Monday, November 26, 2007

Richard Prince Documentary

Richard Prince Documentary

http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=1213891072&bccl=MTIxMzg3NTEzMF9fRVRD

Monday, November 19, 2007

"Mess WIth The Bull You Get The Horns" Movie Quote

I just wanted to clear something up for everyone who has ever been challenged by which John Hughes movie uses the line "mess with the bull you get the horns".

A: BOTH "Some Kind Of Wonderful" and "Breakfast Club". The confusion, you see, is that Paul Gleason playing Vice Principal Vernon holds up his fingers in a bull horn shape and says "I've got you for two months" which may cause you to wonder if your memory is inaccurate...but it's not. He also said the bull and horns thing.

I guess John Hughes really loves this zinger, and can't help but use it across movies. There is plenty of president for the the practice: Woody Allen has a ton of one liners that migrate across movies, as does Mell Brooks - a "Walk this way" site gag shows up in "Young Frankenstein" and "History Of The World Part I". There are plenty of other examples - Shakespeare for example...he does it.

What Santa Can't Say - Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me

Peter Sagal is a very funny man, and his panel of comedians on "Wait Wait...Don't Tell" are always a laugh riot, but this weekend the gang surpassed themselves when Paula Poundstone had to think of what Santa can't say anymore - according to one Santa placement company in Australia.

Click here to listen, and laugh.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

AMA: Soulja Boy

Jimmy Kimmel doing the Soulja Boy dance...awesome

Friday, November 16, 2007

Unfunny Assult

I am not funny but I created this blog, so now it's your problem.

Boy With Amazing Brian

This is truly amazing. Listen to how this guy experiences number.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Happy Jill

Jill on October 4th...13 days to 30.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Monday, September 03, 2007

Heat Wave

Jill melts during a heat wave in LA.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Train Songs

By: Ben Tiernan

I spent the better part of this morning on itunes creating a playlist of songs about trains. I think it was time well spent. Here's what I came up with...

Love Train 2:58 The O'Jays
Crazy Train 4:50 Ozzy Osbourne
Night Train 3:31 James Brown
Train, Train 3:34 Blackfoot
Midnight Train to Georgia 4:39 Gladys Knight & The Pips
Peace Train 4:14 Cat Stevens
Folsom Prison Blues 2.48 Johnny Cash
Old Train 2:23 Original Seldom Scene
Dry the Rain 6:05 The Beta Band The Three EP's


Rain rhymes with train.

Not a bad bunch of music. I guess writing songs about trains brings out the highest level of creative integrity - probably because of the august history of the train song. It's like writing a sonnet, or an epic.

Reflexive Chick Lit

By: Ben Tiernan

Young woman trying to balance love, relationships, and her career in the big city reading about a young woman trying to balance love, relationships, and her career in the big city.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

My Shoes

My shoes are awesome.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dim Sum and then Sum

By: Ben Tiernan

Tonight I made a fusion dinner of sorts.

First we had some nice dumplings...pork dumplings, and fried shrimp dumplings. I bought those in Alhambra, so that's Chinese.



Then, for the main course, I made an assortment of sausage and pickles. I had Italian pork sausage, rosemary lamb sausage, tarragon chicken sausage. Many many sausage. I also had dill pickles, sour kraut, and caramelized onions. With a splash of mustard, that felt German.



Viola! my Chinese/German dinner. Bon Apetit.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

My Soap


By: Ben Tiernan

I just noticed how fantastic the advertising claims are on my cleansing products.

My facial soap claims to use "Botanical Kinetics" which I think is impossible.

Even less likely is that my shampoo lives up to its claim of having "0 Calories". That's right! My shampoo is not fattening.

My name is Ben Tiernan, and I'm an ad man.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Playing The Ponies

In Del Mar...lost $12.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Rock Heals (Re-Purposed: Apr. '04)

By: Jedd Davis

Jedd Davis wasn't feeling well when he went to a Breeders concert. Here's how he returned:

I woke up this morning after only a few hours of sleep with a headache and ringing ears. Rock heals, you ask? Yes. I no longer have the sore throat that prohibited me from swallowing for 4 days, and as a bonus, my nose is no longer a sputum spewing spigot.

