Welcome Back Rosenthal

I wanted to send my favorite DJ, Jason Bentley, an email which was essentially this post. But he’s pretty much never going to get the email with the amount of mail he gets. SOOOO, on the blog it goes. And for this post I have to explain a bunch of stuff that he already knows. So let’s start with the basics. JB is a DJ on KCRW. How’s that for a bunch of initials! His 7:30 PM to 10 PM show has specialized in “electronic dance music” on the Santa Monica College “school station.” That’s one of way describing his/our type of music. And that’s one of describing that so-called school station. He is my favorite DJ, not just because of the music, but his delivery. In fact I like other things too, like his passion for music and the lack of interruptions he allows on his show.

I heard the news a few days ago, and not to bring up a sad event, but it hit me like another KCRW tragedy. It’s a far more serious event, but the death of Warren Kolodny. When I first moved to LA in the mid-90’s I quickly discovered KCRW and KXLU. And then, as now, I pretty much listen to the KXLU during the day and KCRW on nights and the weekend. KXLU does basic college rock for most of the day and middle of the night (and I hear it’s where JB got is LA start after his move from Boston). Whereas KCRW used to have some interesting evening shows, then sort of didn’t, and now have some late evening shows that are JB clones-but I’ll get to that in a second.

So I got to LA and found Bentley doing his Metropolis show and at the time he had some demo tapes form a group called Underworld, and having grown up in Chicago when House music was invented, I was pretty well versed in dance music. Also having spent 10 years living in Manhattan prior to moving to LA I was pretty well versed in hip hop, and club music-not to mention my youth in punk and metal. BUT, no matter how much guitar music I thrived on, I had never given up on beat-centric music. So Jason’s show caught my ear RIGHT AWAY. As did another show, by a man named Warren Kolodny. At the time Warren was doing a show with music that I’ve heard described as “cocktail” music or “space age bachelor pad” or “exotica.” Anyway I took to his show right his show too, so those were my main shows. And then one day I heard Warren was dead. Apparently it was a suicide. Kinda shocking and I think it might have been the first time that a radio show had left me rather than the other way around. And for such a heavy reason.

The ironic thing about Jason is that I recently discovered a training series he’s hosted on Lynda.com’s website about musical inspiration. And at first I laughed in disbelief. But then I realized how perfect it is for him to be doing that. He IS an inspiring guy, and it doesn’t really need to be pointed out how inspiring music is. In fact the reason I listen to the radio almost round the clock is because I do creative work the music inspires me to NO END. I write specific things based on the music I’m hearing-and Jason’s music choices have not just shaped my work but the COUNTRY’S musical taste. That’s right. Did you know he did the musical selection for the Matrix? All that cool music when Neo is flying through the air over Orpheus’ head in the kung fu scene, or that cool as music when they start shooting up the mezzanine-that’s Jason! And every time you hear some cool iPod commercial or car commercial or tons of other things-it’s all inspired by Jason’s show. The show is in LA and they DO make all that stuff IN LA. Clearly I’m not the only person listening to the radio when I create.

So when Metropolis first started it really was a lone voice in the night. I mean I knew where to get electronic music or where to find stations on the internet that were broadcasting it, but that type of music wasn’t really “out there” for the general public. And tonight on his show he said he’s been doing it for 16 years and yeah, that’s a long time. I mean really it is. So, despite my sense of personal loss, I can’t fault the guy for moving on. He’s going to do the Morning Becomes Eclectic show AND become the Musical Director for the station. And I think it’s really the MD position that’s prompting the move, not the format change in his show. He’s been an enlisted man long enough, time to become an officer. And electronic music is safe. I mean the war is over. That music is no longer on the outskirts of society. It’s infused and integrated, hell some people would even say it came and went. But I wouldn’t say that-the Basement Jaxx will STILL blow you away and Goldfrapp’s new I’m in Love with a German Film Star will be a minor classic. But as I mentioned earlier, KCRW now has half a dozen Bentley-lite clones that do dance music in the late evening. None of them are as good as JB, but you can still hear that kind of music. But still, The End of an Era.

