putting the j in jjosh

hey don’t make a big deal out of it, but today is 11/11…I’ve talked about this before, so let’s all just chill, have a good day, and see what happens…

I’m in palo alto, ca, just waking up and you know, so far so good…

I love that story about Brian Wilson driving somewhere when he was young and hearing "Be My Baby" come over the radio and being so blown away by it that he had to pull over and stop the car. They say that inspired him to make Pet Sounds and that inspired the Beatles to make Sgt. Pepper’s. These days I’m a little burned out on Sgt. Pepper’s; also it took me a long time to be into the Beach Boys, and now I’m pretty sick of Pet Sounds. But I can always listen to "Be My Baby", that song doesn’t get old!

I subscribed to this podcast called Coverville that’s all covers and the first one I listened to had this amazing cover of "Be My Baby"…I’ve been meaning to post it for ages…really good on headphones…

It’s by DM Stith, who’s on Sufjan Steven’s label, and I guess was discovered by Sufjan? Heard that somewhere…anyway, the track is great, I should check out the album…

DM Stith – Be My Baby (Ronettes cover)

Hey, it’s TV season in the Grump household…so let’s take a quick survey of what we’re watching:

– Bored To Death – getting better and better…Ted Danson is amazing, Zack Galifanikis hasn’t worn out his welcome yet (surprising!), the writing is crisp and funny, and it’s a hoot seeing a show determined to show you what Brooklyn is like…

– Mad Men – not a bad season, the one with the mower was stunning…I did recall the other day though, that season 1 had a mind-blower at the end of EVERY EPISODE, and it’s tough to hold up to that kind of standard…still, as someone said the other day, "I like the slow burn"

– 30 Rock – still funny, but the episodes seem to be getting less and less memorable…everyone still seems to be on top form (Baldwin, Tracey Morgan, Tina Fey), maybe they’re burning out a little? still funny though…

– Grey’s Anatomy – hot diggity this show is kicking out the jams…MT and I theorize that since they’ve been able to get rid of Blonde Heigel everyone’s been rejuvenized…apart from 2 weeks ago’s narrative excercise with the Rashomon-like shifting perspectives (blah) this show has been well solid…also probably helped by the fact that they’ve minimized the Ellen Pompeo since she’s pregnant…

– Friday Night Lights – I remember Luke telling me to watch this show years ago, then KG made a case for it so we gave it a shot and have been hooked hooked hooked…so solid, even with multiple misfired over the past seasons (Landry/Tyra murder thing, Tim/Lyla on again off again)…just finished watching the second episode of this season and it was really really good…they’ve done a really stellar job of tearing Coach Taylor down and having him start again…plus in the middle of the show they had this great scene…out of nowhere::

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You might be the luckiest man in the world and not even know it.

new rule of production: never work with children, animals or robots.

We’re on a shoot in Orlando and last night while having dinner with the execs from TNT one of them told this weird story about leaving the last shoot we were all on (in Phoenix) at 3am to get a 4:30am flight. She was in the airport, it was completely dark, deserted and shut down because it was so early. This was the day after Michael Jackson had died, and the only other person in the airport was sitting in a chair across from her, reading the USA Today special report about MJ and crying her eyes out. She said it was pretty weird, and that she wanted to surreptitiously take a photo of the woman but couldn’t bring herself to do it…I could relate…

It made me think of this vid that I saw a week or so ago, and thought "why haven’t I posted that on my blog?" So now I have…

When we moved a couple of weeks ago, we really tried to streamline our stuff so that we weren’t moving things we were just going to get rid of. So I had to make a lot of tough calls as far as stuff that I’d had in my closet for years — why was I holding on to this stuff? Could I get rid of it? I got rid of a lot of it.

What gave me most pause though, was saying to good-bye to my most favoritest of hats. It was really coming apart, with a hole in the front that was starting to fray and deteriorate even more. It was time to say goodbye.

I got that hat years ago, I can’t even remember where now. I remember I got it, and it wasn’t until I was showing it to someone else (Joey D?) that they pointed out that inside it there was a tag with the hat’s make printed on it in great olde-germany script: The Country Gentleman. THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN! So perfect. Here’s the last picture of my hat…

And the Country Gentlemen went all around the world….the UK, France, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Prague, the forests of Bohemia…it went to every Burning Man and PDF and camping trip…

Here’s at PDF, in a wading pool full of rose petals, and making the scene with a giant scimitar…

The Country Gentleman was also indispensible on camping trips…here’s one where I went with JW and a bunch of his pals and I had to participate in this crazy initiation-style blindfold test…

I was blindfolded, then led deep into the forest and brought up to a tree. I was told to get to know the tree, learn it, hand out with it, blindfolded all the time. I was then led back through the twisty trail to our camp. They then took the blindfold off and told me I had to find my tree. What they didn’t know was that I had a feeling that this would happen so I put a branch down by the trunk of the tree so I could find it. After I found it relatively easily (they still had to give me clues), and I told them how I did it, people were complaining that I had "cheated"! Cheated? How to you cheat in a blindfolded camping initiation?!

Also a notable camping trip because it was the first time I fired a gun…

The hat also journeyed with me to Spain…here we are in the hills of La Mancha, hanging out with the windmills that made Don Quixote tilt…

One time Maxine and I were staying with LoriB in Chelsea. She lived on a 5th-floor walkup, and the stairs were a major pain in the ass. One night I was heading out to meet Maxine somewhere. I went down all the stairs, wearing my hat, only to find that it was pouring rain outside. Rather than go all the way back up, I just reached up and stuck the hat up on top of a maintenance ladder, sort of out of the way. I figured no-one would see it, you know, and I could just pick it up when we came home that night.

But when we came back that night it was gone! No way!! Who would take the Country Gentleman?!

So we drafted a "lost hat" flyer and posted them in the building. Maxine drew the hat, and made it think "Vincent Van Gogh" to give an idea of the style…

I also love the "no questions asked". I pretty much figured that hat was gone, and that would be that. But a couple of days later, it was returned to Lori! Her building super had come across it and thought someone was getting rid of it (fair enough). A month or so after that, the Country Gentleman and I were reunited.

Now, years later, it is time to say goodbye.

It is a teary farewell, but like George Harrison always said, "All Things Must Pass."

I will miss thee, Country Gentleman, fare thee well in the great adventure-ground where all great hats must go when they die…