Death of the Turntable

  • by Drew

Back when I did radio, we had all this mobile dj equipment for parties and such. We had the coffin covered in carpet, housing two turntables (and a microphone!) and a portable CD player by the mid 90s. Nowadays they’ve got CD scratchers and mixing apps for the iPhone. I mean, on the one hand, it’s cool to be able mix between tracks with an iPod and rock the house mp3 style. But really, it’s gotten way too hard to witness a classic scratch artist working the vinyl. Sure, there are purists out there still keeping it real, but the wedding scene, man, it’s technology all the way. What happened to mullets and tuxedo t-shirts? I’m so old.

Talking Guitar

  • by Drew

I was talking guitar with the Mom of one of my oldest son’s friends last night at the school’s holiday concert. I was explaining that while the size of my guitar collection is impressive, I don’t have any standout show pieces of significant value. I have a few cheap instruments to beat on and a good number of very serviceable performer’s instruments. I never picked up a crazy high priced instrument because my guitars were taken out to clubs and bars and where they get knocked over, spilled on and stolen.

But I do love my Dearmonds. I’ve surely written about them before. They were Korean and later Indonesian-made guitars based on classic Guild models. Fender set up the line after acquiring Guild in the 90s. They already owned the Dearmond brand of classic American electronics, so they combined the two and created a line of imports that outsold their higher priced American counterparts.

One of my favorites is an M72, which is based on the Guild Bluebird. The Bluesbird had that classic Les Paul look. Like a carved top Gibson Les Paul Studio or Standard rather than the slab body junior style. It’s such a sweet player, but man, is it heavy!

Ms. Potts and Miss Lane

  • by Drew

It was hard saying goodbye to Maggie. She was a good cat with a hell of a lot of personality. At least when she got sick, the end came quick and she left us peacefully. And now it looks like she’ll be the subject of my next comic project, in line with Skateboard Heroes style, but a bit more off the wall.

But I’m not here to talk about my old friend. I’m here to talk about the new friends that will be joining our family soon. Actually, it’s the naming of these little critters that really is my subject. The kids all fell in love with these little sisters at the adoption agency, so there really was no choice in the matter. Of course, the adoption process is pretty wackadoo, but it involves getting the kitties spayed, which is an absolute requirement on all sides.

But naming the two balls of fluff is hard. And when the names have to be approved by three kids and two adults, all with strong creative opinions… it’s tough.

We tried brainstorming and word association. You start out okay with names like Tallalulah and Butch, but pretty soon you’ve got kids shouting out muffin fluffy cheddar custom swing sets richmond va honey cookie…

We discussed “Real” names (my personal preference). The problem, though, after naming three kids, you’ve exhausted a large proportion of the good “people” names that two adults can agree on… let alone three kids.

And then there is the consideration that the two cat names have to sound reasonable together. You can’t have Charles and Lickety Split or something. It sounds like a jockey and a race horse. Or like you really respect one of them and think the other is a damaged dink.

But we have managed to settle on two names that everyone likes and even the three year old can pronounce. (My new German Cinema directors concept was shot down on this basis… as well as the fact that we’d really need 4 cats to properly represent the movement.)

Maybe I’ll let you know what we picked somday…

Boss Levels

  • by Drew

I was recently watching a documentary on Indie Video Game development. they covered 3 different games and their creators. It was entertaining and pretty well made, I thought. But it got me thinking about the upcoming holidays and my kids. Yes, we have a console and they have handheld devices. But as we approach the time for salivation over gifts, none have brought up video games.

Instead they are asking for clay and legos and in one case, Dr. Who paraphernalia. I can totally live with that.

Last year, the then-9 year old’s big gift was a trumpet. Replacing the school rental. Super awesome, right? How cool is it that while still in single digits, my kid went for an instrument over… anything else?

And next year it will be the same with my middle guy. He’ll be in the music program and we’ll be shopping for… who knows what? Pearl flutes? Student violins? Trombones?

Ah, the holidays. Marvelous and musical!

Snap! Water

  • by Drew

It’s a rhyming thing, mostly driven by that last post and something I wanted to add. I mention that people have been giving me more and more grief over the years as bottled water became such an important thing to so many people – specifically about the fact that I prefer – or at least, have no problem with tap water. Clearly there is a reason that people are so against tap water. I think it’s pretty clear that the bottled beverage industry is telling us that our tap water is crap water. And that’s just not right.

In fact, about 12 years ago when I was working in advertising, I had a client that is one of the largest manufacturers of toothpaste, mouthwash, and related oral care products in the world. At that time they were sitting on multiple studies that showed tooth decay and oral health issues were on a steep rise in the US after decades of decline. The culprit named by all those studies?

