Monday, February 11, 2008

The Real Guitar Hero!

In this age where kids play “pretend guitar” with Guitar Hero II, it’s refreshing to see kids like my son who have the Moxie (*) to get out there and play in a real band, in Andy’s case, Hot John Stockton.

As to the silly Guitar Hero game, it’s for losers. They need a better game for losers, with instruments that losers can identify with:



It takes guts to go out and play in a crowded student ghetto bar, and I give him a lot of credit.

Here are some Youtube videos of Andy Burleson’s new band “Hot John Stockton”:

- Hot John Stockton live!

- Hot John Stockton rocks the house!

Me, I played cymbals in high school band, and I’m glad to see that he picked a better instrument that I did.



Andy is gonna make a great attorney, he loves to argue. A chip of the old block, I remember the fun of confronting religious weirdo’s with their own warped logic.

Andy abuses a warped religious nut.

After watching this, I wondered about his Faith, and I was surprised to see a Bible on the seat of his pickup truck. I asked him about it and he said that he used it when he went to a costume party dressed as a Christian!!! Oh well, it's a start, I suppose . . . .

His picture reminds me of the cover for the Faith + 1 album, very dark and brooding, the essence of cool!




Andy has always been a talented musician. He plays a mean jazz trombone, piano and guitar, both electric lead and bass.



It looks like he has screaming groupies too:



Having inherited my smarts and good looks, Andy can’t lose:






I love Gary Larson’s cartoons, and this one hits the nail right on the head:

It’s like those DeVry ads on TV, suggesting that morons can learn to write advanced graphics for video games. The stupidity of the average American never ceases to surprise me. DeVry is a joke. I know graduates with degrees in computer science who never learned to program in any language. Contrast that with MIT, where programming skills are not considered college-level learning, and they expect you to be proficient in C before class starts.

Anyway, I’m glad to see there is room for real musicians:



(*) It takes Moxie

Moxie is a noxious-tasting soda where the slogan began “It takes Moxie”, to refer to someone with the guts to drink this nasty concoction.

According to M. Allen Greenbaum, Moxie was originally a “tonic”, a usual practice to tout the health benefits of anything that tastes really bad:

“Doctor Thompson, Moxie's inventor, began the Moxie Nerve Food Company in Lowell, Massachusetts, which advertised the drink as a safe "... nerve food known that can recover brain and nervous exhaustion, loss of manhood, imbecility and helplessness.”



You can still buy this noxious brew on Amazon, but with S&H, a six pack will set you back more than $70 dollars.



Let me wrap-up with a good ole Redneck story:

Two rednecks walk into a restaurant. While having a bite to eat, they talk about their moonshine operation.

Suddenly, a woman at a nearby table, who is eating a sandwich, begins to cough. And, after a minute or so, it becomes apparent that she is in real distress.

One of the rednecks looks at her and says, 'Kin ya swallar?'

The woman shakes her head no.

Then he asks, 'Kin ya breathe?'

The woman begins to turn blue and shakes her head no.

The redneck walks over to the woman, lifts up her dress, yanks down her drawers and quickly gives her right butt cheek a lick with his tongue. The woman is so shocked that she has a violent spasm and the obstruction flies out of her mouth. As she begins to breathe again, the redneck walks slowly back to his table.

His partner says:

'Ya know, I'd heerd of that there 'Hind Lick Maneuver' but I ain't niver seed nobody do it!'