so this video of the dancing Indian (I guess) kid (or midget) is everywhere now. it's awesome. my favorite part is the slow mo walk.



My coworker is from India speaks a similar language and told me what happens. Apparently the guy sitting on the couch is a famous actor, Rajni Kanth, and in the movie his mom doesn't know he smokes. The mom is the lady who comes over and talks to him, so he has to hide his cigarette. Then the mom leaves and he brings the cigarette out. The midget or little person or what have you (who's also famous apparently) sees the cig and wants it, and Rajni tells the midget he has to dance to get it. Then when he finishes dancing, Rajni says he still can't have it because he's too small, and the midget threatens to tell his mom he smokes. Thus the midget gets the cigarette.

The song is pretty rad also, I did some research and it's from a song by MC Miker G & DJ Sven called "Holiday Rap". They were a Dutch rap group and the song sampled Madonna's "Holiday". Here's the video, which is hilariously lame. The part from the movie is about 2/3 of the way through. The rapping sounds a lot like the Sugarhill Gang.



Here's some info about the song, and I love the guy's review of it. And here's the lyrics. Wow. Some guy on YouTube claims that Sven is Mark Madsen's dad, but I think that's BS. Wikipedia says Sven's name is really Sven van Veen. And finally, here's the album.

Electric Six at the Black Cat

P1190101
Originally uploaded by alexadan.

So I went to see Electric Six at the Black Cat the other day. Here's a review. I should have sent it to DCist but I was lazy.

You have to like a band whose biggest hit starts with the line "Fire in the disco! Fire in the... Taco Bell!" Electric Six, best known for that song, called "Danger! High Voltage!", and for a video of their song "Gay Bar" featuring flying viking kittens is one of those bands that sounds on records like they'd be good live, and they did not disappoint. Lead singer Dick Valentine (maybe an alias, maybe his real name) looked like a sweaty Southern congressman and stood stock-still, which served as a good counterpoint to the pretty ridiculous songs - besides titles like "Gay Bar", "Danger! High Voltage!", and "Dance Commander," one song's chorus was "you owe me money!"

The music, mostly fast-paced garage rock, is funny and a little off-center, but it doesn't cross the line into Weird Al or They Might Be Giants goofiness or shtick - they're pretty deadpan about their shenanigans. Even Valentine's dancing was deadpan, standing stiff-legged while he waved his arms awkwardly up and down, into his chest then out like some kind of flagless semaphore (pictured). The crowd, however, loved it, jiumping and singing along full-voiced to most of the songs.

Valentine (the highlight of the band, as most of the other members played without much showmanship) sings with a strange, vaguely foreign accent, despite being from Detroit. He also sounds almost exactly the same while speaking, like during the group's extended jam/slam poem about the President, who Valentine would call "Booooooosh" after a dramatic pause. A fun show, they're one of those bands that I'd see whenever they come to town, even if I hadn't heard the music much.

so i saw the first episode of that new show "Jericho" the other day, I really liked it. It's about a little town in Kansas after a nuclear bomb goes off somewhere not too far away, the residents aren't too sure where it was or why it happened - are they under attack? And so on. I sort of like that apocalyptic-type stuff, zombie movies, "The Omega Man" and so on, and this is about the same, with some "Lost" thrown in. Being a geography nerd, I noticed some errors, like the bomb going off behind some mountains. It was a pretty creepy image, except there are no mountains in Kansas and you can barely see the Rockies from most of Kansas. When you can see them, they're really small, not like how they were shown. But it was dramatic, so hey. They played some good songs, including a Killers song which sounded a lot like U2, and I usually don't really like the Killers much. Anyway, I'll be watching on wednesday when the next one is on.

so I wish there were something to protect my bananas. Oh wait, there is! The Banana Guard! It says you can even put 6 cream eggs in the Banana Guard - "useful for posting to Australia." Great! I am always posting cream eggs to Australia! The Banana Guard sort of looks like another product, however. No, not a pickle guard.

so it looks like Facebook changed that feed thing. cool. they got a lot of press too, not cool.

so there is a big brouhaha going on over at Facebook. They have a new "feature" called the Facebook feed, which basically says what everyone is doing at all times - adding friends, posting on the wall, joining and leaving groups, etc etc etc. People are going crazy and tons of new groups have started up, like "WHAT THE EFF HAPPENED TO FACEBOOK!" "Facebook feed sucks," "New Facebook is Nobody's Friend, Wayne," "facebook looks shit now" and so on. There's also websites and petitions already.

I didn't like it at first because it filled up the screen and I could care less if my friend added "Driving With Phil (my penguin)" to his favorite activities, but it's also kind of an invasion of privacy. Clearly, this is a social networking site and we're providing all of this information, but I don't really want or need to know where people are posting messages, who added who as a friend, and so on. If that stuff were important, I think my friend would tell me. Somebody joining the "I Like Boobs" group is not really that Earth-shattering. I assume Facebook thinks they're being helpful, joining in on the constant updating feed craze, but I just want to turn it off.

Some people are suggesting it's a publicity stunt, which is not a bad idea considering how Myspace is the big wig of this stuff.

