On Location Location

My love/hate relationship with MTV's reality train-wreck series, The Hills, continues tomorrow night when a song by Salt Lake City's Location Location (Marcus Bently's electronic project) will fill the long silences between Audrina and Lauren. Tune in just long enough to hear "Starpusher." The Hills airs at 10 p.m. (ET).

(Jamie Gadette)

UtahFM.org: Pinpoint SLC 3

[Media/Podcast] In this week's installment of UtahFM.org's Pinpoint SLC local entertainment podcast, SLUG's Andrew Glasset talks to Kid Theodore, and Utah Symphony & Opera's Crystal Young-Otterstrom gets all classical (music) on your ass. Not that she'd put it exactly that way ...

Hear Pinpoint SLC now at UtahFM.org. (Bill Frost)

Rock! This Just In

Eagles Of Death Metal are playing Urban Lounge November 5. Anyone who went to their last gig at The Depot knows what this means.

(Jamie Gadette)

Idol Kills News Anchor Brain Cells

[Media] And to think this happened just across Main Street from us yesterday. How did we not sense a disturbance in The Force when Darth Cowell was near?


(Bill Frost)

Utah's 15 Minutes

[TV News] ABC News and USA Today are doing a "50 States in 50 Days" report leading up to the presidential election. On Sunday, Sept. 21, Utah gets its time on World News Sunday (airing on ABC4 at 5:30 p.m.) when Brian Rooney travels to Price to report on natural gas drilling in Nine Mile Canyon.

That's all well and good, but I guess that also means Utah's quirky political cards (a Mormon in the White House?) have officially played out. No Charlie Gibson/Diane Sawyer probing interviews as to why Gov. Huntsman jumped on the McCain bandwagon before it was politically expedient to do so, or how Utahns are supporting or rallying against the upcoming California marriage amendment or even how Utah created a political opportunist and strategist like Karl Rove (old news, I know, but I never tire of it).

The Utah angle is that of us being just a plain old Western state with oil shale to exploit and what "Drill, baby, drill" is doing or will do to us. Important, yes, but not too imaginative.

Probably oughta watch it. Many of us don't know near enough about Nine Mile Canyon. (Jerre Wroble)

Band On The Run: Oh Snap!!

Day 9

Tour is a series of coincidences, luck, (good and bad), mishaps, a mess of constant confusion. It's seven weeks of never really being grounded. You're always on the go and every time you don't take the time to do a thorough "dummy check"and something gets left behind.

For example. back on Day 1 we were practicing in Denver in the basement of our friend, Corey from Hello Kavita. My bass head (in it's bright purple JC Penney suitcase) was left in a mess of laundry. Corey is shipping it to Chattanooga TN.

Then on Day 5, we were playing in Austin TX at The Mohawk, and while setting up our gear my bass stand was crooked and Thunderbird toppled over! The head snapped from it's neck. There was blood everywere. My stomach turned in knots, my eyes jumped from my head like a cartoon, and a quick loud "FUCK!!!" filled all of downtown Austin.

I'm now out a bass head, and my bass.

After my show at The Mohawk we walk down to Emo's where our friend Matt Bauer was playing. Matt gave us some more Lonestar drink tickets and I clichely (is this a word?) tell bartender Jacob how my heart was broken.

"I just snapped the headstock of my Thunderbird, it's hanging by a thread."
"Bummer man," he says, and pauses. "Man, I got this Squire you can have if you ship it back to me. I've had it forever and just trying to get rid of it." This is when my opinion of Austin changes.
"Holy shit, that'd be awesome, can I just buy it off you or like $50?"
"You know what man? You can just have it."

So he gave me his number and address and I was supposed to pick it up. We sleep at a friend's house, who has a bass head that I can buy for $100 which I quickly borrow from our drummer Charlie.

