Dimland Radio

dimland radio 1-23-16 show notes

Glenn Fry Died, So Far No Accusations Of Sex Abuse

Last week I touched on the calling out as a sex abuser of the recently deceased David Bowie. That calling out was based on an accusation of rape, for which Bowie was cleared of the charges, and a claim by a former groupie that he had taken her virginity when she was 15 or so. I made the point that for some people accusations and anecdotes mean guilt.

With Glenn Fry dying, I searched for similar inflammatory articles about him. I haven’t found any. Fry was a rock star in the 70s, the days of booze and drugs and groupies. Fry has admitted to living the hard life of a rock star. I’m sure he meant the whole sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll thing. It’s probable he partook in the offers of a groupie or two. Possibly one was underage. But no one has made any claims and Fry isn’t as big a star as Bowie, so no such articles were written the day the world learned of his death.

Also, I wondered why the David Bowie/sex abuser articles weren’t written before he died. The author of the main article I talked about had mentioned in that article that her editor thought she should wait a while before posting. Let the fans mourn. But she felt it would be triggering…

“…for the millions of rape and sexual victims to watch Bowie be venerated as an icon when we know he was an abuser, too. It’s best if we sit quietly until the world is ready to hear our voices, even though the rape allegations against him first surfaced in 1987. We are used to rape culture, and we are expected to know our place.”

Well, Bowie was in the news just prior to his death. He had released a new album and turned 69 years old. Why not write the article then? Wouldn’t millions of rape and sexual victims want their voices to be heard when Bowie was being praised and celebrated for his birthday and his art? Yes, his death would garner greater attention, so it was probably an attempt to get more bang for the buck.

Still, very few people knew Bowie was so ill and close to death. Certainly the author didn’t know. I presume, then, she would have known her place and kept quiet for years waiting for Bowie to die before giving voice to those “millions of rape and sexual victims”, had he continued to live and produce music.

Oh, and I should plug the two part podcasts I was a guest on in which David Bowie was discussed. We don’t hurl any sex abuse claims, but we do heap praise on Bowie. Both parts can be found here.

Celebrity Deaths Don’t Come In 3s

This has been a topic lately with all the celebrities dying. My brother and I have been joking back and forth with each other for the last couple of weeks about how to group the celebrity deaths into 3s.

I was inspired to write a blog about it. You can read it here.

When Will The Hollywood Establishment Change?

The Oscars have been in the news, but not for the reasons the Hollywood establishment had hoped. Instead of focusing on the nominations as a way to celebrate and generate excitement for the most prestigious of entertainment award shows, the focus is on the lack of black actors and films in the nominations.

Now, I don’t want to get in the middle of this pickle, but something occurred to me. I was listening to a movie review podcast and the hosts mentioned the “Hollywood establishment”. They talked about how the establishment tends to like the more traditional films. They like the films that remind them of the old studio system, such as King’s Speech and Bridge of Spies.

Really? I mean, I’ve been hearing that for twenty years. Surely the old guard ought to be retiring or dying off by now. When will the establishment be populated by the generation of filmmakers that gave us Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, M*A*S*H, Mean Streets, Chinatown, etc?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I guess.

New Grief Vampire Is On The Rise

Tyler Henry has been given the stamp of approval by Dr. Phil and the E! network. E! has given him his own show. Henry claims to be able to talk to the dead AND get answers from them. From what little I know of his technique, it seems as though he’s just doing good ol’ cold reading. He may be the real deal, but I’m skeptical.

In researching the Hollywood Medium (that’s what he’s being called) I found something awesome: Cold Reader Bingo! The one I found was based on grief vampires James van Praagh and John Edward, but it works for any cold reader. It’s very clever. I wish I would have thought of it.

I used this news and my talk of cold reading to get into talking about my late mother-in-law’s experience with a psychic. She remembered the psychic’s first words being, “Who’s Dora?” Dora was my mother-in-law’s mother-in-law. The psychic claimed Dora was going to be visiting bringing her suitcases. Dora wasn’t dead at the time, by the way. And some time later, Dora came to visit and she had her suitcases!

