Season 2 of Pawn Stars Starts Tonight

About a month ago, D had possession of the remote and landed on the History Channel. We saw this big bald guy dressed in all black buying a 1982 Harley Davidson off of a guy who looked like he didn't get the memo that ZZ Top had broken up. This show is called "Pawn Stars", and it has quickly become my favorite reality television show (except when the Colts are on, of course).

So here's the main point of the story. Rick Harrison runs the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, north of the strip in Las Vegas (the official Ian Shane preferred vacation spot). It's actually owned by his father "The Old Man", and he is grooming his son, "Big Hoss", to one day take over the family business. Corey's best friend, Chumlee, is the Pawn Shop's "village idiot" who is pure unintentional comic relief.

Now most people think of pawn shops as the one seen on Trading Places, seedy and run by Bo Diddley who says things like "In South Philly, it's worth 50 bucks." The show is not quite like that. It's more like "The Antiques Road Show", but people actually sell stuff. Some of the items are very rare and extremely cool. From Leon Spinks' IBF Heavyweight Title Belt to a 1950's Coke bottle dispenser, it's obvious that the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop is a haven for serious collectors. What separates this show with other reality shows is that each minute is a teachable moment. Rick usually knows the value and history of each item, but sometimes he calls in experts to tell more about the merchandise.

Plus if you're into the drama of a reality show, there is plenty of that. The Old Man has a hard time adapting to the changing times. He doesn't understand why everyone is dressed in jeans, and he refuses to admit that he is getting old (like the time he miss identifies a Carson City minted coin, because he couldn't see the "CC" on the bottom of the coin. It's the difference of $50 and $500). Rick struggles to keep things going while in the down economy. It's not that people aren't bringing things in, it's that the collecting market is down. And Big Hoss struggles to earn the trust and respect of his father (buying a boat for $16,000 without consulting his father).

I highly recommend this show. Season 2 starts tonight on the History Channel.

Glitter and Doom – Tom Waits

It was May 2001 when I became a huge Tom Waits fan. My friend Todd let me borrow Beautiful Maladies and told me to listen to a song called "Clap Hands". Within 3 minutes, I was hooked for life. I then started on a holy quest to acquire most of his albums. About a year later, there were two new Waits releases, Alice and Blood Money. I really liked them both (but had a preference to Blood Money), and couldn't wait to get more. A few years later, I laid hands on his latest release, Real Gone, to which I was a fan of immediately. I was getting spoiled. There had been 3 new CDs in 2 years. I thought that this was a prolific trend that I could get behind.

However, I had to wait until 2006 before another release came out. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards was not a new studio release. It featured outtakes and songs that I had already had copies of (like "Book of Moses" from the Skip Spence tribute album, and his interesting interpretation of "Heigh Ho"). Not that the release was a waste of time and/or money. I was thrilled with his cover of The Ramones "Danny Says" (which will be in a future post) and "Sea of Love". But I wanted something new, from Alpha to Omega.

Earlier this month, I was happy to learn that there would be a new Waits CD coming out today. Although this is not a studio album, I'm happy to add to my mounting collection of Waits MP3s. Glitter and Doom is a compilation of songs recorded from his 2008 world tour, one that did not include a stop in Minneapolis (Not feeling the love Tom). To make up for his limited tour, Tom had offered a free sample of the CD, featuring the first eight tracks from the new CD. While any purchase is going to put on hold for a few weeks, I have been going through the gratis sample to great delight. I am quite taken with the live version of "Singapore", a favorite of mine from Rain Dogs. He leads off the CD with "Lucinda", an Orphans original, which serves well as an opening song for any show. So far, my favorite is "Get Behind the Mule", originally from Mule Variations.

A word of warning. This is advanced Waits that requires some prerequisites. If you are not familiar with his work, this is not what you want to use to get started. Anytime I want to start someone on Waits, I recommend Heart Attack and Vine, which is a good Waits starter's kit. It's a merger of his earlier "Piano Bar" era, and you start to hear the ground work for his later shift that becomes more apparent in Swordfish Trombone. Depending on which sound of his you like better, you have the option of either working backwards or forwards. Plus, the title track of the album has one of my favorite lines "There ain't no devil, it's just God when he's drunk".