I call Jacob, and he never answers, so we drive to his house. He lives in a small house, with what it looks like a couple roommates, a bar bottle ashtray on the front porch and a beat up Passat in the driveway. I knock loudly on the door. A few seconds go by. I hear fumbling and loud hungover footsteps walking towards me. He swings open the door in a T-shirt and boxers and in his left hand hands me a very free, black, Squire, telecaster GUITAR. Not a bass. I graciously and very awkwardly take it to the van. (I just didn't have the heart to tell him it was a bass that I needed, I can still use it as leverage towards a bass I thought.)

I'm up a Squire guitar, and down a bass.

This story is getting ridiculous. Basically, I end up getting a bass from our friend in Little Rock AK, who agrees to let me borrow it if I ship it back to Little Rock from NY. I have an appointment to get my bass fixed in NY. Then I'll sell one of the bass heads to pay for all the shipping I'm doing along with my bass repairs.

The scary part is this story is only about half way through. This has been the roughest vacation yet.
(Trever Hadley, Band of Annuals. Blogging for six more weeks!)

A Fitting Tribute

[D.F. Wallace] Sure, you can go on and on about how you once interviewed him, and how he was your very favorite author--or how you became so after news of his death alerted you to his existence. But--excluding J. Gadette's succinct and well-placed outburst, which I fully support--all this literary hand-wringing doesn't add up to a hill of beans in this crazy old world.

At last, there's a powerful organization that's doing something about it.

(Brandon Burt)

Eavesdropping on KSL

[Radioactive] Sometimes I imagine if I crossed over into another time/space dimension, like in an old Star Trek episode, and became my own evil twin that I would be a proud conservative sporting a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on my SUV barreling down I-15 while listening to KSL radio on the way to work.

Well, without even having to locate a wormhole or anything, I actually did tune into KSL radio on the way to work today and was rather disoriented to hear Grant and Amanda joined in by Doug Wright all dissing President Bush for being such a pantywaist about the economy. Wright was especially vexed after listening to the president’s press conference this morning wherein the prez could only muster the weakest of bravado, saying: “My administration is focused on meeting these challenges.” Wright was, per usual, outraged: “Where is the president in all this?”

So, Doug, Grant and Amanda, I have to ask: Where was this outrage back in the day when it might have been useful, when this crisis had its start? It's a little late in the day to be pissed, isn't it?

Bush even opted out of attending a fund-raiser today, since his base from the good old days may be turning on him.

Later, while running an errand, I still had my radio tuned into 1160 AM.

Lo and behold, my ears were filled with the dulcet tones of Sean Hannity interviewing my former mayor, Sarah Palin. I noticed how many of Palin's sentences were choppy fragments as she haltingly considered ways to plug in her talking points. I'm baffled by how inarticulate she has become. Here are a few snippets:

HANNITY: Who's responsible for these failing institutions in your view?
PALIN: I think the corruption on Wall Street. That — that is to blame. And that violation of the public trust. And that contract that should be inherent in corporations who are spending, investing other people's money, the abuse of that is what's got to stop.

… The cronyism that has been allowed to be accepted and then leads us to a position like we are today with so much collapse on Wall Street. That's the reform that we have got to get in there and make sure that this happens. We have got to put government and these regulatory agencies back on the side of the people.

It's what John McCain and I — we have very consistent track records showing that we are capable and we are willing to do this, ruffling feathers along the way, but it's what we're expected to do and what we're promising to do.

And real reform is tough and you do ruffle feathers along the way. But, John McCain has that streak of independence in him that I think is very, very important in America today, in our leadership. I have that within me, also.

And that's John -- why John McCain tapped me to be a team of mavericks, of independents coming in there without the allegiances to that cronyism, to that good old boy system.

It reminds me a little bit of beauty-queen contestant babble. Sorta like …. dare I make the comparison?



(Jerre Wroble)

GOP: Thanks, Hacker!

[Politics] The much-publicized hack into Sarah Palin's quasi-personal Yahoo! mail account couldn't have worked out better for the McCain-Palin campaign.

