An Empathy Deficit

The other day, I wrote about supporting Hillary Clinton versus supporting Barack Obama, and I’ve made several comments over the past couple of months at my friend Beth’s Website about why Obama just doesn’t do it for me. But early this morning I had an opportunity to watch the video I’ve embedded above, and it’s gotten me a little bit more enthused about the presumptive nominee than I was before.

This informative and occasionally powerful video—I almost shouted ‘Hell yeah’ at the line about our country’s empathy deficit—has also helped me to clarify for myself what it is about Obama that has bothered me so much. And it’s not that I dislike the man or his message. No, my indifference towards the senator has much more to do with the fact that I have no faith that he can deliver on what he promises.

This is probably because I am a glass half-empty kind of person, but I just don’t see how he’s going to deliver change while working within the confines of a government that has proven time and time again that it doesn’t want change at all. I think that, once he gets into that oval-shaped office, he’s going to realize how ridiculously difficult it is to make anything happen as the “leader of the free world.” And when he comes to that realization—when we all come to that realization—we’re going to end up with a country full of cranky people, cranky people woken up from a dream that was never going to become a reality in the first place.

But, I could be wrong. And I hope that I am wrong. I hope that Senator Obama is able to deliver on everything he spoke about to the crowd at Google back on November 14, 2007. If he does, I’m going to be happier than I have ever been to say, “I am a tool, and you, President Obama, you rule.”

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Geek Force FiveCast - SomerVaudeville Edition (Video)

Last week, I had the immense pleasure of attending SomerVaudeville, a 21st century vaudeville performance featuring my friend Andy Hicks (The Pluto Tapes), among others. It was put on my Theatre@First, a Somerville-based drama troupe, and I had a grand old time.

For the past week, I’ve struggled to put together a movie of the footage I shot at Johnny D’s that night. I’m not sure if this video quite captures the awesomeness of that evening, but when it features banjos, musical saws, and covers of both Paula Abdul and Kermit the Frog, how can you not watch?

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Bob Barker Was My Hero

Here’s an excellent find by Leslie at Smoke Rings, Coffee Stains: The Top 8 Moments in The Price is Right History. I’m sure that there are some clips from the early days that there just aren’t tapes of that would maybe knock some of these clips off the list, but it is a pretty good list nevertheless.

The Price is Right was a summertime obsession of mine when I was growing up. It came on at eleven in the morning on the local CBS affiliate, and I hardly went a day without watching it. My favorite game was Plinko (though I swear there was another one that I can’t remember that I liked more, one that was hardly ever played) and my favorite Barker’s Beauty was probably Dian.

Any other Price is Right fanatics out there among the Geek Force? I haven’t been able to watch it in years. How’s Drew Carey doing filling Bob’s shoes?

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SomerVaudeville, featuring The Pluto Tapes

Just after he finishes playing the first verse of Paula Abdul’s seminal 1988 hit “Straight Up,” Pluto Tapes guitarist Andy Hicks pauses and asks the audience at Johnny D’s in Somerville, Massachusetts, “Really?” The crowd responds with boisterous cheer, and Hicks obliges them with an absolutely fantastic cover. It’s both amusing (how could a Paula Abdul song on guitar not be?) and surprisingly compelling. Stripped of synths and slick 80s production, “Straight Up” is the perfect capper for Hicks’s set of suburban alt-rock/powerpop. It’s the sort of song that you can imagine the disaffected narrator of Hicks’s songs identifying with, much to his surprise, on some drunken post-breakup evening. “You tell him, Paula,” says the narrator in my imagined scenario, a bottle of Sam Adams in hand. “A buh-buh-buh-bye, buh-buh-buh-bye!”

******

Under the moniker of The Pluto Tapes, my friend Andy Hicks (along with his guitar and his iPod) closed out the first act of last night’s inaugural SomerVaudeville show, put on by Theatre@First, a Davis Square-based drama troupe. His three-song set (plus the “Straight Up” encore) was the highlight of the evening for me, but the rest of the show was amazing as well. From banjo-playing Uncle Shoe to storyteller Justin Werfel to the sheer awesomeness of Can-Can Revolution, I was entertained all night long, and the memories of last night are sure to be what will power me through my tiredness today (I got home at quarter past midnight and left the house again at 5:25 a.m.).

Oh, and I may or may not have had my Flip Video camera on me, and I may or may not have filmed portions of the show, and I may or may not be posting the resulting video at some point in the next week.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to listen to and you don’t already own it, buy a copy of Dead Planets Tell No Tales, the first album by The Pluto Tapes, on iTunes.

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Donna Martin To Own A Cool Store In The New 90210

Following the lead of Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, aka Donna Martin, is joining the cast of the new 90210 television series. In case you missed it, Guest Geek Bethany Snyder posted her top five Donna-centric episodes earlier today. I wonder if any episodes from the new series will nudge their way onto Bethany’s list…

(If it makes any of you out there feel any better about me and my status as a “true” geek, I was listening to “We’re In This Together,” by Nine Inch Nails as I typed this article.)

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