Forecast calls for Daft-y conditions

I've been frequently flipping to The Weather Channel lately, and I've noticed the channel's "Local on the 8s" forecast interstitials have ditched most of the smooth jazz instrumentals that would usually accompany the temperature graphics for slightly edgier music like the beat digger favorite "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" from Isaac Hayes' 1969 Hot Buttered Soul album.

When I first heard "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" during "Local on the 8s" a few months ago, I was like, "I have no idea which Weather Channel employee picked 'Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic,' but I'd like to buy that person a beer or--and this would be more fitting because of its presence in DJ Quik's 'Born and Raised in Compton'--a 40."

Then last month, I noticed Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy end title theme, the "End of Line" theme for the club of the same name in Legacy and John Williams' "Theme from Jurassic Park" were added to "Local on the 8s" rotation (those three tracks still surface during the segment even though they're intended for May airplay and it's not May anymore). I thought I was imagining things. I wasn't:

Jurassic Park's stately and warm-toned main theme isn't really surprising as a choice for "Local on the 8s," but the propulsive grooves from Tron: Legacy are a surprise (by the way, the Legacy end title theme, "End of Line" and "Solar Sailer" can also be heard during A Fistful of Soundtracks' "Assorted Fistful" block, along with other Legacy tracks like "C.L.U.," the ubiquitous but still-awesome "Derezzed," "Outlands," "Rinzler" and "The Game Has Changed"). Someone in Atlanta or wherever the "Local on the 8s" updates are produced has great taste in film and TV score albums.

There's an explanation behind the channel's move towards less bland-sounding instrumentals during "Local on the 8s." In a 2009 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about the segment's switch from artists like Spyro Gyra to folks like The Stones, a Weather Channel exec said, "I think we've been doing an injustice to our viewers playing, for the lack of a better word, elevator music on the segments for all these years."

The calming shores of Spyro country were causing "Local on the 8s" viewers to doze off or lose interest.

"People would have it on but they wouldn't be watching and they wouldn't be listening," said the exec. "We wanted music that would get their attention--and this has."

An Idolator blogger who was impressed with the "Local on the 8s" playlist upgrades joked in 2009 that "I never thought, ever, that I would see former Yankees great Bernie Williams and the Smiths on the same playlist--but that's just an amuse for after 8 p.m., when things get really crazy and Phish gets added to the proceedings. Whoa Nelly!"

Hold up. Did he say Phish? Let's look at that May 8pm-1am playlist again:

Things are way past crazy now.

(Photo source: TWC Today)

Unlike that short-lived experiment where The Weather Channel added movies like The Perfect Storm and Misery to its programming last year, this is a change I can agree with.

Stefon Mad Libs is the hot and (adjective) meme that answers the question: "(John Cassavetes movie title)?"

In honor of Leonard B. Stern, the recently deceased Honeymooners and Get Smart writer who created the never-not-boring parlor game and childhood staple Mad Libs, here's a highly addictive new version of Mad Libs that I spotted on Crushable.

It's inspired by the most consistently funny character during the 36th and most recent season of SNL, Weekend Update nightlife correspondent Stefon. (The Ed Hardy shirt-clad expert on New York clubbing is played by Bill Hader. He's always "corpsing," or erupting into uncontrollable laughter and breaking character, whenever he appears as Stefon because the SNL writers throw away the Stefon lines Hader rehearsed with and then replace them on the cue cards with completely new lines during the live broadcast, hence Hader's surprised and giggly reactions.)

Here are the results from one of the holiday-themed Stefon Mad Libs I played around with.

Drums, please!

This week, Late Show with David Letterman is presenting its first-ever "Drum Solo Week," a series of shows in which Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra will put the spotlight on legendary drummers and percussionists like Sheila E., Roy Haynes and the CBS Orchestra's own Anton Fig. Because of "Drum Solo Week," it's time to revisit a killer two-minute drum solo that opens "Come Maddalena (Like Maddalena)," a cue from Ennio Morricone's lush score to Maddalena, an obscure 1971 Italian art-house movie in which, according to IMDb, Lisa Gastoni "takes the title role in uninhibited, full frontal nudity fashion" and falls in love with "a priest in doubt over his vocation." I've never seen Maddalena--I assume it's like The Thorn Birds, but without that creepy "he first knew her when she was a little girl" thing.

