Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Well-

-since I don't much feel like talking about the Bruins game last night, I'll toot my own horn a little.

As some of you know, over the past 6 months or so, I have been freelancing off and on over at the Public Radio International show "Fair Game." I was in a couple weeks ago, and pitched a comedy bit I called "The McLaughlin Groove," the idea being that we take nutty transcripts from the venerable political chat show "The McLaughlin Group," and set them to a beat. I DVR the show every week, here in New York, it comes on right after Meet the Press ends, and for you hockey fans, that's usually the time that Tim Russert will mention the Buffalo Sabres, if they are doing well. So I went ahead and read some of the lines I had heard on the show that week, about John McCain securing the Republican nomination. They were pretty extraordinary, even for the Group. Here's a transcript:

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Does Romney's endorsement seal the deal? Is McCain now the inevitable Republican nominee? I ask you, Pat.
MR. BUCHANAN: John, absent celestial intervention, I think he's going to get the nomination.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Absent what?
MR. BUCHANAN: Celestial intervention.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, it happens, Pat. May he rest in peace, Paul Wellstone. John Heinz was killed in an airplane crash.
MR. BUCHANAN: Well, let's not speculate on it.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Death comes in the night on cats' paws, Pat. You never know.
MR. BUCHANAN: On little cats' feet. That's the fog, John, that comes in on little cats' feet.


Anyway, I pitch the idea in the meeting, mention that those would be dynamite metal lyrics and our music producer Matthew Perpetua yells out "Andrew WK! He'd be great!" I was thrilled to hear that, since I'm a big fan of Andrew's, and to make a long story short, a couple of days later, I'm on the phone with Andrew WK, singing my ideas for lyrics into the phone to a bona fide rock star. He tells me he loves the idea, likes what I wrote, and incorporates it into a terrific little song.

Funny, catchy, Andrew W.K and John McLaughlin.

My assignment ends, the segment airs and everything goes back to normal.

Until the song blows up, and Fair Game, Andrew W.K. and John McLaughlin are all over the blogs.

That's the kind of thing that makes a guy feel good. Of course, it also would make me feel good if the Bruins could score more than 7 times over the past 6 games, but I'll take what I can get these days.

Here are two of my favorite responses, the first by badass animator-guy Scott Bateman, who animated the entire thing brilliantly here:



And the second, from a random fan on YouTube. In my view, the rainbow cat paws are a particular high point.

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