Untitled Frank Beaton Project

did you graduate from Horlick High School?

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:35:04 -0800

No. Not even sure where that is.

Blog it up, blog it in, let me begin

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:39:00 -0700

Holy cats, I have a blog? When did that happen?

Whatever, ass-butt. I tweet like a golden god, so I don’t need any guilt trips about how i never blog. You got that, “Frank Beaton”? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

ANYWAYZ! I wrote a short retrospective about the Planet of the Apes franchise to accompany Erik Henriksen’s excellent review of Rise of the Planet of the of the of the Apes in this week’s Portland Mercury. You should read it because I use the F-word and the S-word and that’s funny.

Here's what happened today

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:23:12 -0700

I deployed a major new redesign of CBR. It could not have gone worse.

I failed miserably at making pad thai for the first time, and may have given myself food poisoning in the process.

I split a toenail on my right food. Very painful.

My check didn’t arrive. Again.

I got nothing written, except a few work emails and this blog.

My daughter walked.

Today fucking ruled.

Tonight: breaded pork fillets w/ fried polenta.

Sun, 22 May 2011 23:18:36 -0700

Tonight: breaded pork fillets w/ fried polenta.

Tonight: chicken teriyaki with steamed veg.

Wed, 18 May 2011 01:29:59 -0700

Tonight: chicken teriyaki with steamed veg.

Last night: macaroni bolonaise with shaved asiago.

Wed, 18 May 2011 01:21:26 -0700

Last night: macaroni bolonaise with shaved asiago.

Tonight: brined chicken breast with garlic mashed potatoes and...

Sun, 15 May 2011 21:41:00 -0700

Tonight: brined chicken breast with garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed root veg. (Biscuit provided by Pillsbury.)

Teaching myself to cook. Jill suggested I start documenting my...

Thu, 12 May 2011 20:49:32 -0700

Teaching myself to cook. Jill suggested I start documenting my efforts. Tonight: garlic & herb crostini.

Comics lost a complete fucking badass in Dwayne McDuffie. Here...

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:29:32 -0800

Comics lost a complete fucking badass in Dwayne McDuffie. Here is the proof.

RIP

Bernie Wrightson's original creature designs from THE MIST.

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:50:00 -0800

Bernie Wrightson's original creature designs from THE MIST.:

"Can you name any country that became a democracy after a violent revolution? Honestly, can you even..."

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:38:24 -0800

“Can you name any country that became a democracy after a violent revolution? Honestly, can you even name one?”

- U.S. Citizen Sean Hannity, on Egypt

Photo

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 23:54:27 -0800

Milestone!

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:54:01 -0800

Milestone!

On PORTLANDIA

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 01:15:00 -0800

It’s been more than 24 hours since the west coast premiere of Portlandia, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s PDX-centric sketch comedy show, and, like all Portlanders, I am compelled (required?) to voice my opinion on it.

In short, I loved it. I’m a big fan of Christopher Guest’s scary-accurate satires like Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, and—in its best moments, at least—that’s what Portlandia felt like. And, like Guest’s films, the best jokes in Portlandia are the ones that only someone familiar with the subculture being parodied are likely to appreciate. Take the joke about the puzzle store (transcribed from memory):

[Scene: A feminist bookstore. A man is being berated for using the restroom without being a paying customer. He picks a random book off the shelf.]

Man: Fine. Here, I’ll buy this.

Worker: That’s part of a series. There are 16 books, you have to subscribe to all of them.

Man: I just want to buy this one.

Worker: It’s part of a series! You wouldn’t go into a puzzle store and just buy one piece, would you?

Man: Where is there a puzzle store?

Worker: There’s one on Hawthorne and another one on Southwest Broadway.

If you know Portland, that joke is amazing, because it’s entirely plausible that there could be two separate stores in Portland that only sell puzzles, and if there were such stores, those are exactly the streets they would be on. If you don’t know Portland… well, I’m not sure that joke would land at all. Similarly, the sketch about the obsessive locovores who refuse to order the chicken until they’ve visited the farm where “Colin” was raised, is probably a hell of a lot funnier if you actually know—or are—someone like that.

The opening musical number (“The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland”) was brilliant, and perfectly expressed the show’s thesis: the things that make Portland great are the same things that make it kind of ridiculous. Those who contend that the show’s humor is mean-spirited, anti-youth, get-off-my-lawn-ism baffle me. Portlandia is a love letter to a great city whose only flaw is that its people tend to take themselves and their pursuits—noble as they may be—a bit too seriously. Anyone objecting too strenuously is just proving their point.

“I’m disappointed in you Natalie.”

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:30:10 -0800

“I’m disappointed in you Natalie.”

Review: 99 Ways to Fuck a Swan

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:22:28 -0800

Review: 99 Ways to Fuck a Swan:

My first article for the Portland Mercury.

(SPOILER: The play is very funny.)

And I just can't help believing

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 01:00:33 -0800

Wrote this on a friend’s Facebook feed about Johnny Boy’s 2004 single “You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve,” which remains one of my absolute favorite songs of all time.

(I wanted to be fancy and embed the song into this post, but I couldn’t figure out how. So I’ll just link you to JB’s MySpace page, instead: http://myspace.com/johnnyboyuk)

—-

Part of the song’s brilliance is that no one really knows what the lyrics are, due to the way the vocals are mixed, so it sort of invites you to map your own phrases and meanings onto it. You invest yourself in the song because it gives you no other choice. I’m sure that’s a large part of why we were all so obsessed with it when it came out. That, and because everyone loves the Wall of Sound.

“To see the sleek mystique reversed…”

At least that’s what I think she said. And I don’t want to be told any different.

zdarsky: Hey guys, I totally made this! nationalpost: We kinda...

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:02:17 -0800

zdarsky:

Hey guys, I totally made this!

nationalpost:

We kinda hoped the cover of Snooki’s book looked like this. Sadly, it doesn’t. (Steve Murray Illustration). Follow Steve on Twitter.

Read Stephen Marche’s review of Snooki’s A Shore Thing

Scott Stinson recaps the Season 3 opener

H2 Hummer in van-only handicapped space. No hang tag. Driver...

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 23:52:52 -0800

H2 Hummer in van-only handicapped space. No hang tag. Driver puffing on giant cigar. Ladies and gents, I present His Highness, King of the Douchebags.

I’m calling it. ”Baby Preacher Subtitled” is...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 13:12:00 -0800

I’m calling it. ”Baby Preacher Subtitled” is officially the funniest video on the internet.