As a result of the exploit, the account now has been deleted, meaning that Palin can spare herself the uncomfortable questions that would arise if she were to, say, erase evidence in the Troopergate investigation by deleting the account herself. Other uncomfortable questions include: Why was she using insecure Yahoo! mail accounts for official business in the first place? If it's because she was worried that her official (and presumably much more secure) .gov account was subject to open-records laws--not to mention court subpoenas--what was she hiding?

More importantly, is Palin's fetish for back-door secrecy a sign that, if elected, she would continue Dick Cheney's "I'm not part of the Executive Branch" policies of secret government?

The "hacker" also screwed up the data--it was released in screen shot form, for Pete's sake. A real hacker would have swiped a copy of the actual mail spool--creating a searchable text document complete with full mail headers, which would have been much more useful (and, likely, politically damning).

As it is, the "hacker" chose to include things like snapshots of Palin's kids--muddying the waters with a false impression that an elected official can carry out official business in secret, and that the public's access to official government records is somehow a "violation" of the government's "privacy."

So, on behalf of the neocon shadow government, thanks, hacker! You just solved a huge problem for McCain's unvetted running-mate. Couldn't have done it better if you were a GOP political operative. Psst! You can pick up your check at Karl Rove's office.

(Brandon Burt)

Body Worlds' Fiber Art

[Exhibit preview] Until today, I never thought humans were the stuff of fiber. But a tour through Body Worlds 3 and The Story of the Heart, opening Sept. 19 at The Leonardo, revealed a certain "fiberosity" of being: Nerve fiber, muscle fiber, organ fiber, lung fiber, fibrous tendons, even the vast blood vessel network surrounding organs and muscles—when isolated and highlighted like it is in this exhibit—looks like a fine mesh of fiber, or fragile red baby's breath.

And who knew the spinal column is rather drenched in blood from a dense mesh of vessels and capillaries that attach onto it? Seeing how interwoven these vessels are, how needy each organ, muscle and bone is for blood, makes one appreciate what a colossal bummer a heart attack might be.

My observations will no doubt make Dr. Angelina Whalley (above) happy. She wants me to think about my body and treat it nice. Quit my vices. Get fit. Revere it, even.

Whalley's the wife of the exhibit's creator, the mad-anatomist and Plastination patenter, Dr. Gunter von Hagens. She also serves as designer of the exhibits.

Creating this exhibit, for her, borders on a religious experience. At today's press conference, she noted that going back to the days of the Renaissance—when bodies were dissected and examined in churches—looking inside the body is a chance to examine "God's work."

As the 47th city to host Body Worlds, Salt Lake is a bit overdue to receive this exhibit. But at least, it's given Body Worlds a chance to work out all the kinks. Apparently, when they first kicked it off in Japan in '95, they displayed the bodies in straight-forward upright positions. The Japanese said it was too scary. So the von Hagens began positioning bodies into striking poses, highlighting the muscle groups needed to make such movements.

I'd show you some but Body Worlds won't allow posting their photos on blogs.

Thus, you'll just have to see for yourself, starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. at 209 E. 500 South. And/or wait for Brian Staker's upcoming review in City Weekly. And/or read this week's Five Spot.

And good on you, Leonardo. Nice to see the old library come alive again, even if it's filled with dead people. (Jerre Wroble)

Dew Underground: Salt Lake City

I did the Dew tour last weekend, and though I felt old, uncool, and slightly naseous after paying $6 for a draft beer, I earned a newfound appreciation for the sheer amount of man/woman power that goes into setting up an action sports tour. Fuel TV's busy bees worked overtime to capture the most significant facets of the hugely successful event, even stopping by a couple of Salt Lake City venues to film several local bands. Now you can do the Dew from the comfort of your own home, should you subscribe to Fuel TV, that is. Catch the premiere of Dew Underground: Salt Lake City this Sunday, Sept. 21 at 8:30 p.m. (ET). Featured acts include:
Tolchock Trio, Form of Rocket, Furs, Loom, Team Mom!, Navigator and Bad Apples. But wait! That's not all. Fuel TV also caught up with local artists Trent Call, Nick and Erin Potter, Kier Defstar, Jaleh Afshar and Brian Kubarycz. Sounds pretty cool, actually.
Or, totally extreme!!
By the way, this isn't Tolchock's first encounter with Fuel TV

