Cruises I'll Never Take... Of The Day

Check out these real cruises you can take with washed-up rock bands. I wonder how the ships stay afloat under the weight of all that suck?

These are the official announcements for each cruise...sort of. I made them a little more honest. Most have already happened, but, lucky you, I bet they'll sail again in '09.


The Rock Boat VIII will depart MLK Weekend 2008 from Miami, FL, leaving Saturday, January 19, 2008, for a five-day festival (of suck) at sea!

Sister Hazel, Alternate Routes, Marc Broussard, Keith Kane of Vertical Horizon (couldn't even get the whole sucky band?), Josh Kelley... and a whole bunch of other people you never heard of.

We are traveling on the Carnival Imagination with port stops in Jamaica and Grand Cayman (for those who haven't jumped overboard by then).



Lynyrd Skynyrd and Sixthman are proud (?) to announce our second helping, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man Cruise, January 10-14, 2008, a 4-day "music" "vacation" on board a luxury cruise liner with a visit to Key West and Calica.

Departing Miami on January 10, 2008 on the Carnival Imagination, Simple Man Cruise 2008 features up-close-and- personal concerts from Lynyrd Skynyrd, with a dozen or so bands from the rock and country worlds still to be announced (because we don't want to scare people away).

The cruise features unique artist interaction (wink wink), an Open Mic night (bad covers of "Gimme Three Steps" and "Free Bird") and more, all while experiencing a world-class crass Carnival cruise.



Vince Neil's Motley Cruise with Ratt, Skid Row and Slaughter. Does it get any better than this? (Yes, it does. Death, for example.). Please note that Motley Crue is not involved. (Please note that actual music is not involved.)



The Mayercraft Carrier is a 3-day Caribbean cruise that sets sail on February 1, 2008 from Miami, FL and visits Freeport, Bahamas before returning on February 4, 2008.

The cruise will feature sets by John in nightclub-like settings (i.e. the game room with all the games turned off) as well as performances by a dozen or so other hand-picked artists (hand-picked by John to make sure they all suck so no one upstages him.)

All of this takes place aboard the Carnival Victory, a member of the Carnival fleet that includes all the luxurious amenities Carnival is known for, such as a full-service spa, fine dining, a casino, hepatitis, watered-down drinks, lost luggage, and much more.



After the rip-roaring, head-bobbing (i.e. it blew), floating shitfest that was Ships & Dip I, Barenaked Ladies and Sixthman are thrilled to announce Ships & Dip III for January 2008. (We can't talk about Ships & Dip II, as the investigation into the sinking is still an open case.)

The Music and Comedy keep flowing as BNL and their fabulous fatuous friends set sail aboard the Carnival Victory from January 27-February 1, 2008, sailing from Miami to Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios, Jamaica! Tyler Stewart of BNL says, "Screw Ships & Dip II, last year was so awesome, we're going straight to 3!! Not 3-D, though, that'd be crap." (LOL!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA OMG ROFLMFAO!!!)

Expect the same non-stop music and fun of Ships & Dip I, including the return of Guster, The New Odds, Jason (the ship's) Plumb(er) and Gaelic Storm.

Let's do it again folks, only let's have everyone show up for the Naked photo on the top deck this time! See You on the Cruise!! (I love Random capitalization, don't You?)

Don't miss the 15th Annual Rock & Roll Caribbean Cruise!

This exclusive cruise (no other cruise line would touch this floater) is pure Rock & Roll fun with legendary (i.e. ancient) performers from the 60's (and IN their 60s) and beyond (some might be in their 70s by now).

Don't worry, all ships equipped with wheelchair ramps, and dinner is served daily starting at 3:30 so you can be in bed by 7 sharp.

Super-Awesome Movie Of The Day

This was on TV last night. My wife wouldn't change the channel, so I was forced to watch it while working on the blog. But it turned out ok. Why? Because this movie is wonderful. What makes it wonderful? Two words: Head and band.

Here's a great scene. My favorite part is at 0:40.



Another one. The music was phenomenal.



Look who had a cameo! The director himself.



Another great scene. If I had one beef with the film, it would be that it could've used more dancing.

Vid Of The Day: Denny Crane Tells It

I don't watch this show ("Boston Legal") but this is amusing. From the ubiquitous Tom Kane.

Steven Seagal Emotion Chart

Told you he had range. From TheMovieGuru.