What?! A family member coming to visit? That never happens!

I wasn’t there to witness the reading and I’m sure that’s how Mom remembered it, but the fact that the psychic asked, “Who’s Dora?” was a clue for me. Cold readers ask questions. Lots of them. They make vague statements and let the person being read provide the information. And that sure is what it looks to me that psychics are doing.

Say My Name!

I finally watched all three of the Back To The Future movies. I had only seen the first one before. They are all very entertaining. If you haven’t seen them or it’s been a while I recommend you watch them.

I also recommend you count how many times Marty says “Doc”. Through the three films it’s gotta be in the hundreds. This name over usage is common in movies and TV. I even blogged about it.

Movie Recommendation: Back To The Future Trilogy

As I mentioned above, all three films are very entertaining and worth watching.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Break My Body‘ by Pixies & ‘Crashing By Design‘ by Pete Townshend

Second ad break bumpers: ‘I Wanna Destroy You‘ by The Soft Boys & ‘Burning From The Inside‘ by Bauhaus

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

That’s it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

how to make it so celebrities always die in threes (without actually killing them)

These THREE guys all died from cancer!

You should know that celebrities don’t die in groups of three. I’m not sure how this idea started or how far back in time it goes, but it’s just silly.

I’ll try to demonstrate how people do this whole grouping thing when celebrities die. Let’s start with Lemmy Kilmister of the band Motorhead…

“Bummer. Lemmy died. What a shame.”

Days later.

“Oh! Wayne Rogers died. And Natalie Cole?! Hang on. With Lemmy that makes three! Holy smokes! Celebrities die in threes!”

Days later.

“Hmm. But Wayne Rogers wasn’t a singer, so…Hold the phone! David Bowie died?! Look at that. Lemmy, Natalie, and David were all singers! Celebrities die in threes!”

Days later.

“This is terrible news. Alan Rickman died. He was only 69. So, was Bowie! And Lemmy had just turned 70! Celebrities die in threes!”

Days later.

“I see Glenn Fry died. Great Scott! He was a male rock singer and so were Bowie and Lemmy! Celebrities die in threes!”

That same day.

“Look at this! Dale Griffin, the drummer of the UK rock band Mott the Hoople, died! He was a British rocker! Bowie and Lemmy were British rockers! Celebrities die in threes!”

See how that works? This could go on all year long. Although, at some point, Lemmy would have to be dropped from the groupings, because just how long can you count the same dead celebrity? Lemmy’s eligibility would have to expire eventually, right?

Famous folks don’t die in groupings of any particular number. They just die when they die. Just like the rest of us. Somehow we’ve subconsciously picked three as the number to notice. Probably because it’s easier to keep track of three dead celebrities. If we tried to remember four or five or six deaths it would get difficult. Besides, if you get to six, that’s just two sets of three. And two doesn’t make a pattern, so the number is three.

Except celebrities don’t really die in threes. We just notice in threes.

dimland radio 1-16-16 show notes

Too Much Salt

Not table salt, I was talking about sidewalk salt or ice melt. The stuff is great for taking ice off of sidewalks and roadways, but if too much is put down it’s a real pain in the ass to clean up. And this week I had a major pain in the ass clean up to do. The building I clean on Tuesday nights had about four times as much ice melt put down as was necessary to do the job. It added an hour to my night, because I had to sweep the excess off the walkways and I had lots of extra vacuuming. The damn stuff was tracked all throughout the building. I was not happy.

Vikings Disappoint Again

Sure, the Minnesota Vikings had a much better season than anyone expected. And, yes, they did win the North Division by defeating the Green Bay Packers. However, in their first game in the playoffs they played the Seattle Seahawks and just barely managed to squeak out a loss. The 27 yard field goal attempt that would have won the game if made, was missed and the Vikings disappointed their fans once again.

And, to make matters worse, the Packers won their first round game in the playoffs. Ugh.