Bottled water.

Yup. Most municipal water systems add, among other things, flouride into the water. Not in bottled water,  my friends. So… make sure you brush. A lot. And visit the dentist. A lot.

Tap Water

  • by Drew

My new exercise watch today was a documentary on the bottled water industry called Tapped. While I have been known to choose bottled water over certain other beverage options, I have frequently been mocked and maligned by friends, acquaintances and strangers for being a tap water drinker first.

Watch this documentary and see who the real imbecile is. I actually have known for many years that nearly half of all bottled water in this country comes from municipal water systems. In other words, Coke and Pepsi run tap water through a glorified Brita filter and call it pure.

They even do it when the surrounding communities are experiencing droughts. Gotta love that. Take a walk through those lovely richmond doors in greater Raleigh or suburban Atlanta and you’ll fall in love with the dusty, scorched earth, while nasty old city folk are sucking down your life giving H20 at their overpriced health clubs.

PURE?!? Purified is not pure. If I bleach my toilet, it may be purified of germs, but I wouldn’t refer to it as a pure source of anything. Then again, I have an excellent well, so it might just be that my toilet water trumps Dasani and Aquafina in the race.

Somehow we’ve taken the most important building block of life and ruined it. We’ve made pure something artificial. It’s purificial.

I should trademark that. It’ll be the brand for my toilet water. I’ll put a mountain on the label. It’ll be so sweet.

New Skateboard Heroes

  • by Drew

Get ’em while they’re hot!

(The free comic pages, I mean. That would be… and hot from your own printer if you decide you want hard copy. Unless maybe you have some sort of steampunk-esque tube-driven computer monitor that gets pretty warm. So the onscreen pdf pages would be noticeably hot, as in hot off the press. Even though there’s no press. But we covered that already in this no somewhat unwieldy parenthetical aside. right?)

www.SkateboardHeroes.com

 

Hero Up

  • by Drew

Have you read the newest Skateboard Heroes pages? You had better hurry up because even more new pages will be posted in the next couple days. In the post-Sandy northeast, what’s better than free comics, right?

And who knows what Dr. Inferno will be toting in these upcoming pages. We’ve already seen a crossbox. What could be next? Flamethrower? Machine gun? Feather razors? Butterfly knives? Pizza cutter? You never really know. Dr. Inferno is a total maniac after all.

Can you dig it?

Lyrical Meandering

  • by Drew

So I got caught up in my Beyonce hate, and really, I don’t like her at all, but I forgot the important thing about lyric sites… the comments. If you can stomach actually reading something Beyonce has sung, more power to you. I enjoy seeing how they write out all the oooohing and ahhing and dibble-dee-doo and other vocal gymastic nonsense that Billboard just loves to numerically catalogue these days. One man’s jibber jabber is another man’s onomatopoeia.

Seriously, though. Wave your arms to clear the air of the scent of versace perfumes, armagnac, and that “new Adidas smell” and read what the kids have to say about the poetry of Beyonce. I mean, they fight. Not just verbal sparring, but they threaten and attack one another. All it takes is one “Beyonce sucks” post to get the masses in an uproar and start the violence a-flying.

One emo kid on an aging laptop in a Idaho basement can rile thousands of acolytes into a Koresh style act of commenting retribution. The future is here and it is bleak. It is also trite and exceptionally cliche.

And woo woo woo, why can’t you-ooo-oo-oo-oooooo…just understa-haa-hand me-ee-eeya.

 

Pulse of a Generation

  • by Drew

Want a glimpse into contemporary American cultural viability? I invite you to visit any lyrics website on the Web that allows for comments. Search on something juicy like “meaningful Beyonce lyrics.” Now, stop chuckling. Of COURSE Beyonce’s lyrics are meanignful. Deeply spiritual and meaningful. Life changing in fact.

Hah! Didn’t think I could write that with a straight face, did you?

Sure, any semi-intelligent, upright-walking mammal SHOULD be able to sniff out the general thematic leanings of Beyonce’s art. And if you like it you can put scott kay bands all over it. For reals.

If you are attractive and wealthy and willing to expose your lust/affection/erectile dysfunction/Daddy-Daughter issues to me by disposing of a significant portion of your wealth in the service/adoration of me, I will sleep with you as part of a good Christian girl’s courting ritual.

How you know she’s a hypocrite? Look who she married. He may be absurdly wealthy (and who knows about the dysfunction thing – but there are pills for that) but attractive?

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.