Just saw Shaun of the Dead.

Yes, it came out in 2004 - I realize that.

But the simple fact is, I haven’t been watching a lot of movies lately, besides the G-rated fare mentioned in a previous entry. Lately, however (and well into the wee hours of the night, mind you), I’ve been on a bit of a slasher movie bender. Slasher movies and zombie movies that is… Actually, zombie movies and British comedies.

So the time was more than ripe, over-ripe, gone soft like the caved-in head of the walking dead, to finally experience the brilliant Shaun of the Dead. Fresh meat from writer/director Edgar Wright, and writer/star Simon Pegg, the team behind the cult series “Spaced” (which I watched all 14 episodes of, in the 2 nights leading up to my home video premiere of SotD), it was more than I’d hoped.

I’d just been telling my wife, as well as another equally disinterested party, that the reason George Romero’s movies work so well is that they’re not “about” zombies. They’re about people, and how they behave or misbehave when faced with an extreme, end-of-the-world-style crisis. I’d been musing about this for some time, but I was inspired to share it after seeing the very satisfying Land of the Dead, Romero’s latest installment of a series that began with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead.

On that count, Shaun of the Dead amply delivers. It is, like the best, a story not about zombies, but about people. However, in this case, the people are losers. Although Great Britain can lay no exclusive claim to this particular brand of dead-end loser, its “pub culture” is a perfect petri dish. Like a Montana meth den, only slower.

Losers though they may be, they are charming and (mostly) likable characters, and very true-to-life, right down to Shaun’s mum - who’s one of the disturbingly realistic elements that keeps the humor from becoming too absurd and the knife’s edge on the zombie mayhem. This is the only zombie movie I’ve ever seen that I will likely (and with futile insistence) recommend to my wife.

PS: yes I am aware of the typo in the title… of course it should read Teh. Best. Zombie. Movie. Evar.

PPS: and yes, I’m looking forward to Hot Fuzz, but I’d feel unpatriotic to see it before I get around to seeing Reno 911: Miami. Who’s up for a double feature? (you drive).

Once upon a time, I worked in a nightclub owned by a famous actor. During the day, I stocked the bar, fixed things broken by other movie stars the night before, and did odd jobs for the talent booker and the office manager.

One of the oddest jobs was answering the phones.

As private and exclusive and childishly secretive as the place was, they couldn’t have an unlisted phone number; there was Southern Wine and Spirits on Line 2 wondering where there money was. Someone from William Morris was on Line 4 with a band looking for a showcase - and they’re ready to pay! Of course Line 1 may very well be Renda R., escaped from the nuthouse again.

As the phone number was a matter of public record, so was it a strongly held belief among the delusional fanatics of the nation that it was a perfectly good contact number for the aforementioned movie star. As the low man on the totem pole, I had to field the calls from the freaks and froot loops. Along with Renda, Frank M. stands out in my memory.

Renda merely sucked me into her weird world; like a skilled telemarketer, she wouldn’t let you off the phone, yet never quite gave you cause to slam the receiver down; Frank, however, was downright terrifying.

Convinced that he was betrothed to be married to the famous owner, he would periodically call and ask why J––––– wasn’t returning his phone calls, why the credit card number he’d been given was refused by the airline, and that he was having a lot of trouble getting from New York to Los Angeles… for the wedding. Fortunately we knew that he was safely on the other side of the country, and that he’d never get it together to fly out to L.A., since he obviously couldn’t even afford his meds.

This was all a big (and creepy) joke until the calls started coming every day. Now he had a date: he’d be arriving Friday, and he was calling every day to make sure the wedding was all going according to plan; that there’d be someone to pick him up from the airport, etc etc. Also, he was concerned that his fiancé may be strung out again and didn’t want to spend their honeymoon nursing him back to health.

Now let me digress with a sidenote on our movie star and the day-to-day operation of the club. I’d met the owner years earlier, through a mutual acquaintance back in my rockabilly days. We’d run into each other many times before I started working at his club, and a few times since. But in the whole year that I worked there, I did not see him once. Not one single glimpse. And yet, his maniacal fans were, to a man, convinced that he worked there every day in a secret office downstairs.

And Frank was no exception. When one day, at the end of that nerve-wracking week, we saw a mysterious figure emerge from a taxi on the security camera pointed at the side door there was little doubt who it was. Especially when by mysterious figure I mean 6 foot 220 pound male in a back-flab displaying big-sleeve-hole muscle shirt, khaki shorts and a black cleopatra wig. With luggage, and two cat carriers.

