My Band Name For Today

My family has a number beloved of old fashioned Christmas traditions. One of the newest and least beloved is involving me in an insanely mind-numbing back-breaking home improvement project. Recent years have included building a barn, installing a septic tank and this year, ripping the floor out of the kitchen. Below the floor was another, moldier layer of old linoleum. Below that linoleum was another, older floor. It went on like this until a hole-filled hardwood floor was uncovered. The levels of Strontium 90 present in that strata of floor dated the base level back to the 1950's, although I am awaiting carbon dating results.

I’m not a rich man, but I can generally make more money by actually working at my real job and hiring a professional guy to do jobs like this.

Probably the greatest gift I could give my parents is some sort of knock-out drops that would allow me to flee just after the festivities and before the public works project set in. --No wait! That would be the greatest gift I could give myself.

Karen told me this would happen.

Prerequisite: Familiarize yourself with the works of Brian Atene, act-tor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWbl4vQLfr4

Good Day, Mr. Kubrick. My name is Mark Wynkoop, Act-tor. It is my great privilege to be addressing the greatest director of our time, although perhaps not as great as genre stalwart Walter Hill, the second unit director of Up Yours - A Rockin' Comedy, and director of Crossroads--although the one with Ralph Macchio--not the Brittany Spears opus.

Now that you have passed on, you are doubtless spending a great deal of time with former act-tors. Some dead longer than you, others shorter, but none more similar to my manner of beautiful affectation than that of the great Roddy McDowell, although I like to think of myself as a young Alec Guinness.

I say this not as vain rodomontade, but strictly as a matter of course. My favorite composer is Erich Wolfgang Korngold, when I was 12 years old I won a spaniel puppy for 50 cents, and my favorite color is green.

And speaking of Ralph Macchio, in a moment I shall be presenting a scene, first from S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, and then from the premature aging telemovie The Three Wishes of Billy Grier.

But first, your phony band names of the day:

• Gnarly One-Legged Cousin
• The Chewables


• Spirit Tone


• The Push Processors

• Hatbox Ghost
• Sally Ball
• Cafe Orgasm
• Open Hostility

Deeply miss ol' Thurl Ravenscroft. He was GRRREAT!

If truth were told, a lot of my ability to sing basso profundo is copied from him. The trained bass voice always took a back seat to the popularity of tenors during my classical training. That didn't stop the bass section of my concert choral from referring to itself as the "men's section".

Similarly, Bass is not a popular register for a rock vocalist, so the bulk of my vocal career has been spent straining my range upward. Sometimes it was nice to let a few phrases of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" rumble through the Marshal stack at a sound check. No one expects to hear a bass voice in a rock band. Maybe someday...

• Texas Love
• Refrigerator Biscuits
• Freudian Catastrophe
• The Refrigerants
• Wireframe

• Wind Rips
• Epochs of Punishment
• Hammered Aluminum
  

• The Power of Shatner
• Rhythm Methodists (Thanks Andrew! Best one in weeks!)
• The Plops
  

Ironically, almost ALL my *Catholic* friends had parents who were Rhythm Methodists. Andrew conjectures that Crystal Methodist is the opium of the masses. I tend to think "Crystal Methodist" is probably the real denomination affiliation Robert Shuler and his "Crystal Cathedral" (which--ironically--contains no cathedra) in Orange County.

Unfortunately, Crystal Methodist is a gateway drug. Many addicts go on to hard core LDS abuse.

I love that "California Lady" song! I understand if you are in the New Mexico area, you can still hear it performed live.

• Crisco Flavor
• The Band That Played "California Lady"
• Roma Nova

• Rolled Coins
• Cluster Headache Pound Cake
• Drama King