Hope you’re ready to get emotional because one of the TTH Editors just saw Crazy Heart on a hungover Monday. What was his reaction? Listen below, and don’t forget, you can get in on the phonin’ action yourself. Call the Take the Handle Phonin’ It In Hotline at (413)-T-HANDLE! (413-842-6353) Remember—the best criticism comes right after you see the movie! Maybe even while you’re walking through the lobby of the theater. Catch that thought while it’s hot!
Ladies and gents, today we unveil a new weekly column that is going to knock your socks off. It’s called Photo of the Day, and it is provided to us by the one and only Betsy Maher. I won’t say much, since this photo speaks for itself!
Tune in to Take the Handle every Monday morning for a photo that’ll get your week started right! When you wish the weekend just wouldn’t end, this will cure all your worries. Photo of the Day!
Join us this Saturday afternoon for a happy hour screening of this rare doc, available only on VHS. We’ve been tracking this one down for a while. This is the documentary about Fleetwood Mac and the making of their classic record Tusk, screening in its entirety.
See this rare, out-of-print, behind-the-scenes look at one of the best records ever. The screening starts at 5, and there will be 2-for-1 drinks served by the one and only T. Cole Rachel. Look forward to seeing you there…
Saturday, 2/6
5 pm
Heathers Bar
506 E. 13th between Avenues A & B
Let’s get back to churches. And back downtown. I know we were gonna wait until summertime to really (drunkenly) enjoy these tiny streets, but I haven’t been able to stay away from them. And here’s one nice accomplishment: January is already over. Congratulations everybody! Looks like that whole time-keeps-passing thing is still going on. Awesome. Let’s learn some facts. Continue reading this column... « Less
On yesterday’s episode of CSPAN’s Washington Journal, Bernie fielded a call which sounded like it had been misdirected from a suicide hotline. The caller began his question, “I just wanted to state sir, that, I don’t know… I really…I give up.” What follows is 90 seconds of Bernie trying to talk the guy (& the country) down from the ledge of hopelessness. Bernie invokes his children and grandchildren as reasons to continue the struggle despite recent setbacks such as the Supreme Court ruling that corporations can be treated as individuals in terms of campaign contributions. “This is tough stuff. It ain’t easy but giving up is not an option.” He sounds a bit like my middle school soccer coach on a rainy fall day but sometimes improbable optimism is just what we need from those who lead us.
Last Wednesday January 27th, Take the Handle’s Daily site was compromised by hackers. Long story short, some misguided spambot gained access to our site and posted links to some nasty pages which could potentially install viruses and malware on our reader’s computers. We hope that nobody actually followed these links especially since they were only visible for a few hours before we detected the problem but if you did, we’d like to hear your experience and officially apologize. One week of our lives in the Gloggosphere has been wasted but we’ve learned some valuable security lessons. Thanks for bearing with us – regular content will resume tomorrow!
I must admit that with Beach House, I’m a bit of a johnny-come-lately. People have been raving about them for the last few years, and I only started to fall for them a few months ago when a good friend played their song “Gila” for me.
Why’d it take me so long? Because as I went further into my twenties I became more of an old man, preferring to mine McCartney’s solo career instead of digging through new music. Honestly, it’s hard to read a popular, well-reviewed new novel when you haven’t read Moby Dick, innit? Continue reading this column... « Less
Our undercover correspondent Pia Agrawal reports back from her trip to the unannounced Cap’n Jazz reunion show last Friday at the Empty Bottle in Chicago:
Two of the most common thoughts running through any of my given days are Tim Kinsella and kitty cats so, with a last minute tip that my dreams could intersect at the corner of W. Cortez and N. Western, I shoved my possessions into a Ziploc and hopped on a plane to Chicago. Anxiety ridden with both the shame of my obsessive loser fandom and the small chance that I would actually miss the entire set, I talked to every single person that would listen about my race against the clock. With assurances from an equally Chicago-bound Hell’s Angel that everything would indeed be okay (Aok? har har), I made it with plenty of time to see the 13 minutes I had waited almost 13 years for.
The dramatic fallout between NBC and Conan O’Brien was full of surprises. Who knew that O’Brien and NBC head Jeff Zucker had been enemies since a series of Harvard Lampoon pranks involving stealing every copy of Zucker’s Harvard Crimson and posting phone sex ads with Zucker’s phone number? But more surprising than the 1.5 Million dollar Bugatti Veyron was Conan’s thanking NBC for twenty good years and his heartfelt rallying cry against cynicism:
All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism – it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.
For every building standing in New York, there’s been a dozen that have been torn down. Is that exactly right? It’s tough to get a hard number on “extinct” buildings. But between 1625 and 2010 let’s just say a lot of them have gone the way of old age, progress or development. The city isn’t too shy about building over and on top of its past, especially when there’s money to be made. And there’s always money to be made. This is America! Don’t let anyone stand in your way. Isn’t that why Republicans are for less governmental regulation? Because they’re greedy, selfish bastards? If you want to make an obscene amount of money, that’s a choice – and I think the very reason that it is a choice is why you should suffer for it. I mean, you intentionally tried to make an obscene amount of money? What a dick! Continue reading this column... « Less
This Friday, January 22nd, is the day of our 2nd Annual Glögg party! For those who don’t know (or drank too much last time to remember), Glögg means Mulled Wine in Nordic countries. Our dear friend of Icelandic decent, the inimitable playwright/director/screenwriter/pugilist Kristjan Thorgeirsson, will be preparing the Glögg for your drinking pleasure, and his production company French Exit will be co-hosting the event.
There will be a raffle, music provided by TTH editor Stefan, and yes, the infamous Icelandic Glogg recipe at work! $20 dollars at the door gets you all-you-can-drink Glögg, Beer and Wine! And it all goes down at the legendary East Village theater PS122.
