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Friday, October 27, 2006 - 15:40:45

"Slam"min' Rock AND Country Shows in El Dorado Tonight!

OK, so I was unaware of the burgeoning music scene in El Dorado.  I admit it.  I mean, El Do?  For real?

For real.  El Dorado has multiple forums for performers, and on many weekend nights offers more than one very good live performance.  "El Do" has garnered a reputation as being extremely performer-friendly, and as word gets around that they'll be treated like royalty during their time in town, more and more artists are easily drawn to the erstwhile oil-town.  It's a win-win for the artists and their audiences, as well as Southern Arkansas.

Tonight, performing at Einstein's (104 E. Cedar St., (870) 881-8944), is the band "Midnight to Twelve," recording artists with Kord Records, who have a well-reviewed debut album dropping in January titled "King of Spain."



Also performing tonight in El Dorado, at a different venue (Visions Nightclub, 1205 West Hillsboro, (870) 875-1228), is RCA Country  recording artist Jeff Bates, who already has two successful albums under his belt, as well as a single, "The Love Song," which hit #8 on the Country charts. I'll admit I'm not up to speed on my country music nowadays, but the way this guy's bio reads, he certainly has the life creds for country or blues!  If you're a fan, it oughta be worth the trip--maybe he'll even single you out for a whispered, "Hey, Baby."


I hope to be able to keep bringing stories and events from this under-represented part of the state, with more notice next time.  But hey--even if you're in Little Rock, if you leave now, you'll get there in plenty of time!  Let me and my still-not-allowed-to-drive self know how it goes.

Belinda also blogs from her home base on the Internet, NINJA POODLES!  Expect chaos.

Posted by Belinda at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments [4]

Thursday, October 26, 2006 - 11:56:40

OK, So I'm Back, and I STILL Hate "The Absolutely Mindy Show."

I don't have anything absolutely fresh right this minute, but I promise I will tomorrow.  It's been 4 weeks since my surgery, and 3 weeks since starting HRT, so I'm feeling better day by day.  BUT our whole family was stricken down this week by ragweed-induced bronchitis (yeah, we don't just get the sniffles around here during allergy season), so I have been WAY down, and OFF the computer.  (Oh, and the computer?  Making me anxious if  I'm on it for more than a half-hour or so.  How's that for a weird side-effect of sudden hormone loss?)

In the meantime, I'd love to invite you here to read my rant about the much-hated-by-our-household "Absolutely Mindy Show" on the XMKids channel (which I love, really) on XMRadio.  Then I'll be back with some news about the El Dorado music scene--what, you didn't know there was one?  You're not alone! 

Stay tuned.

Belinda also blogs from her home-base on the Internet, NINJA POODLES!  Expect chaos, and probably some unfolded laundry piled on the sofa.

Posted by Belinda at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments [0]

Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 20:45:02

I Talk About Football (Stop Laughing)

All right.  Well.  Seeing as how I was in a post-operative Codeine coma during the Arkansas/Auburn game last Saturday, I just today got a private, husband-hosted viewing of said game, especially the highlights, with replay-within-replay courtesy of Husband and TiVo, with many, many pauses, rewinds, and slo-mos.  Although I'd already known of the surprising outcome, my interest in the actual game had been piqued by an earlier reading today of Austin Murphy's account of it, "The Pigs Are Flying," in the just-delivered issue of Sports Illustrated.  SO--some bullet points (and I was just kidding in the title--you can go ahead and laugh; A football afficionada I am not):

• FIRST and foremost, a huge congratulations to Clay Henry, publisher of Hawgs Illustrated, on being quoted in SI.  Wow.  I would have that article framed and on my wall faster than you could blink, if I were Clay.  The SI article was a good one--and while it physically covered a page and two-thirds, the font was much smaller than what's used in most of the magazine, so if they'd had the room to full-size-font the piece, it might have taken up as many as four "regular" pages.  The quote from Henry was a one-liner, but it drives home the fact that Sports Illustrated is reading Hawgs Illustrated.  I am proud by proxy.