It just goes to show you that mind and body really are connected. If when you get sick, you mope around and complain to others about how terrible you feel (which is what I usually do), stop doing that. Go do something that "well" people do, or even better, over-do it.

Live music makes you feel good. It scares the sick away with its fuck-offnes and showmanship.

So there you have it, my cure for the common cold. Live rock followed by a tin car before bed (that's Jack - with a splash of codeine cough syrup - over ice)

tin car. Rockin' it.

Dan Ho making law.

Dan Ho making law.

Craigs List Shopping (Re-Purposed: Dec. '07)

Jedd Davis found this post on Craigslist while searching for a Danish Modern table. He thought it smacked of tin car appeal.

I'm so mystified by the people who sell their crap on Craigslist. A few thoughts:

1) If I'm shopping for furniture on Craigslist, what is more likely?

A) I am incredibly wealthy and enjoy spending thousands of dollars on secondhand designer couches custom made for someone else.

B) I make 32k a year, drive a 14-year-old car, and just want to find a kitchen table that isn't covered in chicken blood. (HINT: THIS IS THE ANSWER.)

2) If you bought something new, and you're selling it, that means that
whatever you're selling is USED. Used things are worth LESS than new things. Not more! I know this is hard to grasp, so here's an example:

You bought a coffee table at Ikea for twenty dollars last year. You decide to sell it on Craigslist. Do not charge fifty bucks for it. We all recognize Ikea furniture. We know how much you paid for it. Used is not the same as antique. Most furniture, and especially Ikea furniture, does not increase in value.

Listen, you have had sex and eaten takeout and maybe even had an "accident" on that bed you're selling. If I wanted to pay four hundred dollars for a bed, I would get a new one, minus the sperm and urine.

3) Pictures. People are not going to drive out to Woodland Hills only to discover that your "Danish Modern" cabinet is actually from 1981.

4) Speaking of Danish Modern! Please, stop abusing the term. Danes everywhere roll in their graves in horror.

5) An antique is something that is over a hundred years old. Think about that for a minute. Is your 1971 bookcase an antique? No. No, it's not.

6) It's "wrought" iron, not "rod" iron.

Best of luck, furniture people. Keep the faith! The hundred-dollar bedframe of your dreams is out there somewhere, I promise.

this is in or around Dreamland

Letter To The East Coast (Re-Purposed: Apr. '04)

By: Ben Tiernan

Listen Dickheads,

You need to get over yourselves and accept that the West Coast is better than the East Coast. I’m sick of your snotty condemnation of my coastline. It’s rude, clichéd and ugly – like your mom.

The West Coast has no culture?

You, in your L.L. Bean - fuck you. We’ve got Hollywood. We make culture.

We’ve got technology. We make the media that proliferates culture.

The Ivy League is for pansies. Try Stanford. Try Berkeley; George Bush wouldn’t have lasted a week.

We can play your game. Can you play ours? The weather is unreal, everyone is beautiful, and the governor of California fights aliens, and wins.

Figure it out, jerks. The action is in the West.

"Thriller" As Inerpreted By A Filipino Prison

'Nuf said

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Baseball Chatter

By: Ben Tiernan

I went to a Dodgers game yesterday and it was a blast, but when it comes to baseball and most sports I'm always a little ignorant of the rules. I know that chatter is an important part of the game and that banter from the fans is important.

As a fan in the bleacher within ear shot of the field you can say the players names with funny emphasis. For example, when yelling at Nomar Garciaparra you can say, "NOOOOOO-mar", or you can say it fast and shrill "nomar!" People tend to stay away from Garciaparra - I guess it's funny enough already.

You can also taunt the opposing team members about their stats. You can say, "Hey Sariano, you suck!"

