Pockets of Sanity

Man Charged With Having Sex With Picnic Table

(BELLEVUE, OH) -- Police say a man in Bellevue, Ohio was caught on tape having sex with a picnic table.

Bellevue Police Captain Matt Johnson says Art Price, Jr., 40, was seen on four occasions between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and noon having sex with his picnic table. What makes this a felony, Johnson says, is that it took place in close proximity to a school, which made it likely that children could have seen Price.

The neighbor -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- saw Price walk out onto his deck, stand a round metal table on its side and use the hole in the umbrella to have sex.

The most recent instance took place March 14, we're told. A neighbor videotaped Price.

"The first video we had, he was completely nude. He would use the hole from the umbrella and have sex with the table," Johnson says.

Police say Price admitted to the crimes -- four charges of public indecency. Usually these sorts of things are misdemeanors, but in this case, they are felonies.

"What boosts it up to a felony is that the statute says if it's likely to be viewed by a minor," Johnson explains.

The Price family did not want to talk with us, but neighbors did. Some are not happy Price was released on his own recognizance.

"He shouldn't be allowed just for the fact that he could do that again -- and nude that close to a school. That should be zero tolerance," says Brice Jacobs, a neighbor.

Price is married with three school-aged children. Neighbors tell us they're now worried about the kids.

"Hopefully it stays between the adults and the kids don't get a lot of the information so they aren't so cruel to the little kids," says Emily Grote, a neighbor.

This case has police in this small town shaking their heads. "Once you think you've seen it all, something else comes around," Johnson says.

I don't even know how to react to this.  The family didn't want to talk to reporters about their kinfolk giving the backyard picnic table a poke?  What a shock.  And this was recorded?  Seriously, some things should not be on tape...

Happy Birthday from Michael McDonald

Michael's birthday wishes are not safe for work.  They are also hilarious.

Your Daily Chuck Update (One Day Only)

So here's what's up...

The countdown is on, and I have exactly seven more days to get out of my apartment/storage room.  I've been chipping away at it steadily for the past two months, but we're in crunch time now.  The ratio of stuff thrown away to stuff kept is probably 10:1, but man it just keeps coming.  I swear I'm never getting into the packrat mentality ever again.

I started a new video series over at YouTube and Watercooler Films.  This is another spinoff of my Worst Movie Scenes series called Worst Movie Cameos.  I did two cameo scenes in the previous series (Robert Duvall in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit Part 3), but I thought it was a worthy enough "genre" to get its own line of videos.  The premiere installment showcases Sylvester Stallone's three seconds of screen time in Staying Alive.  Check it out.

I also started a new blog the other day devoted to the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series of video games.  It went through several retarded name changes over the past couple of days, but today I thought that the name licksandclicks.com sounded good, considering the material being covered.  That could change though if I come to hate that name too.

I don't anticipate running that blog myself, since I'm the master at starting a project only to abandon it a short while later (hello Save SNL blog!). Instead I created it to show to a couple of blogging networks that it could be a viable addition to their stable of like-minded blogs.  We'll see if anyone bites.  And if not, perhaps it'll provide a steady trickle of ad revenue.

Speaking of starting new blogs, I'll probably be starting yet another one in the near future.  Well, sort of.  Over the weekend I was sorting through a big box of paperwork and I came across a folder where I'd printed out my entire film review website circa 1999-2000 or so.  And I couldn't help but to slow down and get caught up reading some of my old stuff.  Now as you may know from the About Me section of this site, in a former life I was a film critic and ran several different websites devoted to film.  As of now, none of those websites appear on the web, and are not archived anywhere.  What I intend to do is build an archive of all my previous movie reviews, and update them with some related links, YouTube videos, etc.  Once it's up and running there won't be any "new" content there, but I wanted my material to be housed somewhere.

By the way, did you know you can buy Jolt cola over the internet?  You should buy some.  I got some as a gift recently.  Should you be able to hear your own heart beating?