• If you are at all interested in Arkansas sports, then you, too, should be reading Hawgs Illustrated.  I will admit that, when the first issue (subscribed to, naturally, by Husband) arrived at our house long ago, I looked at the title (which I now cut more slack, speculating that the titular misspelling of "Hogs" may be due to some Broyles-related copyright stricture) and the very few total pages (the magazine is much more substantial now, due in no small part to having picked up an impressive slate of advertisers, though content still makes up the bulk of it), expressed shock at the $45 subscription price, and pretty much wrote it off as "not much."  I was wrong. I've read almost the whole thing today, cover to cover.  That's saying something.  I was really surprised not to see it represented a last week, when the Tuesday Democrat-Gazette ran a full feature story on Arkansas magazines--I mean, they wrote about First Electric Co-Op's customer publication,  Rural Arkansas, for crying out loud.

• "Trick" plays such as "Woody," from the Auburn game, in which offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn had Reggie Fish squat down on the ground and hide behind Zac Tubbs, only to take the ball (while Mustain simultaneously--and convincingly--faked a handoff to someone else) and scoot down the field like lightning while the entire Auburn team, save one, tore out after the decoy?  All right, now those kinds of plays should not only be encouraged, but MANDATORY.  I had not laughed so hard, from pure joy, since going under the knife.  It was a thing of joy every time I saw it, and with Husband's involvement, that was quite a few.  Never fear, though: no popped stitches.
  

• Husband then took me back, via the magic of TiVo (has any better techno "toy" ever been invented?) and showed me a tricksy play from the Alabama game (the one where Mustain just trotted out, scooped up the ball, and flung it back to Felix Jones, who took off running while Alabama's players were still getting set to line up),  and I'm now confessing that I think I love Gus Malzahn.

• I got an up close and personal demonstration of the now-illegal "fumblerooski" play from which "Woody" may or may not have evolved.  In my living room, performed in the format of a one-man-in-khaki-Dockers-show?  PRICELESS.

• The Razorbacks should totally hire me as a consultant for developing trick plays.  Although Husband assures me that most of my ideas, such as tattooing realistic-looking images of footballs onto the forearms of the larger players so that they can pull up one sleeve, cradle the arm, and run with it as if they had the actual ball, would most likely be illegal, but I'm sure that, given the rule book, time enough, and Hoglawyer's help, I could come up with some fun stuff.

• Once again, football-play-creating-people:  MORE TRICK PLAYS.  And sixty-to-eighty-yard runs, too.  THAT is fun to watch, way more so that that "run around a few feet, fall down, repeat 8,000 times for four hours" style of play that I grew up with, and which formed my extreme frustration at being subjected to an entire football game at one sitting.

• I also realized, just as an aside, that my worst obstacle in watching football on T.V. is that I never know, unless someone just busts out of the pack and OWNS the field, where the stupid ball is.  I wish every once in a while they'd light the darn thing up, or something.  Hey, if they can put that magic first-down line on the screen, they could darn well show me the football, especially just after the snap, the better for me to follow the action.  You men who've grown up playing this game can pretty much anticipate where the ball's going to be, just from experience.  Me, I need help.  Something akin to Large-Print ESPN would be good.

• Someone should organize, for the benefit of those of us who are late-comers to the appreciation of the sport of football, a special exhibition game.  One in which all of the now-illegal "trick" plays of the past are allowed.  Just for fun.

• Go Hogs.  Dominate the SEC, and please, please unveil that rumored "fight song" play while I'm watching.  You have me intrigued.  (I'm talking to you, Gus.)

Belinda also blogs from her "home" on the Internet, NINJA POODLES!  Expect chaos.

Posted by Belinda at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments [2]

Saturday, October 07, 2006 - 23:45:23

Dear GAP: Stop It. Right Now.

Seriously.  You know what I mean, GAP.  You and your creative agency, Laird+Partners.  Just stop it.  Leave our precious Audrey Hepburn alone, could you?  The dance scene in "Funny Face" was sweet, charming, and endearing.  But cutting Ms. Hepburn out and having her shill your sweat-shop-sewn, generic American uniforms to the backdrop of AC/DC?  That's just wrong.  It was wrong when it was Fred Astaire posthumously hawking vacuum cleaners, and it's wrong now.  So stop it.

Also, GAP?  During her "Funny Face" heyday, Ms. Hepburn was certainly a tall, skinny drink of water, appropriately suited for "skinny pants" and the like.  As a matter of fact, she was 5'7" tall, and weighed in at a whopping 110 pounds.  Just like so many American women of today!  A full 2% of American women, I believe the statistic is, fit that body type now.  So, good luck (but not really) with your brilliant ad campaign, and the sales of a record number of "skinny pants," GAP!