Oh, well, with the new swanky stadium opening next season, the Vikings are sure to be disappointing fans for years to come.

David Bowie Died

The world was shocked to learn of David Bowie’s death this past week. It really came as a surprise because no one, except those closest to him, had any idea the man was so sick. He’d just celebrated his 69th birthday and released a new album, so when I saw he was in the news Monday morning, I naturally thought it was about how well the new album was doing, not that Bowie had died.

I was stunned. I liked David Bowie. I wasn’t a megafan, but I liked a lot of his music and I’d always admired him as an artist. He certainly had more to give to the world.

I wrote about three of my favorite David Bowie albums for Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone.

It was with hesitation that I brought up some dissenting voices in the wake of Bowie’s death. The very day the world learned of his death, two articles (there have been more since then) surfaced on the internet decrying him as a sex abuser. One article was very inflammatory, while the other was more measured in its calling out of sex abuse. The claims centered around a rape accusation in 1987, of which Bowie was cleared of charges, and of statutory rape when a former groupie, Lori Mattix, claimed she lost her virginity to Bowie when she was 15. Both articles assume Bowie to be guilty.

I understand that we should remember people as human beings who, no matter how wonderful their contributions to the world, can be flawed. I also understand that today’s society looks at the whole rockstar/groupie dynamic differently, especially when it comes to sex with underage groupies. Society no longer shrugs its shoulders and says, “Oh, those rockstars.” And that’s a good thing. It shows we’ve matured. However, for me, accusations and anecdotes are not enough to label David Bowie as a sex abuser. While for others, accusations and anecdotes mean guilty.

We have a legal standard that states, “Innocent until proven guilty.” And that goes for celebrities, including David Bowie. Ms Mattix could be lying. I think she’s probably not, but no one really knows for sure.

David Bowie was human and now he’s dead. Let’s celebrate the art he has left us.

I Didn’t Win The Powerball

A lot of people didn’t win the 1.6 BILLION dollar Powerball jackpot this past week, but there were three winning tickets. I usually don’t buy lottery tickets. I realize my odds of winning are only slightly better when I buy a ticket than not buying one. But buying a ticket pretty much just buys you the chance to dream. So, this past week, I did buy myself a chance to dream.

I advised my listeners: If you are going to buy a lottery ticket, just buy one. More than one will not increase your odds significantly, so it’s a waste of your money.

Squatty Potty

Then the show went right in the crapper. I talked about this Squatty Potty device that seems to have popped up just recently. It’s a device that fits around the base of your toilet on which you place your feet in order to poop in a more squatted position.

You see, the natural way to poop is in a squatting position not a seated one. Right there we have the if it’s natural it must be good fallacy.

From what I could find the device isn’t complete quackery. It can help ease your bowel movements, but it doesn’t prevent constipation. It may not be the worst product out there, but it may not be worth your money. It does, however, have a pretty awesome ad. Unicorns that poop soft serve ice cream? Whoever came up with that idea 10 points to you!

Hang on! Howard Stern likes it? Well, then that’s good enough for m… No. No, it isn’t.

Movie Recommendation: CBGB (2013)

Unclaimed Freight Productions

I recommended this movie as part of my tribute to Alan Rickman. He, too, died this past week. Also,very sad and surprising.

He stars as Hilly Kristal in this biopic of the owner and operator of the iconic New York Punk Rock club: CBGB. It was a dive bar in the Bowery district of New York City that Hilly used to feature some of Punk Rock’s greatest bands. Blondie, Television, Talking Heads, and the Ramones all got their starts there and they are all featured in this film.

It was an unusual role for Rickman. Kristal is such a laconic slob while Rickman is generally so clean and polished, but I think he pulls it off. Not everyone agrees with me as the movie wasn’t reviewed especially well. Still I like the glimpse into that time period that gave birth to a genre of music I really like.

It also includes a brief scene of Kristol quietly singing a simple country song about a bird looking for love. The song was written by Hilly Kristal and Rickman actually sings it. Rickman’s voice isn’t half bad.