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OK, so last year I wrote all these pieces about TLC shows, like the Half Tree Half Man and the Man with the Worst Facial Tumors, and the No Face Man. And in theory I’m DONE. But I can’t help myself! So here I am again writing about stuff I’ve seen on TLC. But I tell you what? I’m actually going to direct you to a much better article (that I didn’t write) on the program about Mandy Sellars and her big legs.

The most amazing thing about Mandy’s condition is that nobody has been able to tell her what’s wrong with her. An entire lifetime of various medical conditions brought on by the big legs, but not being able to identify and correct the problem. Amazing. It took a TV show being done about her to finally get her over to America where somebody could try to find out what went wrong. At this point her legs are 210 pounds and she’s considering amputation.

Her legs are 36 inches thick, and she’s 33 years old but she’s SOOO thin. I mean, to be such a thin person and to have 210 pound legs is such a….I really don’t have the words. In fact you get the impression her legs are actually starving her body. And the shoes…

Originally I thought the program was going to be about at 24 year old Chinese woman named Wang Cheng. Here’s a quote

“A Chinese woman who long-suffered with elephantiasis of the legs says she is looking forward to wearing skirts and trousers after having a life-changing surgery to correct the painful condition, Agence France-Presse reported.

Before the surgery, Wang Cheng, 24, who lives in the eastern Chinese province of Zhiangsu, has not been able to leave her house or wear regular clothing since she was 6-years-old because the condition caused her legs to become deformed and triple in size, giving them a combined weight of 110 pounds.”

Anyway, they’re really is no shortage of this type of human suffering. At least in some cases they’ve been able to catch it early and find solutions Or check out the DailyTelegraph site for more on the stories below.

No, no really! We couldn’t done it without you. Take a bow my brother-you deserve it. Stand back and observe what you have wrought (I know you’re big on the Bible so I threw that in for you). Now, no gnashing of the teeth! You must move forward. Get started on you Presidential “library.” Lot of people would underestimate designing a 2 foot by 3 foot space but I know, even that, takes planning so don’t let us hold you up on your next exciting adventure.

All kidding aside, many do view you and your presidency as a joke, but let’s be real for a minute. A lot of real live people died because of you. A lot of people died here in the country as a whole, in the Armed Services, in Iraq, in Louisiana! And all the people who did go to work and came back missing limbs, or missing jobs, or missing years of their kids lives, or coming back to NO FAMILY AT ALL. A wife who jut couldn’t’ take the stress. And a lot of people lost their homes. Your REFUSAL to deal with wall street gone wild cost people their retirement with the Enron and all the other companies who played with people’s lives. But turns out that was just the tip of the financial iceberg right? In other words your damage is very real. Very real. And so much carelessness because you surrounding yourself with a callous and greedy body of people. Cheney and his Halliburton money grab, Wolfowitz and his theories and Rumsfeld and his armchair general’s approach to combat. Real people really suffered.

But with Obama’s election the world is proud of America. The signal has been sent. That the ugly Americans have finally been beaten back into submission. Everybody recognizes that they’re still here, but that it will take an enormous effort for them ever to regain power and wreck havoc on the world again. People knew that we black Americans didn’t have the numbers to ever put a black man in office, that it was going to take all types of Americans pulling together to enact a actual “regime change.” But we did it, we ending a stranglehold that went on for too long. It’s over.

The thing that has struck me in life is how unusual are the people who want to be president. Invariable what I see is this desire to go down in history. I only see the desire to serve the people as in afterthought. Except in 2 cases Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, otherwise it’s been one history whore after another. As we’ve just seen with McCain’s use of Sarah Palin. His greed for that office prompted him to insult the American people to such an unbelievable degree that after the initial shock wore off his OWN party realized that guy couldn’t give a flying fuck what happens to us if it meant he would “get to be president.” I have a theory that I’m always telling people; toothpaste does not come out of the tube on its own. I’ve learned that in life almost no movement forward happens without the appropriate pressure. And you Mr. Bush backed the country into such a corner, such a corner, that they would vote a black man into office. That’s a hell of accomplishment. You will go down in history, not just as the worst president ever, but the main who made Obama possible.