I think you're gonna need it.

Posted by Belinda at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments [16]

Wednesday, October 04, 2006 - 21:06:51

What'd I Miss?

I'm fresh off a five-day hospital stay following a pretty heinous, involved surgery--at 3.5 hours, I'd say my surgeon earned his Health-Advantage-decreed flat fee.  If your life is totally devoid of melodrama, or you'd just like to know how the less-stable half lives, you can hop over to my home blog and read the last 5-7 posts. (Thanks for the visit, DBI.)  I've been...well...upset is a good way to put it.  Yeah: "upset" = "me recently" if, say, "slightly excitable" = "Tom Cruise last spring."

So...I've been in the hospital, and that means I was torn from my nice comfy DirecTV with network feeds from Los Angeles and New York (because we live out in the sticks, and got spoiled to having double network feeds, way before DirecTV was able to offer local stations as part of their lineup--all except for PBS, because those jerks at AETN wouldn't give permission for us to get a PBS feed from ANYWHERE ELSE, and I MISS "FRONTLINE"), and left with a smaller selection of channels, and new exposure to local channels and cable access channels that I didn't even know existed.

Lord help me, I watched the Little Rock (or maybe Pulaski County?) zoning commission deal with new home day-care centers, crosswalks, deciding the installation of double-wide mobile homes outside city limits...it might have been the morphine, but I'm sure I watched this for a good part of the day Friday.  It was mesmerizing.  And I loved that one crusty ol' curmudgeon kept being the single "nay" vote on EVERY SINGLE ITEM.  Who was this guy?  He would ask some irrelevant-to-the-issue question, get an answer, have no followup, and then when the vote came, it would be however-many-to-ONE.  He's the zoning committee grinch!  I want to meet him and rub his tummy and try to make him giggle.  (Have I mentioned that although I'm home, I'm still on a pretty good painkiller regimen?)  I learned that I'm grateful to live down in a holler, where we don't have "next door neighbors" who could go before a grumpy committee and complain about the large appliance on our front porch, or how often our goat gets loose.  You know, if we had that sort of thing happening.  *cough*

BUT.  Truly mesmerizing?  At seemingly random times, especially late at night and the wee hours of the morning--when of COURSE I was watching T.V., because I was in the least-restful environment in the world, the hospital--was a cable access show on a channel "11?"  Or "Access 11?" (**An internet check tells me that this show airs on LRTV, Comcast Channel 11, every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.**)  I'm not sure, since I saw it at weird hours.  Anyway, it's called "The River Market Cooking Show," and it features a little gal named Victoria Gross.  Victoria is a compact bundle of energy, cute as a button, with the most adorably overdone Arkansas accent (I kept wondering to myself, "Do I sound like that?"), and she puts together some great looking meals, most of the components of which are described as "greeaayyt!"  Not only would I hire her to cater a dinner for me, so help me, I'd put her in my pocket and take her home, she's just that cute.   If you have not seen the River Market Cooking Show, you're missing out.  I know I was.  I wish I could get that local access channel on my satellite package.  I'll be checking their website for recipes in the future.


Also:  Tracy Douglas is back on T.V.?  I had no idea.  I haven't seen her since back when we were both active in the Arkansas Arabian Horse Club shows.

Jermain Taylor's Stamp Out Smoking commercials?   HOLEEEE COW.   I would totally TiVo those things and watch them over and over and over again.

I'm impressed that the local channels are apparently now allowing brunettes.  Will wonders never cease?  When did that happen?

Wow.  I've been out of the local media loop for a LONG time, nearly 10 years!  What else have I missed?

Must go catch up on much much TiVo now.  Am LOVING "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" so far, and feel non-committal on pretty much everything else. Any suggestions?  I suppose I'll be sucked into tonight's season premiere of "Lost," dangit, but most important is the season finale of "Project Runway."  Auf Wiedersehen!

(How really pitifully obvious is it that my life for the forseeable future is going to revolve around the idiot box?  Due to the meds, I haven't the power of concentration for lots of reading, and haven't looked at a paper or even the BlogHer site in over a week.  I'm only halfway pretending to be upset about this, you understand, because sometimes?  Being intellectually lazy?  Ees nice.  Hmmmm...I may be gaining an insight into the...oh, never mind.)

Posted by Belinda at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments [5]