Musings from the basement...

Should I do a Star Trek movie marathon? Yes. Yes, I should …

April 11, 2016 11 Comments

And it starts in five minutes. Something came over me the other day. It might have been Netflix suddenly throwing Trek in my face. Maybe it’s the result of a space slug crawling into my ear. Don’t know. Whatever it was, it resulted in a feeling I’ve pretty much never had in my life: “I should watch some Star Tek – and a LOT of it!” If that sounds like a knock on Star Trek, it’s not. Rather, it’s just to say that I’ve never been anything more than a vaguely casual Star Trek fan. I watched most of the original series as a kid, saw many seasons of The Next Generation and one or two of Deep Space Nine with my old man, saw…
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Films, Geek Stuff

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Gardening + Homebrewing = I am a beer writer again!

April 10, 2016 1 Comment

For just under three years, I wrote a craft beer column at the Philly Weekly. I enjoyed it. Each week I’d recommend five excellent craft beers. People read it. Breweries liked it. Fantastic breweries like Firestone Walker, Stone, Founders and Victory took notice. That’s amazing. I got to know some amazing people doing it, and also got to try some fantastic beers. But as is inevitable in the news biz, things change. The column was nixed in late 2015, and I was a beer writer no more. No hard feelings! I love the people at PW and still do. Look forward to doing more work with them (and it’s inevitable that I will). Just sayin’ that my days of saying I was a professional beer writer…
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Craft Beer, Writing

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Now I’m on Youtube. What have I gotten myself into?

April 6, 2016 12 Comments

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. When my buddy Tig Carson asked me to do a nerdy video series with him, the idea excited me because doing nerdy stuff with friends is always a good time. Tig is the curator of Nerd Out With Me (follow them on Facebook here, and Twitter and all that jazz), and the author of A Space Story, a Hitchhiker’s Guide-esque science fiction adventure. I have fun talking about geek stuff with him. The idea of a video series sounded like fun, too. We’d talk about old toys and cartoons from our youth and whatever. It would be a good way to spend an afternoon. Then we set up a spot and filmed some material as a…
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Geek Stuff, Videos, Works by Eric

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The most punk rock thing Nirvana ever did was play MTV Unplugged

April 5, 2016 2 Comments

Twenty-two years ago today, Kurt Cobain killed himself. He was still just a kid, really, talented and tortured and burdened by a weight he wasn’t equipped to handle. Nirvana’s music left a mark on people, but they left as quickly as they came. How strange to disappear when still at your peak. Cobain was a little playful, a little rebellious, and a little punk rock – he taunted jocks, smashed instruments, and thumbed his nose at his fame – but the most punk rock thing he ever did was strap on an acoustic guitar and play one of the most intimate, revealing sets of music of the last 30 years. The boldness wasn’t just in the stripped down set, despite it being unusual for a…
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Music, Videos

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FILM FLASHBACK: Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” (1938)

April 4, 2016 0 Comments

This review first appeared on the web more than 10 years ago on DVDinmyPants.com. The site is gone, but I’m pulling this from the archives for your enjoyment. Dig it: When it comes to Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest work, it would be difficult to find a title more worthy of the Criterion Collection treatment than The Lady Vanishes. Hitch’s spy thriller The 39 Steps certainly deserves its place among the collection, and this reviewer believes The Lodger is in dire need of restoration, commentary and otherwise deluxe treatment … but I am an unabashed fan of The Lady Vanishes, the last good film Hitchcock would make as a British director, and hence I am glad it received Criterion’s loving treatment. In The Lady Vanishes, Hitch brings…
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Alfred Hitchcock, Films

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