The soloist at the start of "Come Maddalena" is Morricone's frequent drummer during the '60s and '70s, Vincenzo Restuccia. His terrific drum work is also the highlight of "L'Ultimo," a Morricone instrumental that first appeared on the 1970 album Ideato, Scritto e Diretto da Ennio Morricone and was, according to a page about the 1970 LP, "composed for an unrealesed [sic] film whose title has been forgotten by Morricone himself." (I wonder why Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi didn't hire Restuccia as their percussionist during the recording of their Rome homage to '60s and '70s Italian film scores. Restuccia would have been perfect for that project.)

The groovetastic "L'Ultimo" sounds like something Marcello Mastroianni would have played in his convertible while driving around 1969 Rome with his 10th Victim stunna shades on.

"Aw hell, Chewbacca": 10 genuinely funny stand-up routines or monologues about movies (UPDATED)

Patton Oswalt, one of the few stand-ups who publicly swore off Twitter when the site's popularity exploded ("I like having radio silence. I think radio silence is an important part of any public figure's day."), did the unthinkable in 2010 when he succumbed to the Twittersphere and started an account. As one can see from his stand-up act, his stint as a guest programmer at L.A.'s New Bev Cinema and his recollections of his most frustrating showbiz experiences during a recent must-listen edition of The Nerdist Podcast, movies are a topic the Hollywood script doctor and Zombie Spaceship Wasteland author is passionate about, and they've led to some of my favorite Oswalt routines. Maybe we'll get a taste of some more Oswalt material about movies on his Twitter page, where he's demonstrating why stand-ups and comedy writers are the best kind of celebrity to follow on Twitter (unlike most other celebs, their tweets are rarely boring or shallow). From last May, here are eight standout routines about cinema, and this time, they're joined by two equally funny monologues that popped up online after I first posted the list. Four of these bits are Oswalt's.

10. Richard Pryor rewrites The Exorcist
The horror genre has always fascinated the late Pryor's former writing partner Paul Mooney, who's done brilliant jokes about the Frankenstein monster, white filmgoers' fears of the shark from Jaws and movies that skeevily put women in romantic situations with sci-fi monsters. He must have had a hand in writing Pryor's material about The Exorcist, which he and Pryor actually saw together at its Hollywood premiere. When Pryor guest-hosted SNL and brought along Mooney as a sketch writer, they did an amusing Exorcist sketch in which a pair of black priests (Pryor and Thalmus Rasulala) lose their patience with the possessed kid (Laraine Newman), who taunts Rasulala's priest with the cleaned-up-for-TV "Your mama sews socks that smell."



9. Scott Thompson sinks Titanic during an interview on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
"I don't think that to be a leading man, you have to be Harrison Ford, but I do think that you should be able to do at least one push-up. When little Leo finally kisses big Kate, I thought it was a lesbian scene."



8. Oswalt wonders what Star Wars would have been like if Nick Nolte won the role he actually auditioned for: Han Solo
"Fuckin' droids, beep, beep..."

7. Robert Klein reenacts every single Our Gang short you've seen
I actually like this routine from the 1973 album Child of the 50's more than "I Can't Stop My Leg." Klein's recreation of the Our Gang score music ("Hal Roach had four tunes that he played over and over again") is priceless.

Rodrigo y Gabriela y piratas

(Photo source: Tennessean)

I love the sounds of Rodrigo y Gabriela. If you're not familiar with this Mexican duo from Ireland, they perform badass instrumentals that fall under the category of "acoustic metal."



So when I discovered the other day while browsing through Best Buy's music section that Hans Zimmer--who frequently collaborates with ace guitarists like Johnny Marr, Michael Brook and Heitor Pereira--enlisted Rodrigo y Gabriela as soloists and co-composers on his Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides score, I had to snap up the On Stranger Tides score CD right away.



All five of the On Stranger Tides album tracks that feature Rod y Gab are as excellent as I expected them to be. The highlight is, of course, when they tackle the Captain Jack Sparrow theme with the same gusto they've brought to their covers of Metallica's "Orion" and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

(Photo source: KCRW)

I've added those five On Stranger Tides tracks to rotation during the Fistful of Soundtracks blocks "Assorted Fistful" (check listings) and "New Cue Revue" (Wednesdays at 10-11am and 4-5pm, Fridays at 11am-noon), along with selections from Alexandre Desplat's lush score to Terrence Malick's Cannes audience polarizer/sensation The Tree of Life and Patrick Doyle's epic score to Please Hammer, Do Hurt 'Em.