I like this response though, "BREAKING NEWS from the facebook news feed!", where people post stupid updates.

so here's my concert list, mainly so I don't forget what I want to see

SAT SEPT 9 JUNIOR BOYS, W/ ENSEMBLE 9:30PM $12 (Iota)
TUES SEPT 12- COMEDIANS OF COMEDY (Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Morgan Murphy, Eugene Mirman) $15 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
WED SEPT 13- BAND OF HORSES, CHAD VANGAALEN, SIMON DAWES $15 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
THU SEPT 21- Enon, Tokyo Police Club, Neptune 8:30 $10 (warehouse next door)
SAT SEPT 23- ELECTRIC SIX, ABERDEEN CITY, THE BLUE VAN $13 mainstage 9:30 (black cat)
MON SEPT 25- ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI, THE BLOW $13 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
TUE SEP 26- Yo La Tengo w/ why? $20.00 (930 club)
WED SEPT. 27 Mates Of State plus Starlight Mints $13 7pm doors (state theatre)
THUR SEP 28- THE MOUNTAIN GOATS, CHRISTINE FELLOWS $13 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
TUES OCT 3- FRENCH KICKS, THE LITTLE ONES, THE ORANGES BAND $13 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
WED OCT 4- RATATAT, ENVELOPES, PANTHER $12 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
MON OCT 9- Built to Spill w/ Camper Van Beethoven & Helvetia $20.00 (9:30 club)
TUE OCT 10- Built to Spill w/ Camper Van Beethoven & Helvetia $20.00 (9:30 club)
WED OCT 11- MICHAEL IAN BLACK, MICHAEL SHOWALTER $15 mainstage 8:30 (black cat)
SUN OCT 15- TV On The Radio w/ Grizzly Bear 10pm Doors. $20.00 (9:30 club)
TUE OCT 17- Joan Jett & The Blackhearts w/ Eagles of Death Metal $25.00 (9:30 club)
WED OCT 18- Ben Kweller w/ The Hymns $20.00 (9:30 club)
FRI OCT 20- SUPERSYSTEM, ZOMBI $10 mainstage 9:30 (black cat)
FRI OCT 27- SPANK ROCK, ROD LEE $12 mainstage 9:30 (black cat)
SAT. OCT. 28- Lady Sovereign w/ Young Love Early Show! 5:30pm Doors. $15.00 (9:30 club)
SUN. OCT. 29- The Decemberists w/ Lavender Diamond $25.00 (9:30 club)
MON. OCT. 30- The Decemberists w/ Lavender Diamond $25.00 (9:30 club)
MON Oct 30- MC Chris @ $10.0 / $12.00 9:00P (rock and roll hotel)
MON OCT 30- APPLES IN STEREO, ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT, BENJY FERREE $12 mainstage 8:00 (black cat)
WED NOV 1- OXFORD COLLAPSE, CHIN UP CHIN UP $8 backstage 9:00 (black cat)
NOV 23ish - My Morning Jacket (9:30 Club)
Nov 3- The Album Leaf @ $10 / $12 (Rock n Roll Hotel)
WED DEC 6- PERNICE BROTHERS $12 mainstage 9:00 (onsale 9/29) (black cat)

My Big Road Trip, Day 1

click for bigger map
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

So I went on a big road trip to California a little while ago. I'm gonna do a little series here about the trip, so stay tuned.

As you can see by the map, we were driving the northern route, stopping it St. Louis where Adam and Liz are from (my co-travelers, Adam was my roommate after college, and Liz is his sister), then to Omaha for a night, then the Badlands, Rushmore, Custer State Park, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Reno, and finally Berkeley and San Francisco. We went a little different route actually, through Salt Lake City and across the salt flats. Unfortunately I lost my camera in California, so I am going to yoink other people's photos from Flickr and use them to illustrate as best I can.

The first day we got started late (about noon) due to some Star Wars Battlefront 2 videogame action. It was just me and Adam, we were picking up Liz in St. Louis. The plan was to drive straight to St. Louis, about 16 hours, through the long part of Maryland, up to PA for a bit and back down through WV, then through Columbus and Indianapolis. I wasn't expecting anything too interesting on this part of the trip, but I was surprised by Cumberland, MD, which Adam recommended stopping at (for those that know the Adams, this is Adam L from Boston College, not Adam B from GW).

Downtown Cumberland
Originally uploaded by amgrosmark

Cumberland is a pretty nice little town. Not related to the Cumberland Gap, which is in TN/VA, Cumberland used to be the second biggest town in Maryland, and it obviously used to be pretty wealthy, as there are a lot of nice, old buildings. They're pretty tall too, some were 7 or 8 stories - almost DC size. The town was the terminus for the C&O Canal too, which I used to work at in Georgetown. The downtown has a nice pedestrian mall with cafes and art galleries and a neat little museum I stopped in. There's also some pretty impressive buildings, like the courthouse and a big, sort of Italianate bank. The museum also used to be a bank, one of the exhibits is the original bank vault.

There was also some pretty neat geological formations in PA (or maybe WV) along the way. The rest of that leg of the trip was pretty uneventful that I can remember. I was hoping we could stop for chili in Cincinnati, but that was pretty far out of the way. We got to St. Louis about 3 am.

Here's another picture of Cumberland, from dmolsen on Flickr



Here's the next part of my road trip.