(Jamie Gadette)

The Bison Brief

[Bites] According to the National Bison Association, production and sales of bison have been increasing at an average rate of nearly 20 percent for the past two years. There must be something to this bison business, maybe because it's relatively low in fat, high in protein and has a beneficial cholesterol profile. If you’re interested in trying natural, sustainable bison, a number of downtown restaurants are featuring bison dishes during the Downtown Dine O' Round: Acme Burger (bison burgers), Metropolitan (bison short ribs osso buco), Faustina's (bison sliders), The New Yorker (braised buffalo short ribs) and Squatters (BBQ buffalo burgers). In addition, this weekend Whole Foods in conducting a “Buffalo Bonanza.” Mmmmm ... bison! (Ted Scheffler)

The Most Awesome Cell Phone

[Tech] It's nearly impossible to buy a phone that doesn't also double as a camera, camcorder, iPod, PDA, GPS and personal hadron collider. Life is so complicated. Sometimes you want a phone that's just a phone.

That's why I love SparkFun Electronics' Port-O-Rotary. It's an old, black, standard rotary phone converted to a cell phone.

In case you've never seen one before, you dial a rotary phone by inserting your index finger in one of those little holes and physically rotating the dial until your finger contacts a little metal capstain at the lower right edge. When you remove your finger, a spring mechanism returns the dial to its original position, producing a number of clicks corresponding to the number dialed.

Equipment at the central office automatically interprets those clicks as numbers, routing your call accordingly. The same "click" can also be generated by briefly pressing down on the switchhook located under the handset. This is a helpful feature during those dramatic moments in life, when you can lift the handset and feverishly tap the switchhook while crying, "Operator? Operator!"

The "ringtone" is produced the way the gods intended ringtones to be produced: by an actuated mallet striking a metal bell. Imagine walking down the street talking on one of these puppies! According to the Website, it weighs two pounds, so you could also use it as a weapon to fend off an attacker. Try that with your fancy iPhone.

(Brandon Burt)

Robbery Update: My Personal Theory

[Crimesolvers!] Now, I'm no criminologist. But the idea that the bank robber is an UrRu? Kind of ridiculous. A Skeksi might rob a bank, but not a poor, old, wise UrRu. Face it, the robber is probably not any kind of a Muppet. Snuffleupagus is too slow to get away, and it's been years since Animal robbed a bank; it was the love of a good Muppet, Janice, that helped him kick his heroin addiction. (It's a touching, inspirational story told in her upcoming autobiography Do I Love You? Fer Sure.)

But then I read about another bank robber with a big nose and a wig ... from New York City! (As they say on the Pace condiment commercials, "New York City?!? Get a rope.")

This one is, apparently, a non-Muppet human named Samuel Manoharan:


The similarities are ... well, not exactly uncanny, considering you can't really see much in the security photos. But the similarities are at least plausible. Still, given that he was caught in August robbing banks in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Manoharan is probably in custody. Or is he?!? Maybe he skipped the $30,000 bail. Hell, for all I can tell from a quick Google search, and what I've learned from episodes of Law & Order, he could be on Mars by now. The Murray Police Department undoubtedly has better search tools. And better training videos.

At any rate, if the authorities do apprehend the suspect as a result of this information, it was my pleasure. No need to thank me. Part of my job, etc. On the other hand, if the bank recovers its losses, it might consider some sort of thoughtful gesture. Just sayin'. I've always thought those promotional toaster ovens looked nice.

(Brandon Burt)

Henson Is as Henson Does

[Crime] Sources seem to lean heavily toward describing this alleged robber of a Murray bank as possibly being of Muppet origin.

