soundboard de cheevo

(photo taken August 13. 2007 by Clare Vance at her grandmother's home) - Clare's grandmother, Clara Rust, died Monday, Sept. 24 at her home in Norcross, Ga. She was with her first-born Barbara, Clare's mother, and Clare in a house filled with with her favorite things -- a big kitchen, a beautiful backyard, Braves games on TV and plenty of beloved hound dogs. She was a fantastic mixture of opinated, yet kind and a wonderful woman who I have really loved knowing since she moved to Montevallo to live next door to Barbara in the late 1990s. - An excellent cook, known for her famous bread recipes, she was preceded in death by her husband Vincent Harold Rust, is survived by her four children Barbara, Dottie, David and Steve, 10 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren and two favorite dogs, Molly Brown Rust and Minnie Pearl Vance. - At age 88, it's amazing to think of how much change Clara Rust saw in her life. - When she was born in 1918, Woodrow Wilson was president - - World...

Today marked the last day on this sphere for a brilliantly talented and underrated actor, Alice Ghostley . Her trademark smile and goofy facial expressions are instantly familiar to most generations for a reason. She had a career spanning 50 years with an astounding 93 screen appearances. - Ghostley made her debut back in 1954 in the Broadway revue "New Faces of 1952" with another little-known actress named Eartha Kitt . - She is best know to those of us who grew up in the 1970s and '80s as Esmerelda the goofy and lovable witch from "Bewitched," Mrs. Murdock the shop teacher in "Grease," and Bernice Clifton in "Designing Women." - She also starred in "The Graduate" and was nominated for a tony in 1965 for her performance in “The Sign in Sidney Brustein ’s Window.” - Other major notable and somewhat random appearances: " CHiPs ," "Evening Shade," " Punky Brewster," "Good Times," "The G...

- Friend and Teen Getaway singer Jim Fahy posted today on a Facebook this completely hilarious and totally random piece of information: - A guy named Chris Thrash from Alabama has obtained the 1980’s animatronic live act from Showbiz Pizza and reprogrammed it to perform recent hits including “Pop Lock it Drop It” and “Ms. New Booty,” among others. Hilarious. - Check it out here. - The second video for "Pop Lock and Drop It" is funnier and worth the painfully disturbing view. These robots always scared the hell out of me, still do, along with mannequins , ventriloquist dummies and Herbie Hancock's " Rockit " video. Still, like a slow motion car wreck, I have to look. - In the late '90s, I celebrated my friend Roy's birthday with him and our friends Peter and Bill at Showbiz one year and these critters were in full swing. I think we all agreed that it's the eyes that are so terrifying. This band is definitely playing in 1980s hell right now.

- Photo of Bjork at the Fox Theater, Sept. 17, 2007 by Ashley Williams of Pitchfork.com

Photo of Bjork's at the Fox Theater in Atlanta by Lauri Piper. (This was just below our seats.) - Trying to describe Bjork's Monday night concert at the Fox Theater in Atlanta reminds me of those who claim to have been abducted by aliens then returned to earth with warped memory. I knew the 87-year-old venue would be perfect, intimate with beautiful antique Arabian details including an evening sky ceiling with stars. The crowd was like 5,000 kids on Christmas morning, thrilled beyond belief and Bjork brought it getting everyone to their feet for most songs, all with dropped jaws. To briefly recap some elements of a Bjork concert that, unsurprisingly, still put her as the queen of her self-designed ring: - Vibrant face paint worn by every woman on stage - A laser light show (like the Atari game "Battlezone" was being played live) - Paper webs, a la Spiderman, being shot from her hands into the audience - An explosion of metallic confetti towards the end of the conc...

- And while I'm on the subject of Bjork, I had to post this hilarious USA Today-type infographic that I found last year on The Onion 's Web site.

- - I spent Labor Day week at Jekyll Island, Georgia with Clare and her mother, Barbara. As a kid, my family vacationed across the sound at St. Simon's Island and there is something about the beaches of the Atlantic that are so much more interesting (and less populated with commercial waste) than those of the Gulf. There's not a single national chain on the island with the exception of a 1950's style resort that was bought by Radisson. That was literally the only logo I saw the entire week -- what a nice break! We spent a lot of time fishing and in our week hauled in sea bass, sea trout, croaker, blow fish (very cute), sea cat, toad fish, blue crab and some monstrosity Clare caught in her net she named "the turd crab." - Swimming, biking, cooking and some excellent naps were had in the camper that Clare and her mom have parked at the Jekyll Island campground. Like any good vacation, we hated to leave and are already looking forward to getting back. - More photo...

- The magestic live oak gives the islands in southern Georgia a mysterious feel and are very generous with their shade.

- You wouldn't think cable television, a fully funtioning kitchen and room to sleep three adults and two dogs could exist comfortably in such a small space, but it does, and we could have slept three more people, but were damn glad that wasn't the case.

- Despite our best coaching, neither Charlie Brown nor Junebug were fans of the surf. Instead they created a beagle cave in the rocks that make the sea wall along the coastline of Jeckyll Island. Clare and I theorize that her other beagle, Minnie Pearl, who was left at home for potential bad behavior, would probably stay on a wake board for treats, of course.

- I never would have though it, but surf fishing is quite a workout. Keeping your upper body still while your lower body adjusts to an incoming tide is tiring after an hour or so, but fun. We didn't have great luck in the surf, mostly small sea bass and trout, but a bad day of surf fishing beats a good day of almost any other pastime I say as Clare demonstates.

- I have never cooked fish before so this was a partial experiment, but after marinating these sea trout in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and season salt, I felt like I was going to have a winner of an appetizer and I was right. After about 20 minutes on indirect heat with mesquite chips burning along with charcoal, these babies were delisciouso.

- Fittingly, the last catch of the trip was the biggest fish, a gorgeoud striped sea bass, and I had to take a picture to prove it. This dude went right back in the water as we were all done with fish mess by the last day at Jekyll.

- - - August 26 marked a very important day as I crossed over the threshold from those who haven't see live roller derby action to those who have. Birmingham's Tragic City Rollers took on the newly-formed Panama City, Fla. team, in competion dubbed "Manhandle the Panhandle", beating them soundly by more than 100 points. I watched California roller derby as a kid on television during the dawn of paid cable and the women, amazons typically all with striped knee socks, were Wonder Woman like. The Birmingham team didn't fail to live up to those recollections. The viciousness of the sport is breathtaking with elbows to the chin, while in motion and plenty of face first spills to the floor and into the crowd. The only element of the competition more impressive was the stamina of TCR's team, most of who recovered in mere seconds from some nasty collisions. The game is a little confusing to understand at first, but the rules are clearly laid out in the program provid...