So again, being the good Bible man that you are I guess there’s only one way to say goodbye; don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

Here’s an image brought to my attention by HotRod at WFMU.  As you know this blog is 1/5 about comics and Alex Ross who went to art school here in Chicago did this one.

Has it been that long? Wow, john Edwards. Remember him. Man, time waits for no man and it seems like years ago that Edwards was a part of this whole election circus but yeah, he was in it. Anyway I took a gigantic break from writing on this blog, but I didn’t stop thinking about story ideas, so a bunch of things that are now going to start popping up because they’re still vaguely relevant. Take for example this piece you’re currently reading.

Months ago John Edwards dropped out of the race, and at the time he wouldn’t give his endorsement. He was being coy. Ho hum. Then he FINALLY dropped it on Obama, and the event was like the Fourth of July; with these guys holding hands and looking triumphant. And it seemed like a fait accompli that he was going to be the running mate. I even wrote this whole piece about it. A couple of young, progressive, popular guys, one black one white. It was like some awesome Hollywood cop buddy movie. But then…things went quiet about the VP pick, in fact it shifted to Hillary talk after she got knocked out of the race. And I was confused.

I mean I’ll be honest I’m not a long time fan of political things, but like many people have HAD to become other world has just gone to shit. So I thought a I had developed a pretty good grasp of things because I DO have a strong understanding of human behavior. So when Edwards didn’t get the VP pick I was really surprised. Cut to; a few months later and John Edwards is hiding out in a hotel bathroom. But it wasn’t a Republican style closeted gay issue. He had allegedly fathered a child out of wedlock. Well, well, well. Turns out black guys aren’t the only ones. The National Enquire dug up Rielle Hunter AND took pictures. And that’s what happened to Edwards; the vetting process dug her up or he confessed that this shit was about to explode and they took him out(”John, you sure that’s not anything you want to tell us about?” “No. No, why do you ask? Have you heard anything? Well…well, there is one small thing…”). Coulda bin a contenda’!

Man this takes me back! Back in the good old days of early and mid 2008 I used to write articles and get regular emails from people asking how to make money online. Eventually I wrote that long 7 part series. And tonight I got one of those emails, so I decided to write my response here so that any new arrivals can also benefit. So without further adieu…
Hello again
You’re right I AM busy, but I have a personal flaw that motivates me to help people. Why would I call that a flaw? Well as you can see I was writing quite a bit on this blog. Then I stopped around June and only started putting the occasional piece up about 2 weeks ago when I got kicked off my host for too much traffic and found myself working on the files for this blog. (In case you didn’t know, they WILL do that if you’re on “shared hosting.” That’s the 5-10 dollar a month deals). So when I moved the blog a few friends asked me to start writing again, since I used to write a LONG piece every single DAY.

But I had my adsense account closed because I was helping somebody who emailed with “just few question.” He was so happy with his results he started clicking on my ads. (And in case you didn’t know, that will get your account closed). So I had to go through tremendous trouble and lost and unbeleivable amounts of money to get set up again. So now I just refer people to those 7-8 post. Almost nobody follows the advice but it’s enough information to make you rich within a year. I gave it away for FREE and people still wont do as I explained. So my warning from earlier, about avoiding arbitrage for now, will really only have meaning to you after you read all the stuff.

Now yes, its long, but as you pointed out-I do write in a relatively natural voice so hopefully it doesn’t seem too boring or complex. Take your time. And take it easy. A lot of people find out there’s money on the internet and teyt want to be making money the next day. Take it easy visit other sites. LEARN. The internet is not going anywhere. Just keep in mind NINETY percent of them don’t know how to really make money. I’ll give you a one paragraph explanation right now.

