Quibbles and Bits, Big Yuks and Mashups Edition

Two morsels - easy on the gravy:

>> I've been getting my internet kicks lately on musical mashups - videos of which are aplenty on Youtube.    In my view, probably the best on the scene today is the Australian gentleman behind Wax Audio.  He has three albums worth of musical combinations which at first, seem destined to collide into the crash-boom-bang of parody.   But Mr. Wax Audio gets his creations to work to a T:  imagine James Hetfield singing Enter Sandman to the background of Bryan Adams' Run To You?   Or Billy Idol's band playing Rebel Yell while George Michael laments about the Careless Whispers of a good friend?  Or The Bee Gees advocating to those who Pink Floyd deems not to "need no education" to keep Staying Alive?   They're all there, and for free, no less.   They have to be free of charge, otherwise he would obviously running afoul of every copyright law on the globe, and Lars Ulrich would be mightily pissed off (if he isn't already, considering what Mr. Wax Audio did in mashing "Master of Puppets" to the Herbie Hancock classic, "Doin' It").   BTW, "Master of Doin' It" transcends the mashup into the area of honest-to-goodness funk JAM.    Get Funky With Herbie, James, Lars, Robert, and Kirk?   Works for me - and the one-hundred-thousand people who have viewed the Youtube video.    Check it out - you'll be glad you did.  

>>Yours Truly checked out the Stephanie Miller Sexy Liberal Show at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood last weekend.    In short, it's worth the price of admission, and I highly recommend it.   But a few observations:
     > While all three comedians were funny in their own ways, John Fugelsang, the first up, absolutely owned both the theatre and its patrons that night.   He was lights out;
     >Hal Sparks seemed to start off rather sedate, but came on toward the end of his routine with his imitations of his former neighbors in Kentucky.   He also scored with a bit about what might happen if a scientist succeeds in bringing back dinosaurs with chicken DNA - if a DVD is made, these two bits alone are worth the purchase price;
     >Stephanie Miller was, surprisingly, perhaps the most low-key of the group.    She was funny, but to be perfectly honest, not the belly-laugh-shirt-button-popping type of comedy displayed by the other two.  She did get out into the crowd on a couple of occasions, however;
     >The Mooks were in tow!   Chris Lavoie and Jim Ward, with Current TV's Jackie Schechner, supplied the opening act entertainment, and did not disappoint.   Jim Ward was, as usual, spot-on with his voice imitations of Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Eric Cantor, making me wish he would go back to doing just a little bit more of this on the morning radio show.  
   >Kudos to the vocal group do-woping outside the Pantages before the show.   Note-perfect harmonies and pitch - all without the aid of Auto-tune.    What a concept.
    >The panel guests this evening were Rob Reiner and Lily Tomlin.    Rob Reiner had some good commentary, and Lily provided a couple of belly-laugh-inducing moments.    My only wish was that Lily be allowed to speak more often, she was often stepped over by the others.  

Two more shows are upcoming - August in Columbus, OH, and late September in Seattle, WA.    I'm debating about whether to go to the Seattle show, I'll play that decision by ear.      

Southern Discomfort

That the Civil War ended in 1865 is a "factoid" taught in virtually every grade/high school history class since not long after that dark period.   The end of the Confederacy, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Mason-Dixon line, and on and on, are accessories to that central piece of information.  

But how "factual" is it really?