Two friends emailed me the RoboGeisha trailer; whatever it says about me that more than one person would see RoboGeisha and immediately say, "I'd better send that to Mike," I'm not sure, but it's right. It certainly is the most all-inclusive trailer I've seen, from Geisha Chainsaw to Tengu Milk to Handicap Gun. I love the voice work, and I laughed at Fried Shrimp being jammed into someone's eyes, until I was looking for a Chinese eye journal today on the InterTubes and found the World-Eye website, which features a picture of fried shrimp. As if I didn't waste enough time on Tengu Milk, now I have to know whether Fried Shrimp Attack is symbolic or ironic.

My clan have always fancied ourselves capable singers and musicians — my father used to bemoan our not forming a family choir like the von Trapps — but none of us have been quite willing to quit our day jobs. So, it's good to see that two Onkens have continued the pursuit. My sister Katie has formed the Katie O Combo and created its own MySpace page; and my neice Julia has recently started her own YouTube Channel. Maybe there's hope yet.

Here's something we don't get to do every day:
As part of a massive, ongoing renovation, MoDOT closed (completely) the West half of Interstate-64, the main artery running through the central corridor of St Louis County. Yesterday, before the ribbon cutting ceremony that simultaneously opened the West half and closed the East half, MoDOT opened the new highway to pedestrian traffic only. "Let's go walk on the new highway" was The holiday event this year.

My friend Walter and I have spent the last two weeks swapping e-mails of '80s music videos that have shown up on the YouTube. It has been an often embarrassing, but truly enjoyable, walk down memory lane, including videos of songs we didn't get to see on the old 24 hour Music Television channel. Here is the latest find, "Messages" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark:

And here is Walt's response:

Very nice!

I love the good ol’ early eighties abandoned warehouses.

That would be Paul playing Andy’s bass. Interestingly, I wonder if Paul is also left handed as is the bass – he makes a pretty convincing left paw if he ain’t.

I guess Andy was too be busy being moody and the bass would have covered up that tie – I’m glad he did his side-step-in-one-place-dance towards the end though.

To explain, we both loved OMD back in the early '80s, and stuck with the band after the horror that was "If You Leave". We all went to a concert on their "Crush" Tour and got invited back to the Tour Bus to hang out with the band, so watching the video is much more personal. Andy McCluskey, singing in the video, plays the bass and Paul Humphreys plays keyboards, so we were shocked and amused to see Paul riffing out Andy's bass line. Andy and Paul were huge Kraftwerk fans - as were we - and the band's earlier work fills that same space in electronic music history between the Moog and the Emulator. Other old videos I found are their first, "Electricity" (based loosely on Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity"), the live version of "Enola Gay" from Urgh! A Music War, the Scandinavian epic that is "Maid of Orleans", and the great-tune-turned-silly-video "Telegraph". Love that YouTube!

Is it me...

or should they not look so pleased with her touching that thing?

(I have depended on Qiagen kits for most of my preparations for the past decade or more, and recommend them highly, but their ads are something else.)