Stick to adsense, affiliate sales and ebay. Focus on learning and understanding keywords, for adsense learn which ones make money. But for all 3 learn how to build blogs around specific keywords with ebay, affiliate items or adsense on them. Write articles and submit them all over the web with your keywords anchor linked to the blogs. You can try to make money on tbe blog you bought-but that money making model has only so much potential. Which I think you have discovered. My strategy can get you up to thousands and thousands and thousands as you refine your technique and grow from the same model I present. That’s the whole “secret” to making money online.

Jesus. He comes up quite a bit on the Adult Swim program Moral Orel created by Dino Stamatopoulos, but in this case I actually am yelling “Jesus!” Because you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen this season. I’m a regular Adult Swim viewer and to some extent I’m relatively familiar with Dino’s work, having watched every episode of Mr. Show and TV Funhouse, and of course he’s from right here Chicago. But this is supposedly the final season of Morel Orel and all beats are off, or maybe it’s the gloves that have come off. SOMETHING is off because the people behind the show are taking the scorched earth approach to TV. Basically, fuck it.

Here’s what I know; right in the first episode of the season it said “final season.” And a few months ago on the Adult Swim website they had some video footage from a comic convention where Dino and the guys from The Venture Bros had a little on stage fracas. Dino didn’t like the hair on the other guys and wasn’t happy that his show had been canceled. The Venture guys didn’t seem to attack back but said stuff along the lines of the station keeps quality shows no matter who makes them. In other words, if your show was good or even BAD but people watched it you wouldn’t be cancelled.

So this is the cauldron in which the current season of Morel Oral has been brewing. I WANT TERRIBLY to tell you what’s happened in the 5 episodes I’ve seen in the last 2 weeks. Ok, let me stop for a second. 5 episodes in 2 weeks? Yeah. The station has been showing 2 a week, plus tonight early online access to Sunday’s show. Why would they be doubling up like this? I’m guessing it’s in some contract somewhere that the shows have to air at least once (if they get past the censor) and not go straight to DVD because it’s the feeling I’m getting is just somebody saying “just get it over with.” So we have these new shows and…well it’s weird.

The episodes are very Pulp Fiction. I can’t tell if they were created like that or the network is just showing them out of order. It appears they were created like that because many scenes are repeated in the “right” time and sometimes you might see the scene earlier where it doesn’t seem to fit exactly but you get the idea. So maybe it’s more like Momento. At any rate, that still doesn’t examine the CONTENT. Holy Shit! The content of the show is bananas. Plain and simple it’s gone from a “dark” show to a BLACK show. The premise has always been this sort of satire of the Davy and Gumby religious claymation from the 60’s (50’s?), but they really only hinted at certain things up to this point. This season, on the hand, is just explicit as can be and from subject matter to depiction it’s just RAW. Take no prisoner, cut no corners, no vagueness or innuendo. Basically; show that shit is the theme they’re working from. And what can I say? I mean it’s both entertaining and sad. The obvious thing that people are saying on the message board is that it’s “disturbing.” No it’s not. I know much more hardcore shit, and even regular people should not be “disturbed” in 2008 almost 9. But it is sad that it takes a show’s cancellation for people to both stop censoring themselves and for a network to allow a creative team to really express themselves. You know what I’m saying. It’s a backed into a corner type situation. So hurry up and watch, at this rate it’ll be off the air in a few more weeks. And I’m guessing the re-run potential is pretty low for this season.

Well I really haven’t been a VH1 viewer since almost since the last Celebrity Rehab I that wrote about. And what can I say I just got sucked in last time, since I really am not a celebrity guy or drug guy-so both of those combined SHOULD have meant nothing to me, but the show just caught me. So this time I’m on board early. Me and Dr. Drew baby! As soon as I saw a commercial for it last week I knew I was going to watch. So I’m writing this AS the first episode is airing.