Who Needs a Movie? I Need a Movie!

The Beatles to appear in Guitar Hero?

This week a news story from the LA Times started making the rounds stating that executives at Sony would be interested in thinking about maybe contemplating the possibility of the concept of Beatles songs being used in Guitar Hero.  Here's the big quote:

Martin N. "Marty" Bandier, the top executive at the music publishing company that owns the John Lennon- Paul McCartney copyrights, said he liked the idea of a dedicated Beatles edition of Guitar Hero, Activision Inc.'s hugely popular video-game franchise.

"It's something we have talked about and something I'd like to pursue," said Bandier, who last year took over as chairman and chief executive at Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

Now hopefully he was just using "guitar hero" as a general term for the current hot genre of music/rhythm games that includes Guitar Hero and Rock Band, because quite frankly, the only way to do The Beatles' songs justice would be doing it with Rock Band.  Not that I would complain if their songs were used in Guitar Hero mind you, but it would be a much better experience with Rock Band's more in-depth set-up.  I wanna go all Ringo with my fake (yet still noisy as hell) drums.

And I was going to use this post to explain the whole "who owns the rights to Beatles songs?" thing since it seems awfully confusing. Luckily, Snopes did a really good job explaining everything, so I'll just direct you to their article.  Yes, Michael Jackson owns some of the rights to some of the Beatles' catalog.  Sort of.

Fixing the Heat

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino both starred in The Godfather, Part II, and yet shared no scenes together.  They also both starred in Michael Mann's Heat, and you could argue that they shared no scenes together in that film either.  So eventually someone came along and said "Hey, let's put these two in a movie together and, you know, actually have them appear together on camera."

Thus Righteous Kill was born.

Righteous Kill (or at least the trailer anyway) looks to have solely been created to address the complaint that De Niro and Pacino were never on camera together in Heat.  Here, check out the trailer and see what I mean...

Those of you who know me know that I'm no great fan of the movie Heat.  I think it's an overrated, bloated, self-indulgent waste of time.  (If you'd like to know more reasons you can check out my review.)  Righteous Kill doesn't look like a great movie by any stretch of the imagination either, but I'll still give it a shot.

Related to all of this... a video was posted today by YouTube users MonkeyandApple (the guys who made the excellent Icy Hot video I posted a few weeks back) presenting a fictional look at the making of Heat.  And while it could have used a trim here and there, for the most part it is spot on and very, very funny.  Enjoy.

Flying Time

Eight years now since the WJXX folded and two years since I wrote that long-winded article about it?  Sure doesn't seem like it's been that long, but wow.

In those two years there's been a steady stream of contact from people who've read the article and gotten back in touch.  It's been great reconnecting with them.  Power of the internets, yo.

I wish I had something more in-depth today about all this, but sadly life is still chaos and there just isn't enough time.  I'd also hoped to have the final WJXX blooper reels completed to my satisfaction and ready to go online, but they're not where I want them to be yet.  Soon though, I promise. 

In the meantime, why not relive old memories with what's been made available so far?  Check them out over at Watercooler Films, won't you?  Thank you.

From Russia (doubtful) With Love (probably not)

Yesterday I received one of those out of the blue emails from a wannabe Russian bride, and so instead of ignoring it like I usually do, I thought I'd have some fun with it.  Unfortunately, "she" caught on much sooner than I would have hoped.

Initial Contact:

Hi dear!! My letter will surprise you!!  My name - Elena. My age-26 years. I live in Russia!! Private life didn\'t turn out well. I decided to find a foreign man. I dream to meet a decent, kind and clever man!! It is difficult to tell about myself. If this is of any interest to you, write to me.My address - xxxxxxxx@gmail.com   I\'ll wait!! Kisses Elena

My response (just to see if I'd get a human reply):

What a nice letter.  I was so surprised!

