The Best/Worst Moments of last night's show

[dave from knoxville]

Chestnut Mare

[masterofsparks]

As sad as the thought of losing records and stuff is, I did get a good laugh out of Tom's describing the water-repellant powers of the "Nice Price" sticker.

[Julie]

I feel bad for Tom losing all of his stuff and hate his insurance company. I love the story about the cat who showed up, though.

[Lawrence Orbach]

"free small vanilla sundae".

[Steve of Bloomington]

...in a plastic Phillies helmet!

[Hugman 3.0]

The image that popped in my head of Jason From Alabama strutting back in forth cannot be beat.

[JonFromMaplewood]

I thought the caller who had been stuffed in a locker was pretty hilarious.

[andrew in philadelphia]

Two essential elements to any classic Best Show installment are Tom threatening lawsuits and Tom making allegations of racism. This week's episode had both. Yet another classic.

[Steve of Bloomington]

Chestnut Mare

Great song and nice performance. One question though, what does it mean when he says he's going to 'give her my brand'? I ask because I want to know if it's safe for my daughter to listen to.

TheMistaSteve 12 hours ago

Reply
@TheMistaSteve Sad to say, branding refers to heating a metal form in the fire and then burning the imprint on the animal's skin so that the symbol burned into the skin will identify the owner. I work in England for a month most years and there the sheep are painted with a colored circle, where the color identifies the owner - a much more humane approach to identifying livestock. Might be a good opportunity to discuss cruelty to animals with your daughter.

[buffcoat]

Listening to the 4/13/2010 show.  Tom relates an anecdote where David Newman, writer of Bonnie and Clyde, had run an anonymous car-driving, screenplay-mentioning Tom down in a New York Times column.

Haven't been able to find the column (yet), but I'm starting to think that maybe Tom IS significantly more beset by snobs than the Average Joe.



Also from that show: "I forced my way in there Mentos-style."

[scratchbomb]

The whole Orson Welles discussion was magic, but the mental image of Welles trying to rollerskate in Xanadu was too much. I was listening on my iPod and had to stop in the middle of the sidewalk, I was laughing so hard.

[dutch]

Even buying Self Portrait, listening to it, and realising that it was every bit as bad as legend would have it, makes the CD important, even if you never listen to it again.

self portrait is not so bad. If it came out today and was by some bearded indie folker critics would be gushing over it.

[Bowie]

Listening to the 4/13/2010 show.  Tom relates an anecdote where David Newman, writer of Bonnie and Clyde, had run an anonymous car-driving, screenplay-mentioning Tom down in a New York Times column.

Haven't been able to find the column (yet), but I'm starting to think that maybe Tom IS significantly more beset by snobs than the Average Joe.

David Newman, "Learning to Talk Screenwriterese (And Other Tips)," New York Times, July 28, 1996. The relevant bits:

When I first started out in this line of work, which was roughly somewhere between the end of silent films and the commencement of psychedelic drugs, the enduring myth among writers of my generation was that if you were a scribbler, working away at your advertising copy or writing newspaper captions, what you were really doing was working on the Great American Novel. You worked on that sometime between dessert and exhaustion, so you did about 10 minutes a night. And then you went to sleep.

Now, everybody is writing screenplays. You get in a cab and the driver hears you talking about the movie business and, before you get out, the driver asks you if you will read his screenplay. It's happened to me three times.

The rest of the piece essentially consists of Newman depicting the screenwriting industry as a soulless, disheartening machine, but he can barely suppress its subtextual desperation, which is basically: Remember when nobody else wanted to be a screenwriter? They were smart back then. / No, really–screenwriting sucks. I wouldn't worry about contacting the studios if I were you. / Don't worry, I'll keep doing job so you can do something (anything) else. / Please quit taking all my gigs!

My favorite admonition to wannabe screenwriters: "You're going to have to learn all these games." Don't say David Newman never warned you.

[buffcoat]

Nice job, Bowie!  How did you find that?  What search terms?

[Eric Fishlegs]

The part of Tom's story that got to me was when he said "Remember all those comics I didn't have time to get around to reading? Not a problem anymore." I've never been a huge collector of stuff so while I felt for Tom I couldn't quite relate, but when he said comic books  were lost... I felt for him. Also liked Tom's response to "It's just stuff" "Yeah, but it's MY stuff." which is 100% correct. To paraphrase George Carlin, their stuff is ess-hit, my ess-hit is stuff.

I kinda hope Jeff from Seattle feels like crap after hearing why exactly Tom missed the show.

Also, I enjoy SONS OF ANARCHY, but I have to admit that Tom has a point when he says it's impossible to follow. I have no idea who got killed in the season premiere or why, but I did enjoy the overall sense of chaos.