Frank rang the downstairs doorbell for a good half-hour before Mako and I had to carry some boxes around the corner, and could ignore him no longer. Well, we did our best to ignore him the first time walking past, but as we returned to upstairs door, he asked if we worked there and asked to see J–––––. When told that his “fiance” was (as usual) not there, he became inconsolable, wondering what on earth he was going to do. I actually felt sorry for him, since in his fantasy, this was a serious snub; left at the altar, as it were. I merely took the position that he didn’t have to go home, but he couldn’t stay here…

By then the office manager had called management, who called the FBI, then Frank disappeared. A prominent fashion designer had been murdered only a week before, and tensions were high.

I made up my mind then and there, that though I may stay in show business, I’d do my best to avoid the glare of the spotlight. Since my daughter was born, I’m not even sure I’m far enough out of the public eye here in my dim corner Hollywood.

Watching (of course I watch, along with everybody else) Anna Nicole chased to the Bahamas, Britney shave her head - even David Spade can’t go shopping without a cloud of locusts with cameras following him - only reinforces my position. If you can manage rich & not-famous, that’s your best bet. God forbid you get famous but not rich; it takes a lot of bread to insulate yourself.

As for J–––––, he eventually married someone else, and left the country for good (can’t say I blame him). I don’t know if he ever thinks of Frank…

I’ve been watching an unusual amount of television lately, and by lately I mean for several months now, and by unusual amount I mean hours and hours per day.

Perhaps you’ll blame the internet, for failing to provide enough compelling content to keep me glued to the computer for days on end. But you’d be wrong. Again. There is nothing wrong with my information superhighway, and certainly nothing to actually drive me out of my seat and “back to the couch”.

In fact, it was my old friend the internet that got me back on the boob tube. Youtube (along with it’s smarter but nerdier little brother Google Video and others) is a fountain of recently deceased television, not to mention highlights from today’s brightest stars.

You see, I’ve been a little removed from the comings and goings in popular culture for the last six years or so, for reasons of sudden and irreversible fatherhood. Basically, if it happened since Clinton left office (and it’s not G-rated), I don’t know about it, or I’m just finding out now - thanks to youtube and its many copyright ignoring users.

That means Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim - Particularly Robot Chicken, and the late great Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. That means Comedy Central’s Reno 911. And speaking of Comedy Central, who knew that there was a Daily Show spinoff - the much more consistently funny Colbert Report? And speaking of Stephen Colbert (who, incidentally, lent his voice to more than one Harvey Birdman character), youtube is the only place you’ll find a trace of his brilliant first show Exit 57… watch enough Comedy Central and you’re bound to get lured in by ads enticing you to experience the Sarah Silverman program… Add in the occasional HBO (hell, sometimes I’ll watch anything without commercials) and I’ve become a full-on part-time television junkie.

And it’s awesome. I’ll stay up all damn night on my computer, working, studying, or just spinning my wheels, reading (or writing) some serious but meaningless something. Now, at least a couple nights a week, I’ll stay up all night catching up with the TiVo. And laughing. Cover your mouth so you don’t wake everybody up laughing. Laughter is good, and good for you - except for the staying up all night part.

Now the last time I checked, even Comedy Central didn’t have any comedy that was central to me; even old SNL reruns get, well, old. And the stuff I’m supposed to like - I can’t tell you how many people were sure that South Park would be right up my alley - didn’t exactly work either. But Reno 911, Sarah Silverman, this is my kind of funny. Push it right to the edge, then… bump it.

Sure a lot of the thrill of watching are those “I can’t believe they just said that” moments, but hey, that’s why I watch House MD, and that wins Emmys.

I’ve been kicking around the name for a while… after reading some inspiring stories about pioneers of self-trepanation such as Amanda Feilding.

All at once, I imagined a fantastic educational tool, wherewith I would bore a hole in my skull, pour out all the genius, digitize and upload it for all to behold.

I’m still looking for just the right drill. Patience!

There is, too, the opportunity for brand new twists in that most elevated form of humor, the pun. “It is with great trepanation…” Ha ha. Are you bored yet?

neither ezpkns.com, Joel Sigerson, nor Trepanning for Gold advocates self-trepanation - or even mutual trepanation with a trusted partner… in short, if you drill a hole in your head, well, it’s on you

This is a test of my new weblog. This is only a test. If this were a real weblog entry, it would be full of pithy insights and bon mots. You may now return to searching youtube.com for “face plant”

Let’s bury this at the bottom of the page as quickly as possible shall we?

Easy Pickens aka Joel Sigerson (for the purposes of signing checks etc) - guitar player, singer, writer, digital artist, photographer, family man, near-idiot sub-savant

I’m just a regular guy. I put on my pants both legs at once, just like you.

Technically, I’m barely qualified to speak with authority on music (and even then more as “folksy musings” than pedagoguery), having personally achieved something less than a high school education. However, in actual practise, you can take just about everything I say about anything as the gospel truth. If I’m not positive I’m right, then I won’t write it, usually. And if I’m sure I know what I’m talking about, I probably do. Probably.