Daily Archives: March 29, 2011

15 posts

Guilty Pleasures: The TV Edition

Last weekend we here at Crasstalk waged a mighty battle to find the worst that modern music has to offer. Unfortunately, we also discovered that many of us are big fans of these horrible songs, even if we will only admit it on the internet. I will not name the person who likes the Little River Band, but it was really that bad. So, after some discussion, it was decided that Crasstalk needed a regular column to celebrate bad taste. So I bring you Guilty Pleasures, a series for you to confess the darkest secrets of your cultural soul. This week we will discuss the very worst in television. There is plenty of bad TV to choose from, but don’t be bashful. Show us the absolute worst stuff you watch when you have the house to yourself. I’ll show mine first, just to make it fair.

A special thanks to LoremIpsumDolor, Mean_Ol_Liberal, and Daisy_Sage for coming up with this idea.

This is Jericho. Yes, I know it is terrible, but The Grand Inquisitor pretty much likes any show that starts with a nuclear war in the first episode.

On sort of a similar note, I am the only person in the entire country who liked this show.

Back off, nerds. I’m not gonna argue about it.

All right, I have bared my soul. Now it’s your turn.

Top Chef Finale Preview: Jersey Mike vs. Professor Blais

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With the unwanted departure of Splendorina (come back!), there has been a void in Top Chef foofaraw. I am here to assure you everything will be ok. The sous-vide machine is plugged in, the GE Monogram appliances are fully stocked, and Padma and Gails’ breasts have been hand-inspected by yours truly. It’s time for the finale of Top Chef! After such a strong start to the season Top Chef has been dragging its feet for the past few weeks, though it would have been hard to match the epic first elimination challenge (cook the dish that got you booted off the first time around). Maybe it’s because I don’t find myself rooting for either of the finalists but considering how epic the first five episodes were it’s kind of been a letdown. But after the waste of time of the D.C. season it’s still a step up, and it would be criminal to not have a quality breakdown of the final two contestants.

You fancy, huh?

The somewhat surprising flame-outs of Angelo and Dale (and most shocking of all Jennifer’s Ep. 2 freakout) seemed to pave the way for a Richard Blais redemption. All season long the edits kept hammering home the point that Blais “choked” in his finale, and that everyone else saw him as their biggest competition. If the talking heads didn’t remind us that Richard was extremely neurotic and self-critical, it also painted him as an unlikely villain, talking down Carla’s simple food or acting like there weren’t any chefs of his caliber in the Top Chef house. I didn’t expect to find myself hating Blais, but thanks to the magic of Bravo editing I want him to fail miserably and succumb to all the stressors in life. You’re a fucking grown man, get a real hair cut and take some goddamn pride in your work, you’re fucking weak. But while I would like to see him fail, I don’t want to necessarily see him lose. And that is because of…

 

His name is Head. Dick Head.

Jersey Mike! Oh, what a perfectly despicable reality show character Mike Isabella has become. Barely memorable in the Las Vegas season thanks to the greatest final four the show has ever seen, Isabella added twenty pounds and a whole lot of attitude for the All-Star season. From the first episode his talking heads have consisted of nothing but disparaging others for their so-called “simple” cuisine. As for his own cooking, I don’t recall him making anything particularly memorable or garnering a ton of praise from the judges. There was the whole “controversy” of Mike stealing Blais’ dish but as much as I dislike him that seems rather extraneous. He could be a fantastic chef and an overall quality human being, but there is just something so eminently hatable about Jersey Mike. His terrible wardrobe consisting of Ed Hardy/Affliction t-shirts, copious use of hair gel, oh did I mention the misogyny? Because it’s pretty obvious after two seasons that Jersey Mike does not have much respect for women in the kitchen. Throw in the constant “Eyy I’m Italiano!” references and it’s enough to make you under-cook your Buitoni ravioli. I want Mike to lose and I want him to lose badly. I want Richard to dump a tank of liquid nitrogen on his greasy hair and shatter it with a hammer.

Who do you think is going to take home the title? Also, to further discussion, what were your favorite moments of the season? Aside from the awesome season opener, I thought Restaurant Wars was pretty incredible. The way Marcel’s team kind of just threw him under the bus before things even started was a bit sad but equally hilarious. Tre’s awkward laugh destroyed any notions of going gay, Antonia became a hero to high school stoners everywhere and Carla continued her reign as greatest Top Chef contestant ever. Hootie Hoo!