The collection of people is as diverse as you might expect. First up is “non” patient Gary Busey. It’s been said before and it’s been said repeatedly that Busey is bat shit crazy. He shows up allegedly clean but acting so weird that his behavior would tell you he’s ON drugs, but who knows…

And then there’s model/actress Amber Smith, who’s on prescription drugs. Taking drugs on camera and everything! She looks like a sad case. But really, she’s there to cleanse the palette because next up is Rodney motherfuckin’ King. THE Rodney. I mean the whole premise of his beat down is that he was SO deep into drugs that the cops had to beat him down. 3 words; vomiting out truck. Next up is Tawny Kitaen, who’s a little like Amber; a rather typical Hollywood pretty lady who from back in the day who finds her way to drugs-but watch as she gives Busey the big blow off. Speaking of typcial; of COURSE there’s a rockstar, Steven Adler from Guns N Roses. And a jr. rockstar, somebody from American idol, Nikki McKibbin.Speaking of jr’s there’s also Rod Steward’s son Sean. Jeff Conoway is back in a STRANGE spousal abuse situation/co-dependance situation.

Here’s a little more grief for you. Below is Rodney King being asked about his feeling regarding the beating.

And here’s Ambe in full blow detox.

The mentally challenged are funny! Or so NBC has recently decided with their new sitcom Kath and Kim. This is the same network running and WINNING AWARD’S for 30 Rock and the Office. They must feel like they owe Molly Shannon since she’s a Saturday Night Live alumni. But HOW DID THIS SHOW GET ON THE AIR? As best I can tell, the show is about a slightly stupid mother, Shannon, and a REALLY stupid and emotionally underdeveloped daughter-played by Selma Blair! Selma Blair? What corner is she so backed into that THIS seemed like a good idea?

I guess the whole sort of “core” of the show is that these 2 women, and their age and developmentally appropriate male partners, are supposed to be “mall people.” You get the feeling some writer said, “man I ran into such an airhead at the mall, those kind of people just spend their LIVES there. God, I bet they’re just stupid 24 hours a day. Oh My God! I should write a TV show about it, and all those stupid people will be FANS and then the really smart people like ME can watch with a cool and aloof condescending eye!” Not realizing that she herself has to be an idiot to invest all that energy and FUTURE energies into spending time immersed in such a vapid and shallow venture. Some comedy shows are broad, like 3^rd Rock from the Sun, where the characters are space aliens and that makes sense. But what happens when the characters are supposed to be normal but ACT like aliens? The show is horrible. I predict it will not be back next year.

Meanwhile NBC also premiered My Own Worst Enemy a few days ago starring Christian Slater. The show had pretty bad ratings, but I think it was pretty good. That’s because the premise is a Sci-Fi staple. Guy has a “spy” personality he doesn’t know about. Phillip K. Dick’s story about this theme was used for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone in Total Recall. I can’t remember the name of the book but another book that I thought was by Stasheff or Heinlein also had that type of story. Not to mention the John Woo movie Paycheck with Ben Affleck.

So this idea of an agent who voluntarily erases his memory is just an interesting premise. That Gondry film explores the idea too, but the motivation for the memory erase in that case is love and emotions in general. But these other works take the concept of job and lifestyle being removed from the conscious mind to a new level. Who are “you” really? Is it your collection of memories that make you “you?” Or would you be the same if you didn’t recall any of that at all? A totally separate person in the same body.

And let’s here it for Slater. His acting has never been in question, but in this show he gives believable performances as both “characters.” There’s a comic co-worker in the show who has a similar split personality. But Slater is beginning to get a nice middle-aged gut, and those features of his face, that were unique as a youngster, are beginning to look positively satanic now. And that’s actually GOOD. We’ve had enough Johnny Depp and Ryan Seacrest to last us a lifetime, where is all the character in the face of male actors these days? The entire WB (now called CW) network is just littered with these plain faced bastards.

I can not even begin to tell you about the troubles of getting this blog back up. And it’s really kind of a miracle what I’ve been able to do. It’s looking like I’m only going to loose my last 2 post and comments.