It’s streaming on Netflix, not for free.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Girls On Film‘ by Duran Duran & ‘Ashes To Ashes‘ by David Bowie

Second ad break bumpers: ‘In The Flat Field‘ by Bauhaus & ‘Games Without Frontiers‘ by Peter Gabriel

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 1-9-16 show notes

Heeeere’s Johnny!

Yeah, not that clever of a heading, but that’s why I don’t get paid the big bucks. I’m just trying to say that Johnny Carson is back on television. AntennaTV is now showing reruns of Johnny’s Tonight Show every night of the week. I stumbled on a show from 1974, I think, last week and it was so cool.

I talked about these reruns being excellent time capsules to our lives from 1972 to 1992, the years these shows cover. We get to see twenty years worth of Johnny’s thirty year run on the Tonight Show. The first ten years were, sadly, not archived. But in 1972, Johnny stepped up to save his shows for posterity.

I showed a bit of my morbid nature by talking about taking Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine to head back to that one show I watched last Sunday night. The guests were Bob Hope, Don Rickles, Michael Landon, Freddie Prinze, and Carol Wayne. Including Ed and Johnny, I’d ask those celebs which one would still be alive in 2016. I’m sure the answer would surprise them.

Yeah, I have a morbid streak. What are you going to do?

I wrote about Johnny’s return for Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone. I made the point that Johnny was the definition of class and cool and he didn’t yell to rev up the audience. Today’s batch of late night hosts feel it necessary to yell, because if they are yelling then it must be exciting!

Disgusting!

I had thought the whole psychic phone line thing was over, but I was wrong. There’s a thing called California Psychics that is advertising to bilk people out of their hard-earned money. I saw the ad while watching Carson (talk about the yin to the yang). At first I thought it would be an ad for one of the televangelist programs, but nope.

The ad shows a young woman feeling lost in life and not knowing where to turn. So, she turns to a psychic on the California Psychics’ service and her life is all better now. The ad wants viewers to believe psychics can help, but the small print says, “For entertainment purposes only.” That’s so they can keep from getting into troubling with the FTC or FCC, whichever has jurisdiction.

So, if you’re depressed and need help with big life decisions, call a psychic to be entertained. That makes no sense. That’s also why the type for that disclaimer is so small. Most people won’t notice it.

They also won’t notice what else the small print says. The ad states that a call is only one dollar a minute. Which is $60 and hour! Not chump change. But, wait! It gets worse. That dollar a minute rate is only for the first 30 minutes. Additional reading time prices out at four to 13 dollars a minute! That’s insane!

A lot of gullible sorts are gonna be spending a lot of money on what are most likely cold readings.

Disgusting!

Who Should Really Win The Powerball Jackpot

I put this suggestion out on Facebook. I suggested that we all agree to give the jackpot ($700 million at the time, but now it’s over one billion dollars!) to the person who came up with the term “Y’all Qaeda”. I think it is brilliant.

“Vanilla ISIS” isn’t bad either when describing the folks who have taken a remote Federal building hostage for the last several days. But Y’all Qaeda is just so damn good.

I also talked about how unlikely it is that one particular person will win the Powerball lottery. But a billion dollars? I might just but one ticket. Just one.

Movie Recommendation: 30 For 30: Four Falls Of Buffalo

ESPN

A wonderful documentary about the Buffalo Bills’ incredible early 90s’ run at getting to and losing four Superbowls in a row. The Minnesota Vikings have lost four, but not in a row. It’s amazing that team could get there four years running. That’s an accomplishment all on its own. It just would have been nice if they could have won one of them.

Also, it’s pretty evident that the Buffalo Bills have the best footballs fans.

It’s streaming on Netflix, not for free.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Never Talking To You Again‘ by Husker Du & ‘Voices Carry‘ by Til Tuesday

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Shout To The Top‘ by The Style Council & ‘Talking Doll‘ by The Screaming Blue Messiahs

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 1-2-16 show notes

Happy New Year And My Annual Resolution And A Little This And A Little That

Happy New Year, everyone!