Don’t Mess with the Sound Guy

When I’m not awesomeing it up all over the Internet, I’m mixing live bands for money.  I have what’s referred to as a “house gig.”  I don’t tour.  I work in one venue, and bands come to me.  Sometimes they’re well-known national acts, other times, they’re smaller regional acts.  The bigger bands usually come with their own crew, and I just tell them where they can plug in and how to use the sound board.  The smaller acts, I usually have to mix them.  The following lists happens in both instances, but with the larger acts, I’m not the one who has to deal with it.  On the smaller acts, it effects my job directly.

The Person Who Plays the Tambourine

There are two people who play the tambourine:  The guy who has nothing to do during this song, and the girlfriend of the lead singer who wants to join him on tour, so she knows he’s not sleeping with the groupies.  (Trust me – if I’m mixing you, you have no groupies.)  Either way, you’re not helping the song.  You’re just shaking the shit out of a bunch of metal plates near a microphone.  That becomes the loudest, and most grating part of the song.  And then, right afterwards, you step up to the mic to say something, so if I take the mic out so I don’t have to hear the tambourine, it’s still out when you speak, and now you know I wasn’t putting the tambourine through the P.A.  And now you’re pissed, because nobody could hear the complex rhythms you were playing that like, totally made the middle eight of the song.  If I’m lucky, you’ll mention this on mic so everyone can hear, which brings us to number 2:

The Band that Calls the Mix from the Stage

Don’t stand on stage and tell me how it could sound better.  The speakers I use aren’t pointing at you.  You really have no idea how it sounds.  You’re getting the low end from the back of the cabinets, and then the reflection off the back of the venue.  Of course you think it sounds like crap.  Don’t start telling me how to fix it, because you are going to be wrong.  Then we’re going to get into an argument and I’m going to look like a stubborn dickhead house sound guy who doesn’t know how to do his job.  And, for the love of God, if you decide to poll the audience on the sound, I will shut you off.  No audience has ever collectively decided that the reverb time is too long or anything else that might be slightly helpful.  All they want is LOUDER.  And if you take that to mean that I should turn it up, and tell me to do so on mic in front of everyone, you’re not going to get what you want.  Barring some freak of physics, you’re loud enough.  Probably too loud.  And I have to do this shit for a living.  If it becomes too loud, I will walk away.  I have to listen to loud volumes for extended periods of time, and unlike the douches who are hanging out right next to the subs, I care about my ears.  I put a lot of time and money into educating them.  They are how I pay my rent.  If I break them, I have to find something else to do for money.  Four hundred drunk guys on the dance floor yelling “LOUDER!” are not worth my livelihood.

Keep Your Fucking Family Members Away from Me

That’s your brother playing guitar?  Great.  I’m not turning him up.  I can hear him fine.  I don’t need the whole night to be about him picking around on some chords.  There’s also some guy singing.  That part of the song is pretty important, too.  If you keep coming up to me and telling me you can’t hear him, and each time I don’t turn him up, guess what?  I’m not fucking turning him up.  Nine times out of ten, this results in family member getting pissed, and then telling the guitar player it sounded like shit and they couldn’t hear him.  Then I’m the jackass.

People Who “Do the Sound” at their Church

Please don’t come up to me with mix notes, or want to talk about gear.  I haven’t been to your church, but I’m guessing you’re back in the corner with a tiny console, and you mix by telling the band that plays those super-awesome Jesus Rock songs to turn up their amps.  You also probably read Mix Magazine and pour through Guitar Center catalogs searching for new gear.  First off, Guitar Center sells crap.  They’re the Best Buy of music.  Second, my work buys my shit, and unless it breaks and can’t be repaired, it’s not getting replaced.  I don’t keep up on the latest models of effects units because I ain’t getting one.  When it’s time to buy a new one, I’ll spend the two hours it takes to research them, and then buy the one I want.  I don’t need to study up on that stuff monthly.  Also, unless your church is run by Rick Warren, what I do is on a completely different level than what you do.   You have one guy speaking, I have five or more guys all doing loud shit.  It’s very different.

The Audience

You see this big, expensive-looking thing with a bunch of lights and knobs on it?  IT”S NOT A FUCKING COASTER.  If your drink gets anywhere near it, I will send that Malibu pineapple off in the opposite direction.  And, no, I’m not buying you a new one.  Also, don’t stand right in front of me.  I have to see when the guitar player decides to play an acoustic guitar on this song.