So far, he/she has been called Snuffleupagus, Animal from The Muppet Show, and--my own opinion--one of the UrRu from The Dark Crystal.

Note: If you want to rob a bank, it might be a good idea to make sure your disguise isn't too entertaining; next thing this hapless guy will know, his photo will be in blogs and e-mails across the world. Not to mention all over LOLRobbers.com.

(Brandon Burt)

Everlast: More Than One Song

[Live Music] Not that you've heard much about it, but former House of Pain rapper-turned-urban-bluesman Everlast plays the Bar Deluxe (666 S. State) tonight; the show was moved from the now-defunct Paladium with little fanfare.

Local radio stations would have you believe that the ONLY song Everlast ever recorded was the maudlin "What It's Like," and it's unlikely any of them are even aware the man's in town tonight while they spin that tune for the fourth time in 24 hours. Here's a far cooler one, "Black Jesus":



(Bill Frost)

Phony Excellence

[Wine Hoax] I've always been a tad suspicious of the all-too-pervasive Wine Spectator restaurant awards for wine lists since it seems like every other restaurant has one. Well, so was Robin Goldstein, author of a book called The Wine Trials. To test whether Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence was legit, Goldstein created a phony Italian restaurant—Osteria L'Intrepido—along with a phony wine list stuffed with "reserve" wines which included some of the lowest-rated in Wine Spectator history. He also created a phony Website and phone reservation line, all of which took about three hours. Next, he submitted his Wine Spectator Award of Excellence application, a copy of food and wine menus, and, most important, the $250 application fee. Seems that the latter is what Wine Spectator is most concerned with since they never investigated Goldstein’s restaurant to determine if it was even real. The nonexistent Osteria L'Intrepido won a prestigious Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. Read about Goldstein’s shenanigans here. (Ted Scheffler)

Dead Zephyr: Week 253

(Bill Frost)

Green Desert Festival Canceled

Apparently the local music festival scheduled to take place Sept. 19-21 just outside of Eureka has been shut down due to misperceptions of it being "one giant rave." Our friend Gavin has the scoop.
(Jamie Gadette)

Snowboarders Vs. Skiers

[Snow Sports] The age-old question about which sport is better continues to burn. Rather than adding more fuel to this fire, let's have a battle between two snow movies, the Grenerds vs Tanner Hall. The victor gets bragging rights, and hopefully will silence this debate- once and for all.

In this corner are the Grenerds. Danny Kass, the two-time Olympic silver medalist as well as multiple U.S. Open and X Game winner, leds the pack with their latest "The Boned Age". The movie pays tribute to the cult classic "The Stone Age" and features the infamous Grenerds and their antics alongside world-class snowboarders like, Travis Rice, Lucas Mongoon and Benji Ritchie.“The Boned Age includes plenty of wipeouts, skits, and the freshest tricks in all aspects of the sport from Magoon creating new rail combinations to EJT--Experimental Jump Technologies,” said Danny Kass.

The Utah premier of "The Boned Age" takes place tonight (September 15) at The Hotel (155 W 200 S) Salt Lake City. The movie starts at 11 p.m. with DJ Felli Fel continuing the party until 2 a.m.

In the other corner is ten time X Games medalist or as the press release declares "the best all-around skier on the planet", Tanner Hall and his latest movie "The Massive". This might be an unfair fight as Hall resides near Park City and even includes street rail scenes filmed in Salt Lake. “From some of the scariest lines up in Alaska to slick urban rails down in Salt Lake City, we mixed it all in. It’s a really solid blend of progressive skiing backed by a soundtrack of my favorite reggae music. In a nutshell, that’s what ‘The Massive’ is all about,” said Hall.

"The Massive" premier goes down at 8 p.m. Thursday (Sept.18) on Lower Main Street (between 7th and 9th Street), Park City.

May the best planker win. (Joseph Bateman)