything has changed.

Who is he? Well, he's the screen alter-ego of NY filmmaker Justin Fornal. What is he? That's a much harder question to answer. Equal parts pimp, vampire, Anthony Bourdain, Kid Rock and William Shatner.  He hosts a cooking/travel show called Bronx Flavor on local public-access television.  A "quaffer of culinary consciousness" as he likes to say. It's kind of like "No Reservations", but with much shittier production values, campy bits and the Baron's odd and over-the-top voice-over.

I may get sick of it very quickly, but it also may be MY FAVORITE TELEVISION PROGRAM OF ALL-TIME!!!  And I've only seen one episode so far!

Check it out on the website for full episodes. All I can think of is that line in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about Dr. Gonzo.

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." - Raoul Duke

Here's a clip of the opening credits. It's just...so odd. I can't look away.  

Behold

Just my opinion, ya see. Yer entitled to yer own.

Source: someone on the Internet...sorry.

Let's Try This Again

Didn't get a lot of response from this last week, so I figured I would give it one more try. If there still isn't any interest...well, then there is no interest. And we'll just move along. However, I'm all for giving folks a second chance. Unless they do icky stuff with kids, I mean.  Those people can burn in Hell, although I would prefer to see them burn here on Earth.  Instant gratification and all. Where was I?  Oh yeah...have at it! - Earl

_____________________________________________________________

So....one of the ideas that my co-host had for Just Talking to the Cornfield in the off-season was to have a show specifically dedicated to Christmas food and recipes.  Which is odd, because he's Jewish. But I think he meant the "holidays", in general. Not just Christmas. Or he just hates his heritage. Let's move on...

Besides, I don't really know what Christmas food is anyway. In my family, we basically just did Thanksgiving all over again on Christmas Day.  Maybe a spiral ham in addition to a turkey. I just don't remember anything memorable about Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner.  I know some of my friends of Italian descent do the whole Seven Fishes thing on Christmas Eve. I don't know what that is about. Sounds good though.

Here's my thought. We are gonna do a show sometime in the next two weeks about Holiday Food including recipes and suggestions. You can be a part of it. Either by joining us during the broadcast (I'll let you know when that will be), or by commenting here with your suggestions or recipes, or by emailing me your suggestions and recipes to babyburke at aol dot com.

I'll then post all the recipes and/or suggestions to our collaborative food blog after it is all said and done for everyone to enjoy.  What do you think?

Do it to it, peoples!  FUN!

Christmas Giving

I dig Christmas.

I dig Christmas music.

I dig Christmas movies.

I dig giving and receiving Christmas gifts.

I hate Christmas commercials.

Especially the ones where a husband tricks his wife into thinking the small box he is giving her is a piece of jewelery, when it's actually the keys to a brand new BMW parked with a huge honkin' bow in their snow-swept driveway.

Have you ever given a car to a loved one for Christmas? Has anyone in your family? Has anyone you have ever met done it? Has everyone anyone in your family ever met someone who has done it?

I fucking hate those commercials most of all.

But I dig Christmas itself. That's something.

You're So Mean

Best song ever...or BEST SONG EVER! Don't even argue with me. Seriously.

Precious

The Pretenders

I LIKE THE WAY YOU CROSS THE STREET 'CAUSE YOUR PRECIOUS 
MOVING THROUGH THE CLEVELAND HEAT HOW PRECIOUS 
TAKING RIDES AND ALL THE KICKS WAS SO PRECIOUS 
BUT YOU KNOW I WAS SHITTIN' BRICKS 'CAUSE I'M PRECIOUS 
MADE ME WANNA, 
MADE ME WANNA, 
YOU MADE ME MAKE IT 
OH, YOU'RE SO MEAN 
EAST 55TH AND EUCLID AVENUE WAS REAL PRECIOUS 
HOTEL STERLING COMING INTO VIEW HOW PRECIOUS 
IT'S A PITY THAT YOU BRUISED MY HIP 'CAUSE I'M PRECIOUS 
YOU SHOULDN'T LET YOUR MANNERS SLIP YOU'RE TOO PRECIOUS 
MADE ME WANNA, 
MADE ME WANNA, 
YOU MADE ME MAKE IT 
OH, YOU'RE SO MEAN 
WE WENT AROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND THE SHOREWAY WE WAS A DUET DUET DUET DUET DO IT ON THE PAVEMENT 
OH MAYBE MAYBE I'M GONNA HAVE A BABY 
WE WAS A DUET OH WE DO IT ALL NIGHT 

I WAS FEELING KIND OF ETHEREAL 'CAUSE I'M PRECIOUS 
I HAD MY EYE ON YOUR IMPERIAL YOU'RE SO PRECIOUS 
NOW HOWARD THE DUCK AND MR STRESS BOTH STAYED 
"TRAPPED IN A WORLD THAT THEY NEVER MADE" 
BUT NOT ME BABY I'M TOO PRECIOUS I HAD TO FUCK OFF 
MADE ME WANNA, MADE ME WANNA, YOU MADE ME MAKE IT 
OH, YOU'RE SO MEAN

Holiday Food Ideas/Show

So....one of the ideas that my co-host had for Just Talking to the Cornfield in the off-season was to have a show specifically dedicated to Christmas food and recipes.  Which is odd, because he's Jewish. But I think he meant the "holidays", in general. Not just Christmas. Or he just hates his heritage. Let's move on...

Besides, I don't really know what Christmas food is anyway. In my family, we basically just did Thanksgiving all over again on Christmas Day.  Maybe a spiral ham in addition to a turkey. I just don't remember anything memorable about Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner.  I know some of my friends of Italian descent do the whole Seven Fishes thing on Christmas Eve. I don't know what that is about. Sounds good though.

Here's my thought. We are gonna do a show sometime in the next two weeks about Holiday Food including recipes and suggestions. You can be a part of it. Either by joining us during the broadcast (I'll let you know when that will be), or by commenting here with your suggestions or recipes, or by emailing me your suggestions and recipes to babyburke at aol dot com.

I'll then post all the recipes and/or suggestions to our collaborative food blog after it is all said and done for everyone to enjoy.  What do you think?

Do it to it, peoples!  FUN!

Treeman

Forgive me if you've seen this one already. It's been making the rounds on Facebook, according to Gia.  Her musician friends all love this guy. All I know is that this video made Gia laugh harder than I've seen her laugh in years.

I love his accent and the way he punches himself in the hand when he can't get the notes right. This guy needs to be a star.  Even if he IS the world's angriest guitar player.

Jazz in the Cornfield

Last night we were all over the place in the Cornfield.

Usually one of us sets an agenda and we do our best to not stick to it. It's like a game where everyone loses.  But I was too lazy to set a proper agenda this week for us to ignore. So we did a free-form, stream of consciousness thing.  Just talked about whatever came across our tiny minds.  Which included:

• Christopher Walken impersonations. Bad ones.
• The TV show Taxi. Slow down....
• The actor Peter Coyote's birth name. It's Rachmil Pinchus Ben Mosha Cohon. He's Buddhist now. 
• Jazz. And our inability to really understand it.
• Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito.
• The Odd Couple. "We're out of Cornflakes - F.U."
• Baseball Wives. It's a train wreck.

And it just got odder from there.

Check it out on Talkshoe or iTunes, if you have an hour and forty-six minutes to kill.

SALTALAMACCHIA!!!

Old Man Winter

Rears his fugly head.

Who is that lady in the background?

I like to layer my clothing in the late Fall/early Winter months. Sue me.