Hello, Mr. Mantis!

Thursday, September 4th, 2008 @ 11:39PM

Talk about a weird coincidence!

After pondering whether or not to see the new movie “Tropic Thunder”, because the only Ben Stiller film I have really liked was “Zoolander”, I decided I had to go because since his start in the 80’s, (not Ben) I have always loved Robert Downey Jr. He was part of the original John Hughes Brat Pack, after all. And I was a teen in the 80’s. Despite his “Iron Man” success, I really admire the guy for beating his years of addiction. And no matter how many mistakes you have made, if you can improve your life and turn things around, it can immensely pay off.

It was freaking brilliant! I wouldn’t have recognized RDJ if I didn’t know already the character he was playing, and I didn’t recognize Tom Cruise’s role until the middle of the movie when he had a closeup. I have never, ever seen Tom Cruise play such a crass and nutty character, and I absolutely loved him!!! I just found out that Tom plays the president of Paramount, who just fired Tom. So this is a movie who makes fun of the president! Brilliant. Who stole the show, Robert or Tom, I can’t decide.

So to get to my praying mantis point, in Tropic Thunder, and I’m sorry if I ruin just a fraction of the film for you, Ben Stiller runs into a praying mantis during his journey into a ‘film’ he thinks he’s making in the jungles of Nam. When in reality he’s dealing with dangerous heroin farming kings. He looks at the little creature and says, “Hello, Mr. Mantis!” A precious moment you may think, then the mantis jumps into his eye!

I saw this movie on Monday after playing DJ noon-6 for the Labor Day Shuffle Weekend. On Wednesday, I am in the mail room of my condo building when this lady screams, “Hey, do you see this green thing? Kill it! Get it off!” I gently took off the mantis and went outside. I tried to put it on an outdoor plant, but it crawled on my forearm and hung out there for a bit. Aggressively trying to take it off, it crawled up my arm and on my back, like my neighbor’s. Lesson #1: Don’t aggravate a praying mantis. I continued to stand outside and wait for a passer-by to take it off, but to no avail. But lesson #2, being patient and just waiting, it finally came around and perched on my shoulder. It looked at me with those big, yellow eyes, as if to tell me something, with it’s arms up like a puppy. I took him on my opposite finger gently, and put him in a planter where I assumed he, or she’d be safe. It watched me as I went back into the building. Thanks for not jumping into my eye, Mr. Mantis!

So I could have just told you that it was insanely weird that I would run into a mantis in the middle of downtown SLC just after I saw Tropic Thunder, but I hope telling the whole story was a bit more interesting. the last time I saw one of those I was 14 visiting Hong Kong. And they are supposed to be good luck. I feel that I am lucky already, I did learn a lesson to be patient, enjoy nature, keep your garbage to yourself; and I am happy in the end that I had this strange encounter. Thank you, Mr. or Ms. Mantis. 

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I’m pimping this local music shop where I got my new locally-owned headphones!

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 @ 4:34PM

Positively 4th Street Music on 249 East and 400 S. right across the street from the big library. Now, There is another Positively 4th down the street on 400 West, a local band rehearsal space. That's not it.

Last July my expensive Sennheizer’s broke on the plastic hinge on the right ear when I was on the air. I could still hear on both ends, but there wasn’t an engineer at X96 with a supply of duct tape, so I super glued it at home.

Well, yesterday during the X96 Shuffle Weekend it snapped again. Now, I’m one of these weird people who believes if you think about something you want, there will be ‘coincidences’ on the way who will help you out. I have many crazy testimonies that I can tell you about, but that’s for another blog. This happened to me this morning when I ran into my good friend Tim, the former owner of Orion’s Music in the old building on 1100 E. in Sugarhouse. Now, I haven’t seen Tim in about six months. He moved his shop to 400 E. because the Sugarhouse owners sold the big building, the same one Blue Boutique and Sugarhouse Coffee were in, and everyone was forced to move because it was eventually torn down to make condos and a stupid The Gap or something like that. Tim told me this morning, when I was eating Carlucci’s fabulous tofu scramble and drinking iced coffee with coffee ice cubes, ( Okay, so it’s obvious. Go to Carlucci’s. It’s fabulous, and local singer Erin Haley of La Farsa works there.) that his business was a little slow. It is still pretty new.

Positively 4th Street Music has been my little secret, now I want to share it with you. Why he changed the name I don’t know, but I love Tim and the shop dearingly. Positively 4th Street Music is one of the only places where you can still buy vinyl! They also have new and used CDs, clothing, and Skull Candy headphones. So I went in there when they opened at 11:00 and I saw a huuuuuge selection of Skull Candys! I feel like a talking ad, but I am actually jealous because RFH was hooked up with the Park City brand headphones. P4St. had rasta colors, black with white lettering, ear buds, poker card headphones. Then I found these girly, faux fur headphones which I saw in white and pink. Cute, but since X96 now has a video cam I didn’t want to look like Paris Hilton. Then I found them in black! They are included with plain vinyl ear pieces for when it gets too hot, but the furry ears were so dang comfy. Sold. And they were a fraction of the price of my crappy “high end” Sennheizers. Sorry Nukey, I know you just bought new Sennz, but I’m going local. :X http://www.4thstreetmusicslc.com

Please support Timmy and Co. on 400 S. and 249 E. in DT SLC. Then you can have a pizza upstairs at the locally owned Stoneground, then have a coffee or a treat at Caffe De Bolla in the same building. It’s the Olive green one on the North side of 400 S. Tell Tim or Chance that I sent you.

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Green Cake!

Monday, September 1st, 2008 @ 11:15PM

The band Cake is working in a solar powered studio.

And they made it themselves. Thoughtful guys, doing their part to reduce their carbon footprint. Go to http://www.cakemusic.com/solar for more.

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