10 Karaoke Songs To Avoid

From BestWeekEver.tv

Have you ever been at a karaoke bar, flipped through their phone book of songs, settled on a perfect choice, but after about a minute on stage, realized that the song is either impossible to sing, or goes on for a painful amount of time, or wasn’t nearly as funny as you had anticipated? Then learn the Top Ten Worst Karaoke Trap Songs and save yourself some misery.

10. Sir Mix-A-Lot - “Baby Got Back”
The concept of getting really drunk with one’s friends and shouting along out-of-tune to random pop songs is already so wonderfully ludicrous, I wonder why people feel the need to choose a novelty song for the sake of humor, let alone one which everyone got tired of after about three weeks of college.

9. Frank Sinatra - “New York, New York”
Part of the glee of karaoke comes from drunken people singing the most random, stupid song that they secretly love and having people in the crowd who also secretly love that song rise up and join in. Why, then, do so many people feel compelled to bore the room with “New York, New York,” a perennially anticlimatic choice which is at best sung perfectly, garnering a dull “hmm, that guy was really good,” reaction, and at worst a “are these Sinatra dudes going to be done soon?”

8. INXS - “Need You Tonight”
This 80s pop gem can be a tempting choice, but there’s something magically elusive about Michael Hutchence’s voice; it’s too low for high singers, it’s two high for low singers, and if you’re in the middle, it’s impossible to pull off. You pretty much just have to speak the words, but the angsty sex noises will make any non-hammered individual look like a total perv.

7. Meat Loaf - “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”
A tempting duet option, but with two massive flaws: One, only the last part of the song is a duet; the male part takes up about the first 70%, and; Two, it is the longest goddamn song in the history of recorded music. There isn’t even a single version; even the karaoke cut will include the full two minutes of Phil Rizzuto’s baseball announcing. If you select this song, you’re a moron who instantly owes everyone in the bar five rounds of drinks.

6. Journey - “Don’t Stop Believin’”
Don’t get me wrong, this song is absolutely tailor-made for sing-alongs, but, in a way, it’s almost too good; everyone in the room, from 19-year-old sorority chicks to even the most jaded hipsters, will dive into the choruses, and the final breakdown will be an absolutely cathartic group scream. But if this isn’t the last song of the night, it pretty much ruins every single song that follows it, and can clear a bar as quickly as the Sopranos finale cut to black.

5. Anything from the “Grease” Soundtrack
Short of that one girl who keeps picking country ballads that no one in the room knows, there is no more polarizing force in the world of karaoke than the girls who put on songs from “Grease,” resulting in an inevitable three minutes of loud girly sing-alongs and pissy dudes yelling at them to get off the damn stage.

4. Prince - “Purple Rain”
An absolute room-killer. No matter how seemingly hilarious a suggestion it is, or how many girls clump themselves around a microphone to shout a chorus, no karaoke song holds up past the four-minute-mark, and this one goes on long enough for patrons to take a cab to a different karaoke bar, type in a song, and get on stage quicker than if they’d waited for you to finish.

3. U2 - “One”
When you choose to sing Pearl Jam or Dave Matthews, you pretty much know beforehand that you’re going to have to do a flat-out impression of the lead singer. With “One,” though, you can’t really slip into full-on Bono impression without sounding like a crappy Mad TV sketch, nor can you sing the song in your own voice without sounding like an Idol reject who tried to open the wrong door on the way out.

2. Guns n’ Roses - “Paradise City”
A textbook karaoke trap. It seems like a viable option, because everyone can get into G’n'R, plus the chorus is fun and easy for everyone to sing along to, but even the chorus gets pretty old by about the fourth repetition (out of thirty), to say nothing of the super-fast verses which no one knows, the five instrumental breaks, and the total running time of nearly seven minutes.

1. Vanilla Ice - “Ice Ice Baby”
Remember Vanilla Ice?? I do!! He had that stupid song when we were little that became awesome again when we went to college and now we’re going to sing it! Isn’t that wacky? Who wants to be part of this never-before-attempted stab at hilarity? Ok, here we go! Stop, collaborate and listen, Ice is back with my brand new invention, something, that… dah da dah…. ummm What? I’ve never seen any of these words before. Anyone?? [Person who was about to type in “U Can’t Touch This” reconsiders his options.]