Now comes the fun of getting the pictures and plugins back. The email story is not so good, but dave AT welcomebackrosenthal.com should at least get all new emails to me…

Well it’s a couple of days later and turns out importing the database was NOT easy since my last host just packed my entire site in one compressed file. Anyway, one by one I’m going through post and fixing them. Now would also be a good time to make the font larger, but I’m also in the middle of FINALLY getting this siding on the house. Only so many hours in the day.

What the heck am I doing? I guess writing the old blog. I’ve easily got a hundred “posts” ideas I could write up, but I only get inspired when I look at my declining Alexa number. It took a few months but it’s going fast now. OK! So here are some recent events. Last week we had the usual spike in numbers due to one of my 3 TLC (The Learning Channel) articles. I guess it was about a year ago that station ran some pretty horrific medical oddity stories. I think the series is called My Shocking Story or something like that. So since that time whenever the show (anywhere in the world) my little blog has this explosion of traffic. Well, these days the traffic is nowhere as big as it used to be but still not bad. I guess the show about the Man with No Face aired and here\’s what the stats look like.

Also from last week was the very large deal of getting a Driver’s license from the state of Illinois. Why a big deal? Well, see my Cali license expired on my birthday about 6 weeks back, and the big question was if I was going to go back to LA or maybe even San Fran to get a new on. The wouldn’t let me do it online because my previous license was a replacement for one I lost and now they FINGERPRINT you as part of the process and wanted me to make a live appearance. But the big question was; where was I going to live? I mean I’ve been in Chicago now OVER 3 years by a few months, and its the city of my birth and were my mother is-but is it home? And is LA home? I mean i plan all this film stuff for my career, but I’m 41 now. FORTY ONE. I’ve been at this “career” 20 years now. Well one things for certain; I do still have most of my stuff in a storage unit in the Valley. But I also have a whole house full of stuff in my place out here. In fact I actually OWN a house out there-that’s why I also registered to vote out here at the DMV instead of absentee in Cali.

Anyway getting the license was 9 kinds of hell. 10 AM to 6 PM. Some of that was because I wasn’t going to give them my Cali license (so things will be smooth when I do finally go back, and I like the picture). But the main reason was mechanical. Here’s how the day went: 10 AM I showed up with all my paperwork thinking all I would have to do is prove who I was and that I had had a license before. The first line is an mandatory info line that you can be sorted and sent to the right place. I did that for half an hour then was sent to a sitting area where they called A-E numbers randomly, like A67, C71, B01 etc. Next I made it to the desk and they gave me an on the spot eye exam. (right eye is so bad I could only confirm that something was on the chart). I was then told I had to take both the written AND the driving test. Had to go outside and get my insurance proof. Then sent to pay (10 dollars). I was told I could study. I took the loaner book and spent half an hour. 4 wrong, but enough to pass. Go outside, get the truck and bring it around the cars in a line. The guy in front of me HITS THE CAR in from of him. Security guy comes out and tells him its over, just leave. I get up to the spot, and they have me test my horn, blinkers and brake lights. Brake lights don’t work. I’m shocked, but sort of not (hit and run accident a month ago destroyed parts of the car). I go inside and get a receipt and am told I can return later to finish.

I go home work on the lights, neighbor confirms they work. Go BACK to the DMV, the line again-but I can skip some parts. Get BACK to the car test part, they tell me the lights don’t work again. This time I’ve got a few tools and decide to fix the lights in the parking lot. Work for an hour. 2 ladies pull up next to me and ask about an auto store, turns out their blinker bulb is out. I tell them I’d like to tag along to a store I know. We go, I get their bulb in. They decide NOT to let me take the driving test using their car when we return. I decide to loiter and ask people. I finally tell a guy I’ll give him some money, and he lets me use his car since I can’t get my brake lights working at all (12 dollars, I notice when I get in his gas is on empty and the little warning light is coming on). I took the test finally, but it really WAS a test since I was in a strange car that is NOT a stick shift like I’ve been driving for the last 15 years. And I take a big toothy smiling photo that contradicts the stress of the day and finally leave to fix my grandfathers phones and later my mothers internet.