As is my tradition for the last couple decades, I think, I made my annual resolution to live to see the next year. So far, I have kept the resolution. However, one of these years…

I also mentioned four people who didn’t make it to 2016. Wayne Rogers, Natalie Cole, Meadowlark Lemon, and Lemmy Kilmister all died within just days before the new year. That brought up a quick addressing of the whole celebrities die in threes myth and I talked about how Lemon was a member of that Harlem Globetrotters team that the public knew best. We knew two of the team by name, Meadowlark and Curly, and that team even had a Saturday morning cartoon.

A small amount of politics worked its way in when I mentioned there’s a university in our country that has a 100% accuracy rate at predicting who will be President. Western Illinois University has correctly predicted the winning candidates since 1975. Not bad.

So, who are they saying will be our next Commander-in-Chief? Bernie Sanders.

We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

I also mentioned that Cheap Trick was inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. It would be a great honor, but Steve Miller got in, too. Cheap Trick is very underrated and they’ve always been great live, at least, the half a dozen times or so that I’ve seen them.

Science! Yeah!

This was a slightly uncomfortable topic for me. There’s a science series on UK TV called A Girls’ Guide to 21st Century Sex and there is a couple minute clip demonstrating what happens during heterosexual intercourse in the missionary position. They put cameras everywhere! Inside and out.

It’s all in the name of science, of course. This was the hottest science I’ve ever seen!

However, I did take issue to the mentioning of the G Spot as though science has established that it is real. From what I can find, the evidence for the G Spot is mostly anecdotal and very weak. Science has yet to determine it exists and they’ve been looking it for decades. It may just be that some women may have a sensitive area within their naughtiest of naughty bits, but it seems more likely to be a myth.

Now, I need to watch that video a few more times. For science!

Pedantic Moment: Licorice Is Black

This is an old pet peeve of mine. I’m sure I’ve talked about on the show before, but here I go again.

Folks, licorice is not a texture. It’s not a shape. It’s not a color. It’s a flavor! The red stuff is either strawberry or cherry, but it’s not licorice.

Well, in recent years, I’ve been seeing packaging calling the red stuff licorice. That didn’t used to be the case. There used to be (and still are) strawberry Twizzlers or cherry Nibs and licorice Twizzlers and Nibs, but now some candy makers are calling all of it licorice with a separate listing of strawberry, cherry, or the many other flavors available.

Walgreen’s DeLish store brand offers red and black, calling both licorice. It’s red is strawberry, while its black is listed as classic black flavor.

Classic black flavor? Setting aside the ethnically insensitive sex jokes, just what does black taste like? Pepper? Burnt toast? Asphalt? Ink?!

Could it taste like LICORICE?!

This is a battle I just have to accept I’ve lost.

Star Wars! Nothing But Still More Star Wars!

As you know, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is doing phenomenally well and, in the opinion of many including me, it is excellent. Sure, it ain’t perfect, but it just feels right and has me excited for the next installment.

But, there have been a few nitpickers and complainers who just can’t be satisfied. They claim it’s nothing but a remake of the original Star Wars. They don’t know enough about what happened since Return of the Jedi. Carrie Fisher got old and can’t fit in the slave girl bikini anymore. Whine, whine, whine.

Some people are never happy. The point made by one reviewer over the complaints of it being too similar to the originals, while the same people complained the prequels weren’t enough like the originals, “What do you want?!”

I mentioned a couple spoiler reviews. I will link to them, but don’t forget they do contain spoilers. I’ll even include a few spoiler reviews I didn’t mention on the show. SPOILERS! There. You have been warned.

Kevin Smith’s review.

Chris Stuckman’s review.

Adam Savage’s review.

Geeks Without God’s review.

Movie Recommendation: None

I ran out of time, so you are on your own this week.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Ace of Spades‘ by Motorhead & ‘New Year’s Day‘ by U2

Second ad break bumpers: ‘New Day Rising‘ by Husker Du & ‘New Dreams‘ by Naked Raygun

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle