The Joe Donatelli Column

Indian movie action scene

Joe Donatelli — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:49:35 +0000

Batsh*t Insane Bollywood Death Kill! – Watch more horror

This is a clip from India’s 2009 Telugu language blockbuster Magadheera. I don’t know what this Bollywood movie is about, but I have a feeling the plot centers around unrelenting awesomeness.

Huey Lewis and The News, a Soulsville release date and The Power of Love

Joe Donatelli — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:00:52 +0000

Photo by Chris Miller, Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa, via Palm Springs Desert Sun

VALLEY CENTER, Calif. _ I attended a Huey Lewis and The News concert on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised to learn that 1.) Huey Lewis is still alive 2.) The News accounts for approximately one-third of all professional saxophone jobs in the United States 3.) I was the only man in attendance who did not look like he was thinking about how sweet Huey Lewis music sounds on his pleasure boat. This is mainly because I do not own a pleasure boat, and if I did, I would not play Huey Lewis music. I would only play the theme from Shaft.

We arrived at Harrah’s Rincon Casino on time, but missed the opening song. We missed it because the security guards at Open Sky Theater would not let my girlfriend Jen enter with her digital camera, which she mainly uses to photograph summer salads, and is in no way powerful enough to capture perfect photographs of Huey Lewis that she can then sell to TMZ or the Russian mafia or whomever concert organizers imagine people sell Huey Lewis photos to on the black market.

Good boyfriend that I am, I ran the camera across the casino floor like a modern Pheidippides, through a sea of smoke and into the parking garage and back to my car. Then I ran down three flights of stairs, back across the casino, secondhand smoked another pack of cigarettes, rejoined the thankful girlfriend and walked into the show already in progress. So, great job, concert organizers. You prevented a fan from taking an amateur photo of Huey Lewis at your venue and posting it on her Facebook and Twitter pages. Instead we took low-resolution photographs with our cell phones. If anyone wants to know how Huey Lewis looks these days, I am happy to report that he is now one inch tall and appears to have just emerged from an alien spacecraft.

The 90-minute concert, which I did enjoy, was broken into five parts, each entertaining for different reasons. The band opened with songs from its forthcoming album Soulsville, which comes out Nov. 2. Soulsville is a collection of covers from Stax Records and the Memphis soul era. I am no professional music critic, and I will prove that to you right now by telling you that the songs from the new album, and I don’t mean to show off as a writer here, but get ready for it – sounded good. If you like Huey, or that sound, you will probably want to buy Soulsville because – and you can feel free to quote me on this one record company people – it is good.

The band also performed its “greatest misses,” a run of songs that included “I Want A New Drug,” which I always thought was a hit, because most greatest misses don’t chart at No. 6 and get stolen by Ray Parker Jr. Huey and some of the guys from the band sang a little a cappella, and they nailed it, according to the sea of 60-year-old women who squealed and swayed and fought the urge to remove their tops. Then the band did its greatest hits, but not all of them. “We can’t really get to all of them,” Huey quipped, as if to say, that would be far too many songs to play. True to his word, the band did not play all of its hits, skipping “Hip to Be Square.” Then, in what might have been the least-mysterious lead-in to an encore ever, Huey Lewis and The News walked offstage without playing “The Power of Love.”

Like they weren’t going to come back and play “The Power of Love.” Right. The upscale, older crowd would have torn the theater to shreds Russian-soccer-riot style or, lacking the physical strength to do so, successfully filed a lawsuit to order Huey Lewis and The News to return to the Open Sky Theater at a later date to play “The Power of Love.” Huey Lewis and The News not playing “The Power of Love” in concert is like The New York Yankees dressing for a home game at Yankee Stadium and not taking the field, or Francis Ford Coppola ending the movie “The Godfather” after Sonny gets murdered, or Letterman doing a Top Nine list or Paula Deen cooking with ingredients that take into account regard for human life. It can’t and shouldn’t be done.

Personally, I got the feeling Huey would rather not play “The Power of Love,” mainly by the way he told the audience he would rather not play “The Power of Love.” I am paraphrasing a bit here, but this was the gist of what he told us: This song is 25 years old, and if you would have told us when we wrote it that we would have to perform it every time we play live … we would have let Foreigner record it instead.

Then Huey Lewis and The News played “The Power of Love” and the crowd went wild. It’s a great song. It’s why we were there – to hear that song and sing along to it. The Power of Love – it really does make one man weep and another man sing.

If only someone would invent a machine so Huey Lewis could travel back in time to un-write the song. But then that time machine would need a theme song.

And the circle of Huey Lewis’s anguish continues for eternity.

UPDATE: This column has been linked to by hln.org, a Huey Lewis & The News fan/wiki site. Some of the commenters did not like my column. You can read their thoughts, which they are perfectly entitled to, here.

Dating other couples

Joe Donatelli — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:02:48 +0000

My brother Tom and Tom’s wife Liz check back in with The Second Column podcast after one year of marriage (they came on Ep. 91 the week before they were married) to talk about dating other couples, the keys to a successful marriage and how to cool baby fever, as well as the Ohio University time change riots and police monkeys. Also, Mike explains why he does not ride bicycles. Download or listen to the show at: http://www.thesecondcolumn.com/

Podcast guest Paige White on LA Weekly cover for play The War Cycle

Joe Donatelli — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:34:27 +0000

Friend and podcast guest Paige White (Episode 130) is on the cover of LA Weekly for her role in the play The War Cycle. She is in part one – Wounded, which has four performances remaining at the Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica. Paige is a phenomenal actress and this attention is well-deserved.

To read LA Weekly’s extensive review, click here. To learn more about the play (tickets, etc.), click here.

From the Back Stage review: “A deeply troubling play, delivered with intensity by a cast of involved, passionate actors, this is reality theatre, a document that doesn’t presume to offer easy answers to the difficult questions it poses. But this production takes no prisoners. Strong language, deeply emotional situations, and visceral performances combine to make this a thinking and a feeling person’s play.”

The photo above is from the LA Weekly’s website. Sadly, a digital copy of the cover only exists in thumbnail form. But that is Paige below. I swear.

Mary Jo Buttafuoco Q&A

Joe Donatelli — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:20:03 +0000

Parts of my podcast interview with Mary Jo Buttafuoco are now available on the men’s lifestyle web site Made Man. The article is entitled How To Survive Being Shot In The Head: An interview with Mary Jo Buttafuoco. You would not know it from the piece, but the show was actually quite fun. I think that got lost in translation. Still, it’s pretty good stuff from a woman who survived a heinous crime and the life-changing series of events that followed.

What’s for lunch? Crime, mainly

Joe Donatelli — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:07:14 +0000

My buddy Not Zombies has posted a not-at-all-embellished account of our run-in with Johnny Law in Beverly Hills today. Seems we inadvertently walked into the middle of an active crime scene at lunch. Oops. You can read all about it here.

There are a few things that NZ left out:

I ordered Thai Boom’s BBQ chicken takeout, so it was very important that we make it back to the office alive, as that is one of my favorite lunch dishes, and I did not want to die slightly hungry.
The fur store heist disrupted a long, riveting conversation about the underrated value, and indisputable catalog, of Huey Lewis & The News. They really have put out more hit songs than you thought, people.
Undercover police in Beverly Hills drive black Dodge Chargers. So, heads up, criminal underworld.
The BBQ chicken was delicious. The sweet sauce makes the dish.

Dad rap song

Joe Donatelli — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:23:53 +0000

Finally, someone made a hardcore rap song about being a dad. This is called “It’s The Dad Life,” and it is my favorite thing on the Internet today.

It’s A Dad’s Life – Watch more Funny Videos

JWoww in the confessional

Joe Donatelli — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:16:24 +0000

This was the highlight of the fourth episode of Jersey Shore, Season 2, which aired tonight. JWoww enters the confessional booth and says nothing. Just stands there. Like Wonder Woman. Breasts out. Never ducks down. Never offers a word of advice. Does not get in on the Girl Power Shout Fest. The girls are pissed at the guys, and for good reason. And JWoww puts the boys out there. This is her statement. The boys speak for her, as if to say, “This house has been torn asunder, in the same manner that all of my tops are torn asunder.”

LeBron James Is A Bitch song

Joe Donatelli — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:47:08 +0000

Cleveland comedian Mike Polk – the guy behind the Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video – has a new song. It’s called LeBron James Is A Bitch. As LeBron James songs go, it’s a pretty damn good LeBron James song. The Delonte West verse, in particular, is brutal.

LeBron James Song – Watch more Sports

This is why you become a pro athlete

Joe Donatelli — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:06:55 +0000

Eva Longoria, NBA star Tony Parker’s wife, sits down at the USA-France exhibition game. Check out the dude in the backwards chair. Worst seat in the house? More like, best seat in the house!!!

Via: Sports Crackle Pop