Tone Freak Guitar Players

My venue isn’t that big.  We seat around eight hundred maximum.  When I get a guitar player who needs to have his amp up all the way to get his tone, and can’t live with it facing away, or in another room with a mic in front of it, that means the show is going to suck.  It’s going to be the an evening of trying to get everything up to the same level as your amp, until I just give up because, like I said earlier, I need my hearing.  Then, I’m going to get a bunch of people telling me the guitar is too loud, and they’re going to be right.  But I won’t be able to do anything about it.  I hate these nights.

Bands that Screw Around During Sound Check

I’m good at my job.  Really fucking good.  I see a lot of acts and listen to a lot of mixes, and 80% of the time, I can put together a better mix.  I don’t tell them that, because it’s not nice. (You know who has a great sound guy?  Asleep At The Wheel.  That guy doesn’t do sound check, and within the first half of the first song, has put together one of the better mixes I have heard.)  I will make your band sound good.  But I can’t just pull it out of my ass.  I need like four songs, and I need you to play all your instruments.  I also need you to play at something close to show volume.  Most of the time, everyone walks through soundcheck, half-assing everything, and then come showtime, everything is different.  The guitars are all louder, and the drummer is beating his kit like it owes him money.  That means soundcheck was a complete waste of time.  It’s always fun to un-mute the console and find out your mix isn’t working at all.

Most of the time, I love my job.  Once in a while, I have to deal with these people.  Then,  I don’t love my job.  Whatever.  At least I’m not touring.

Sister Wives Recap: Polygamists in the Mist

In this episode of Sister Wives, we travel deep into the Utah jungle to observe the habits of polygamists. TLC viewers have been fascinated with the history of these primates and the camera crew took pains to document their day-to-day life. From shopping, to camping, to bickering about money, we heard all the details.

For some reason I will never understand, I am fascinated by the logistics of large families. Perhaps it is because I have plenty of trouble managing the logistics of my small family. I am awed by the management and coordination that goes into managing a mega-family. Janelle and Christine talked about how they team up to manage the food costs in the household. I would’ve liked to hear more about that. I assume they do a ton of menu-planning and spend lots of time telling the children “No”.

Christine went shopping then loaded huge bags of flour and sugar into the family bunker. I was trying to figure out what all the tins in the pantry are for. Do you think it’s those survivalist food supplies that they sell at Costco? I’ve always wondered who buys those. I can’t imagine dealing with all that flour. They must have to constantly sift it for weevils. Ugh. That’s way too prairie for me.

The family seems to have lots of concerns about finances like almost every family on earth. Janelle seems to know how to run a budget like a champ. I could really use a sister wife like that. My husband and I both loathe dealing with the numbers. I did find out, through a bit of research, that Kody and Meri filed for bankruptcy back in 2005. Janelle mentioned that Kody is an impulsive spender. I wonder if she’s decided to take the reins financially to prevent another money crisis. So far, Janelle is my pick for sister wife if I had to choose among the four. I might consider Christine if she agrees to do all the shopping.

There was lots of noise about Robyn not working. It’s my understanding that she relocated to marry into the family and that’s why she doesn’t currently have a job. She’s looking but I can’t imagine that publicity from the show is going to help much. I feel bad for Robyn because she used to have a job and manage her own money. Now she’s dependent on a family that has not yet deemed her worthy.

Since this episode aired, the family has moved to Nevada. Does that mean Janelle had to give up her job? You have to wonder. Janelle doesn’t seem like the type to leave a job without some type of guarantee of financial stability. Kody is currently managing the Kody Brown Family Entertainment which probably coordinates all their interviews and appearances, but I’d like to think they actually moonlight as traveling minstrels.

Janelle and Kody went camping to celebrate their 17th anniversary. I’m “meh” on camping but I’ve heard there are people who actually enjoy pooping in the woods. Kody said the trip was relaxing and I’m sure that it was because Janelle, as usual, appeared to be doing all of the work. Janelle has perfectly arranged her place in this family. She is as useful as they come. I’d be willing to share a house with anyone who works that hard.

By the way, there has been a rumor floating around the internet that Aspyn, Kody and Christine’s daughter is pregnant. She’s not. Evidently, people started speculating based on what they perceive as a “baby bump”. Nope, it’s just the rapidly changing figure of the average adolescent. Next week, it looks like there is a little smidge of conflict between Christine and Robyn and, as usual, one of the wives is in tears. It sounds like there’s going to be more financial bickering since Meri loses her job. Whee.