My Latest Musical Crack - I And Love And You by the Avett Brothers

It's been a month since I first heard this song, and I can't get enough of it.

I first heard "I And Love And You" when I was driving D home from a very long day. I had a wedding to go to, D had a school dance to set up. We then met up for the "Ghost, Graves and Caves" tour of St. Paul with our friend Anna. The three of us had some Indian food, and then D and I went to close out the school dance and strike the set (for lack of a better phrase…it's my old high school drama lingo coming back).

It had been a nice day and the windows were down (rare for Minnesota in October) on the drive home. We were both exhausted, and I turned on 89.3. I heard this haunting piano melody backing a beautiful harmonized story about a guy who is leaving town and leaving his girlfriend a note. He has the hardest time telling her "I love you."

As soon as I got home, I went to the computer and bought the song on Amazon. Every time I hear it, I can't but help think about the ending of my book, and if it ever became a movie, it'd be a perfect song to close out the story (And that's all I'm going to say about the tie in. If you want to know what I'm writing about buy the book).

The song is a shoe-in nomination for Anthology X1, which should be compiled in the first week of January. I should have the track listing posted as soon as it is done.

Can Someone Please Do His Homework? Please!

I know…many of you will tell me to just shut up and enjoy the show, but I just can't.

Over the weekend, D and I saw Pirate Radio. I enjoyed the show, but I was a little distracted by timeline discrepancies. The movie takes place in 1966 and ends on New Year's Day 1967. This is kind of the important bit.

As it is a story about a radio station, the music plays a very key role in the story. Some of the musical selections seemed a little odd with me. So with some good old fashioned research, I looked up most of the songs that were on the soundtrack of the movie (and prominently displayed). It took me about a half hour to look up these songs to check when they were released. This is what I found.

"All Day and All of the Night" - The Kinks - 1964
"Elenore" - The Turtles - 1968
"Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" - John Fred and His Playboy Band – January 1969
"Dancing in the Street" - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - 1964
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" - The Beach Boys - 1966
"Ooo Baby Baby" - Smokey Robinson - 1965
"This Guy's in Love with You" - Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - 1969
"Crimson and Clover" - Tommy James & The Shondells – November 1968
"Hi Ho Silver Lining" - Jeff Beck – March 1967
"I Can See for Miles" - The Who – October 1967
"With a Girl Like You" - The Troggs - 1966
"The Letter" - The Box Tops – August 1967
"I'm Alive" - The Hollies – May 1965
"Yesterday Man" - Chris Andrews - 1965
"Silence Is Golden" - The Tremeloes - 1964
"The End of the World" - Skeeter Davis - 1962
"Friday on My Mind" - The Easybeats – November 1966
"My Generation" - The Who – October 1965
"I Feel Free" - Cream – December 1966
"The Wind Cries Mary" - Jimi Hendrix – May 1967
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" - Procol Harum – June 1967
"These Arms of Mine" - Otis Redding - 1962
"The Happening" - The Supremes – March 1967
"Sunny Afternoon" - The Kinks – June 1966
"Father and Son" - Cat Stevens – November 1970
"Nights in White Satin" - The Moody Blues – November 1967
"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" - Dusty Springfield – March 1966
"Stay with Me, Baby" - Lorraine Ellison – October 1966
"Hang On Sloopy" - The McCoys - 1965
"This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)" - The Isley Brothers – January 1966
"So Long, Marianne" – Leonard Cohen – December 1967

A whopping 42% of the songs that I found would not have been available to any radio station on the very last day of the movie. To bring it home another way, it was a higher percentage of songs than people who voted for Walter Mondale in 1984 (40.6%...something else that I found from this research). As we all know, 42 is the answer to everything concerning life, the universe and everything, but this is pretty ridiculous. Yes, this is nitpicky, but the music IS the backbone of the story. Don't you think that the producers could have taken the time to figure this out before they released the movie? Remember, it only took me a half hour, and I'm not one of them smart Hollywood types. I'm just a smart ass from Indiana.

Only one movie a year can screw up the whole time space continuum concept a year, and unfortunately for Pirate Radio, Star Trek already did it in May.