Definitely Not L.A.

Imagine the delight around the Blogsmonroe.com community blogger watercooler this morning upon our discovery of yet another spot for ads on our little corners of this world. 

(As I tap this out, the DNLA site shills for a safe internet surfing program, which makes me want to link you to Asian tentacle porn just to see what it switches out to, and Bon Jovi ringtones, which makes me want to…um, feather my hair.)

Maybe we should start wearing patches and logos all over our clothes when we blog?  Dibs on Rupp Funeral Home…black being slimming and all.

There’s a prominent link on the Ticketmaster homepage for the Detroit area these days that jumps you to notickettax.com, a site set up to beat back a state proposal to tack a surcharge on tickets to sporting events, concerts and movies to help offset the staggering budget deficit.

I’m not a big fan of taxes, and I sure think we pay enough as it is for ball games, concerts and movies as it is, but am I the only one whose jaw drops at the thought of Ticketmaster getting all holier-than-everyone about excessive surcharges?

Ticketmaster, who charges us $2.50 extra to not have to print and mail our tickets?

Ticketmaster, who sticks a $10.50 “convenience charge” on each $52.50 Nickelback ticket sold?

Makes you wanna scream.

Sorry, Newt.

When it comes to the creepiest candidates or potential candidates for America’s presidential sweepstakes, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich takes the prize, but Hillary Clinton isn’t far behind.

Some 19% of the population polled in the June edition of the Forbes ‘08 Tracker, among the most unconventional polls in this year’s presidential sweepstakes, call Gingrich creepy. He turns out to be the top Republican in this category among six who reached the baseline of 10% or more recognition in our sample who were questioned.

The creepiest Democrats turns out to be a dead heat–between Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. But here, the split is dramatically along gender lines. Some 20% of all the men find Hillary creepy, while only 10% of all women. For Gore it’s 18% and 11%, respectively.

The major reason I want Ryan Adams to be bigger’n the Beatles is so that I get to stop having to tell people “RYAN, not Bryan!” when I talk about the dude.  Here’s a stream of Easy Tiger, out June 26.

Well, Yahoo sucked me right in with this headline:

FBI to Battle Zombie Horde

Turns out, though, to be far less newsworthy than I’d hoped:

You may not know that your computer is sending spam, being used as a pawn in coordinated internet attacks, hosting illegal files, or otherwise part of the malware-distribution network known as the zombie horde. Some estimates peg the number of email spams sent each day at around 55 billion, the vast majority of which are sent by infected PCs, usually without any knowledge of it by their owner.  It’s all part of what’s known as a botnet, giant networks of malware-infected PCs that act as slaves to a master controller via the internet. These PCs, called zombies, are perhaps the biggest security threat on the internet today.

And now the FBI wants to do something about it. How? It’s directly contacting a million PC owners to let them know what they ought to have known all along: That their computers are infected and are being hijacked for nefarious uses.

Full story here.  Disappointed?  Knock ‘em undead here.

From Raw Story:

Britain joined the United States’ invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001 because it feared America would “nuke the s—” out of Afghanistan, the former British ambassador to Washington reportedly told a television documentary to be screened Saturday.

That’s gotta hurt.  Speaking hypothetically.

Let’s mark the first Frozone Action Day of the season by yapping about action movies.  Entertainment Weekly’s current cover story ranks its Top 25, and, while I was tickled to see Hard Boiled included, it’s the usual jambalaya of the obvious, like Speed, Die Hard and T2, and critics’ darlings like Seven Samurai.

(As lists go, it’s not bad, but note how each film gets its own page at the EW website.  Hmm, each time a viewer/reader moves on down (or up) the list, it’s another page hit and another array of ads…any wonder why lists are frequent web fodder?)

Missing from the EW list is an action classic I mostly took for granted–until yesterday, when Michael Bay’s Alcatraz opus The Rock blustered its way onto the (non-existent) list of Movies That Stop Me In My Channel-Surfing Tracks And Make Me Watch Until The End. 

The Rock’s not a great film, by any means, but it’s sure not dull.  Between Michael Bay blowing stuff up real good (see: Transformers, coming soon) and what might be the last good performances by Nic Cage and Sean Connery, it’s mighty tasty brain candy.  

I’ll bet you have a movie or five like that: cable staples that seem to air on one channel or another two or three times a month, movies you don’t go out of your way to find but you just can’t look away once you find out they’re on.  Even if you’ve seen them 73 times, even if you’ve got better things to do with the time they’re about to usurp.  You know the plot, you know the best lines, you know all the silly dubs over the not-ready-for-basic-cable language.

My list, besides The Rock?  This Is Spinal Tap.  Point Break.  Sling Blade.  Animal House.  Do the Right Thing.  Raiders of the Lost Ark, for sure.  Bad Santa.  (Latest addition?  Mission Impossible III.)

I spent last weekend in Nashville, “the redneck Jerusalem,” savoring some of the finest live rock and roll music I’ve ever been privileged to witness, and that’s saying a lot.

Saturday night’s concert, a benefit by Jason & the Scorchers for their ailing drummer Perry Baggs, easily rocketed into my (non-existent) Top 5 list, with everyone in the band (including Baggs, who was healthy enough to climb behind the kit on and off all night) and the crowd determined to make it something special. 34 songs (plus the first verse of “Free Bird,” sung as a heartbreaking country gospel ballad by Baggs) over 3 1/2 hours, guest stars from throughout Scorchers history, and enough energy inside the Exit/In to light up the Opry for months.

If it was the Nashville equivalent of The Band’s Last Waltz, and many of us believed it to be while hoping it won’t, it was the way we should all take our last bows–after a revved up, impromptu encore of “Take Me Home Country Roads” that had band and fans alike gasping for air through giddy grins…and tears, on more than one of our faces.

This shaky clip just posted by someone up close to the stage gives you a sense of the pure joy that exploded over and over again on that stage. And yeah, that’s ex-Georgia Satellite Dan Baird keeping his hands to his Telecaster up there with Farmer Jason’s twin brother.

It’s from Perez Hilton, so take it with a grain of salt from the rim of your margarita glass, but:

Bon Jovi was supposed to jump start the return of Unplugged to MTV, but their taping of the show on Tuesday was a complete and utter disaster, multiple sources confirm exclusively to PerezHilton.com.

Bon Jovi recorded their Unplugged – which will air cross-platform on MTV, VH1 and CMT – in Brooklyn on Tuesday night for about 400 fans or so and Richie Sambora was blitzed the whole time.

“They had a whole bunch of musicians on stage for most of the night to cover his mistakes on the guitar and would turn his mic off so he couldn’t be off key,” a spywitness tells us.

Seems Denise Richards‘ ex-boyfriend was partying too hard before the show!

Towards the end of the show, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie were on stage alone and Jon goes on to tell the story about how they started acoustically at the MTV VMAs once and…. “This is how Unplugged started….”

A shocked source reveals, “As Wanted Dead or Alive started, Richie couldn’t play along! During the song Jon stops and makes Richie start again and after the second take was finished the show was supposed to be over but Jon had the whole band come on stage to re-record the song a third time so Richie couldn’t mess it up! Jon was clearly upset, but kept it together and handled it like a true pro!”

Update: Sambora’s off to rehab.