Indeed, a couple of hours later, there was a personalized reply:

Hi Chuck!! I have received your small letter! Many thanks, that you have written to me!!!
Chuck what to tell to you about itself? I do not know, with what to begin the story!!! I earlier worked in modelling business, but alas, my age any more does not approach for modelling business!! It is required only young and silly girls!!!
Fairly to tell, I am tired from such work!!! It is tired from loneliness!! 99,9 % of men look at the girl model, as on the prostitute!!! It is regrettable!!! And I very much want to meet present, decent the man which will respect and love me!!! Very much I want to create the family, strong and happy!!!
Among Russian men very strongly inconstancy!!! Today it good, tender, and tomorrow malicious!!!
I have girlfriends who have married the foreigner and everyone live happy!!! They have children, loving husband and stability in the future!!!
The small letter has turned out!! I shall wait for your answer!!! It is interesting to me to learn, how pass your days, your hobbies, your character, your trade!!!!!!
I wait!!! Elena

But what if I like young, silly girls?:

So you are no longer young and silly?  That's too bad.  Silly is awesome.  Silly is sexy.  Silly makes mens' hearts go pitter-patter.  Just ask Jenny McCarthy.

Is she on to me?  Or is the universal translator broken?:

Chuck!! In what nonsense? To search for the happiness nonsense? Tell the ideas in detail! To condemn always it is easy!! At me 2 diplomas of university!! Mine iq - 110 In what nonsense?

Time to cut to the chase:

There's no nonsense.

How much money do you need?

That might have been the wrong tactic:

Chuck!! If you to wish to offend me or to humiliate, to not turn out!! I to not require money or the sponsor!! You should understand, that I to search for the happiness. I to not search for an easy life. I to not search rich for the man. Money to play the big role in a life, but it not main criteria. big money often to become the reason of misfortune

Gotta stick to my guns though:

Which airport should I meet you at?

Unfortunately for me, Elena decided I was too direct for her liking and never responded to the airport question.  I was just getting all of the "getting to know you" stuff out of the way so we could start our lives together, and she up and abandons me.  We had a history together, you know?  And she vanishes on me.  Typical.

Blooper News

A producer from NBC's Most Outrageous Moments contacted me recently, looking for help in obtaining the rights to the ABC25 blooper reels that I've been posting to the YouTubes.  I gave him a very brief history of the company, explaining that when we worked there the station was owned by Allbrittion, but was then sold to Gannett.

That pretty much ended the discussion, as he informed me that Gannett has a strict policy of not licensing their footage for blooper shows.  Boy, just when I thought that company couldn't be a larger collection of assholes...

On a related note: I don't like talking about it much, but even though I swore that I'd never work in TV again after ABC25 folded, I had no choice but to accept a job working for another local station a few years back.  And it was without a doubt one of the worst years of my life, to the point where I was taking two different antidepressants just to be able to function.

This other station was the polar opposite to ABC25.  If you were having fun you'd be punished and if you finished your work early (which was always the case) you weren't allowed to do anything but sit and wait.  I made an innocent joke in my first staff meeting, which everyone seemed to enjoy, and when the meeting was over one of my 17 supervisors pulled me aside and told me to "stop with the jokes".  Every single workday was a nightmare.

Not surprisingly, during my time there only two remotely funny things happened on the air.  The first made the rounds on the internets years ago: a clip where reporter Adam Landau was attacked by a crazy drunk woman live on the air.  Surely you've seen that by now, but if not, follow the link.

The second is the clip I've posted above.  It's a completely innocent story about first aid for pets, but there's just something about the camera angle they chose on one particular part of the story that had everyone in the control room in stitches.  Then I went back and enhanced it a bit at the end.  I'm going to hell, I know.

Mopshoe!

This is an actual commercial for an actual product.  I'm not kidding.

"Mopshoe is perfect, and makes a great gift."  That line slays me.  Mopshoe is perfect.  Perfect.  Did you catch that?  It's perfect.