Friday, January 22nd
P.S. 122, 150 1st Ave. at 9th St.
$20 for all-you-can-drink Glögg, Beer and Wine
8pm – 11 pm
So bring your inner Viking, have some Glögg, celebrate life, and support Mr. Thorgeirsson’s new film, ICELAND.
One of our most exciting early interviewees was Runaway rocker Cherie Currie way back in our Heroes Issue. Stefan asked her about the Runaways film, which had yet to go into production:
TTH: It’s rumored you’re developing your memoir, Neon Angel, into a film.
CC: Yes. I rewrote my book Neon Angel that came out in 1989 though Price Stern Sloan and told the stories I couldn’t tell in that young adult book. John and Art Linson are producers and Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna are executive producers. It’s so cool that we can use the original music and that Joan is involved.
TTH: Have you ever imagined who would play you?
CC: Not a clue. I think that will be a hard casting call for all the girls. We were unique, strong pioneers for our age. Pretty big shoes to fill in my opinion. Me and Joan are excited to see what happens.
If you own an iPhone 2G or 3G you may have suffered from a bit of jealousy at the vivid sexts your friends with new iPhone 3GS’s were able to send and you were only able to receive. You might have even considered hacking your phone to allow it to record video. Well just last week Apple approvediVideoCamera, an app capable of shooting decent videos and uploading them straight to YouTube. The framerate and resolution are well below that of the iPhone 3GS but for a buck you’ve got the best feature of the 3GS in most of its glory—all the more reason to hold out till June (or sooner) for the rumored iPhone 4G!
Below is a sample video I made to testing the functionality of the iVideoCamera app by shooting my favorite SkinaMax show from childhood, Red Shoe Diaries, off the TV while listening to Mannequin Men singing “Sex Off T.V.” (Not Safe For Workplaces That Don’t Approve of Sexy Videos): Continue reading this column... « Less
All right so raise your hand if you haven’t spent some time here in your life – late nights hanging out, partying, dancing, or I don’t know, maybe even seeing some performance art. It’s pretty much everyone I’ve ever met, right? I’m not really sure how I can even write about this corner. But then again, how could I not write about this corner. I’ve spent enough time here the last few weeks (or did I mean to say, years?) that I can’t imagine writing on anything else. Are we too old to have a clubhouse? Probably. But whatever, this place is pretty much my clubhouse. Continue reading this column... « Less
I think the task of these days is remembering. Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour on its axis and orbiting at ~20 miles per second around the Sun. Your parents loved their first cars and the gravelly highways and they have prurient organs and will/did die and they felt, long ago, what you’re now feeling and are trying so hard to articulate, and they failed, and you’ll fail too, but they’re your parents and it won’t ever end, and if it did end, well. And you ate the worst food when you were 7 years old in Texarkana and you thought the neighbor’s dog would kill you (it was named Ripper in my case) and the girls were the meanest you’d ever come across, aw man, like thickets or hedges or whatever, remember? You made that fort in the trees and it was the realest thing that’s ever been and all reality derives from that illusion you MADE / you / what if you were at my window — Keep a globe on your desk and such, and look at how vast the Pacific Ocean is. Like that. It does get better. Late twenties. We’re past it. Run your fingers down the page. Your parents put their toes in the Pacific. Whoever named it the Pacific named it that because it seemed so calm. I guess. Perfect blue. I guess. But it had been seen by 100 million people before it was named. “Named!” Shoot. Remember! Dan and I drove down Highway 1 in March, 2008, en route to Santa Cruz, and we couldn’t take the ocean’s beauty. But were we already so old, Dan? Remember? It blinded us! A flightless bird had landed in the surf and it was getting tossed about, and people with dogs and frisbees didn’t know what to do, nor did the dogs, nor did the frisbees, nor did we. Or was that May, 2009? Hi, Dan! Best of luck. You get to the Midwest, and you’re not even Mid of the way to the Middle West. Remember. Your parents got lost and never made it back. I’ve never been to Iowa or Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma. But Idaho is so pretty; and there are apparently other countries in the world besides the States. And other people, and other situations that would move you just as much, must as juch. Coeur d’Alene, yes; Sandpoint, yes; Toronto, definitely. I regret pretty little. I’ve seen so little of Earth and its inhabitants — you’ve probably had some bad turns, worse than I’ve had, sorry!, so I should stop preaching, but. But. Help me out I’m in the dark! Help me, Cooper! Help me, Shelly! Continue reading this column... « Less
There aren’t going to be any new Gossip Girl episodes till God knows when. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I’ve given up TV. What’s on tonight? American Idol. Let’s do this. Continue reading this column... « Less
When Kentucky Republican senator Jim Bunning, one of the top twenty pitchers in Major League history sides with Lefty McSocialist, Bernie Sanders, people should probably ask why. Though the press is taking little notice, the issue which is galvanizing this unlikely pair is the opposition to the Senate re-confirmation of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Both claim that Bush-appointee Bernanke didn’t do enough to stop the recent mortgage crisis and blame him for not apologizing for the unregulated environment he supported. Continue reading this column... « Less
In this episode Team CAFFiend bikes from Portland to LA in just three weeks thanks to the feline-branded energy drink called Max Velocity. Results may vary but don’t forget to stop and pick berries.
If I’ve ever given the impression that I’d like to travel back in time I just want to clarify that I meant I’d like to travel back in time during the summer months only. Good god! You know what I’m talking about? What the f did people do before central heating? Yeah, I know I know, they probably had a lot of fires to keep them warm. Well bullshit! These people must have been freezing! I’m freezing now and it’s 2010. Continue reading this column... « Less