I was not familiar with the various players records, so I kept my taunts to a topic within my general area of knowlege. I taunted Jacque Jones from the Cubs about his pants. Our seats where just behind right field, or left field - who can tell? - from which I joined in the jeering with my own brand of chatter.

Hey, Jones! Where'd you get those pants?
Hey, Jones! How much did you pay for those pants?
Hey, Jacque! Nice pants!

When the tide turned and The Dodgers took the league, I turned up the volume on my barbs.

Hey, Jones! How your pants now?

When the little boy in front of me turned to his father and asked, "Why's he talking about his pants?" I knew my work was done.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Globe Trotting

By: Ben Tiernan

Jill and I went to Croatia in September. Here is a posting I apparently wrote but never posted. It mostly concerns the experience of flying with airline Buddy Passes arranged by a far extended Hungarian family member named Gabor.

















Our flight to NYC was fine – early, cramped, etc. – but we arrived with relatively few hurtles to overcome and the flight was not hijacked.

I met Gabor for the first time face to face when we checked in at the gate. He was there checking people in with the same questionable customer service that he had employed when arranging my ticket for Budapest – a sort of purposeful nonchalance with a heaping helping of apathy.

Gabor seemed to know who I was before I introduced myself and also seemed not to care. I offered my hand and he shook it reluctantly and didn’t really ever look directly at me. He told me immediately, “You’re fine, you can board.”
“Great, thanks so much…do we need a boarding pass?”
“Not really”
“But how will we get on the plane?”
“Just get on”
“But doesn’t everyone else have a boarding pass?”
“Fine. I can print you a boarding pass if you really want one.”
“It’s not that I really want one, it’s just…”
“Here is your boarding pass. Have a nice flight.”

When Jill and I noticed that our seats were not next to each other I tentatively returned to the gate to ask Gabor what to do about it. When he offered that we should, “Just sit next to each other,” I didn’t raise any objections to the problems that might arise if we did. In stead, we just sat next to each other and it worked.

Gabor was not all curt indifference. Well he was, but he also put us in business class which I can heartily declare is better than economy class – or whatever it is I usually fly.

The plane was on the runway for two hours before lift off - because that is what airlines are want to do – and up in business class it was all steamed washcloths and mimosas. In the back I was whips and cattle prods as usual. At one point they came by with a cart of magazines and newspapers and being an international traveler of the business class capacity, I asked for the London Financial Times by name, “Could I have the FT.”

When it was time for wine we choose a nice clarot that the attendant who was boundless in his obsequiousness spilled all over Jill’s lap. This posed an ethical dilemma and we began to feel a bit like frauds because of the proportion and business-class earnestness of the response. The attendant was devastated by his blunder, and all the manpower of the flight staff sprung into action pouring mineral water on napkins, dabbing at Jill’s damp thigh and apologizing for the insult to us and our families. Jill was not happy that she had to cross the Atlantic in damp chinos, but when they offered to sacrifice an economy class passenger to appease our anger, we felt it was too much.

When we arrived in Budapest on Saturday morning, we found Kitty after a small search and we all drove together to her apartment in the Castle district. Budapest was beautiful as usual. We crossed the Danube on a beautiful suspended bridge and admired the parliament on the Pest side and the Citadel on the other. It was warm and bright, and when we commented on how pleasant it was Kitty told us that summer had been very nice but plagued by freak storms. A week earlier, a ferocious windstorm had started very suddenly felling trees and power lines and killing six people in the city. Just as quickly it died down and the weather returned to normal.

I had seen “An Inconvenient Truth” on the plane to New York, so I attributed the storm to global warming. In the past 650,000 years, which include a number of ice ages and hot periods, carbon dioxide levels have never been as high as they are right now by far, and global temperatures are directly related to carbon dioxide levels. Moreover, warmer sea levels mean stronger more sporadic weather. Cite melting glaciers; cite longer more devastating hurricane seasons. But I digress.