This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.
I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.
I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.
When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.
The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.
I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.
Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)
Presented here for the first time anywhere are pictures of my best friend Tom Meyers (better known as the Lord of Chaos) and me at one of his apartments in Bloomington, Indiana while he was in Law School. As you can see, I am wearing a t-shirt of some kind. I have no idea what this T-shirt is and if I still own it. But I owned it at one time, and I thought it would be fun, as a change of pace, to present the t-shirt here as the "Unknown T-shirt."
I cannot identify the t-shirt. There seems to be an insignia on the left breast but I cannot make it out.
I have no idea what we are doing except pretending to feed each other. We would never have actually fed each other because to do so would compromise our masculinity. But we were being campy (can one say "camping it up"?) for the camera, helmed by one of Tom's law school cohorts, Renee whose last name escapes me.
I am also presenting this photo and the ones of dice and D&D books because my friend, the Lord of Chaos, will be visiting soon, after the holidays, and we have planned a festival of gaming. Normally, we have played D&D 2.0. A few years ago, we were going to try D&D 3.5 and I bought tons of books and then we did not end up playing. Now, since I have been playing Pathfinder, which is essentially D&D 3.5 with modifications, we are going to play Pathfinder while he is here. He is right now (and I mean right now as he just emailed me) in the process of creating two characters.
I met Tom Meyers at Kalamazoo College. I actually met him before we became friends. He was the grouchy roommate of a friend of mine, hobbling around on crutches because he had broken a leg or some such. It was a year later before we would become friends as we were both theatre majors. Though we lived together in the dorms, though never as actual roommates of which he reminds me often, and though we hung out quite a bit during some quarters (and not others), we became closer friends after we graduated, which is also when we started playing D&D together. Tom discovered D&D during summer theatre with some performers visiting from New York and then managed to hook up with the same ultra-geeky friends that I had made in my first year at K and with whom I roomed most often: Jack Lee, Dave Reusch, Hilding Holcomb, and others. Once Tom and I started gaming together it became our favorite past time.
We have two epic adventures in our history. The first is with his character, Thomar, a half-orc priest, who had a grand adventure as a priest of Thor, God of Thunder. In the ultimate climax of the adventure, Thomar, played by Tom, defeated this enormous troll (a troll of the realms eternal and not of the world of Midgard, so like a God but a troll). Tom rolled two natural 20s in a row, which was the only way he could have defeated the troll and won out in the end. We still talk about it today as one of the greatest gaming experiences of our lives.
The other adventure featured two characters, adventurers close like brothers. My character, Keebler, is an elven ranger/priest. His comrade, Ostess Cak, is a thief. They arrived at their names in an interesting way, or at least Cak did. Keebler, as a name for an elf, is blatantly and obviously stolen from the Keebler company, which has its headquarters in Battle Creek. But Ostess Cak is a name with more interesting origins. Tom and I were embarking on a gaming fest in 1995 in Detroit, which combined two things we loved: gaming and going to Detroit Tigers games. On the drive back from the ball park to the hotel, we spotted a sign for Hostess Cakes, but some of the letters were burned out, so that all we could read was OSTESS CAK. We thought that it would make an excellent name for a character and a legend was born. Thomar also has an intriguing origin. Can you guess? It's a typo of Thomas. Tom would receive mail addressed to Thomar Meyes and realized that Thomar would make a great character name.
Tom game mastered (Dungeon Mastering or DMing) a great series of adventures in a world of how own creation in which magic is being sucked into some kind of vortex, where Keebler and Cak work to help people and collect wealth. They have a secret tree fort, which they built. Also, they cleaned out a huge castle, which they then came to own and manage. But the greatest feat of all was when Cak bit off one of his own fingers and fashioned a set of thieving tools and lockpicks from the bones to escape from a cell in what we think was some kind of space ship. Keebler and Cak do not think of it as a space ship, but Chris Tower the player does.
Perhaps soon I can report more fantastic and epic adventures.
COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 93 shirts remaining
Hello again and welcome to another post that has to do with comic books. Okay, just kidding. This one is supposed to be about theatre. The adaptation to the stage as musical of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Never fear. I plan to share a few videos. But that will have to wait until after the blog recap.
Though I plan to pack in quite a bit more than just comic book content here as I have been slowly assembling this entry for a few days. Do you like to know that I am working that far in advance?
Sunday morning when I logged on and looked at my statistics, I had another big surprise. After the last peak of 103 page views on Sunday Dec. 8th, the count climbed to 150 on Dec. 12th (the day I unveiled the Serenity post) and then to one of the all-time daily highs of 261 page views on Friday the 13th, which I suspect is still in large part due to the previous day's Serenity and Firefly post as the Friday post on Daredevil had been posted as incomplete and finished on Saturday the 14th.
But the post that keeps showing up at the top of the list both for the day, the week, and now atop the all-time top viewed page list is T-shirt #241: Advice from a Volcano. On the all time list, this post has claimed the top spot with 288 page views and rising (more every day). I cannot figure out why this post is so popular. Someone help me out. Click the link. Take a look. Leave me a comment.
If you look at the post, it features the kind of content that I figure is only interesting to me. I start out explaining my day off (Nov. 17th) and my intention to watch the Lions game. I can't imagine that the sole mention of the Detroit Lions is causing all the page views. I go on to describe "The Blog Journey." I believe that this is my first post in "The Blog Journey" category. I write about my surgery, the Veronica Mars Kickstarter, and the Rules of Chris, none of which would spike the count. Next, I perform a blog recap, explaining the statistics much as I am doing here except that I copied the grids and links from the Blogger statistics pages, which I suspect may be the reason that the page is getting so many views. This is my working theory at least. I close with the text from the shirt and then some random facts, including a fantssy sports recap and a kimchi update. I also include a link that Doris Lessing has died, which may be a partial reason for the number of views. After all, the number of views may be due to multiple reasons. After all, I mention The clash, The Fantastic Four, Darth Vader, and provide links for all. I also have links to all the most popular posts on my page. If the hits are doing double-duty, this would account for the increased views on this page.
So, here's an experiment. If my theory is right that the Blogger statistics grid is what is driving up the page counts, then if I paste in another Blogger page grid to this post, it should rise in the page views stats as well. So here goes.
This is the all time list for my blog. When I posted this grid T-shirt #241: Advice from a Volcano, Isher Artifacts had the top spot with 218 views. HOLD ON. How can the page views go down over a month's time? If you look back that the Volcano post and compare to this grid, you will find that other number are off. The Batgirl post lost one view. ODD.
In any case, we shall see if my pasting of the grid is what's driving the page views or if there's lots of people on the Internet searching for blogs about volcanoes.
The Blog Journey continues. The process of self-discovery is very much tied to the popularity of some posts over others. Saturday's post with pictures of the puppy was immediately, wildly popular.
On to other subjects. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and SPAMALOT
I do not have that many shirts that are specifically dedicated to theatre (which I prefer to spell the European way). I discussed one of my most beloved musicals in T-shirt #91: Jesus Christ Superstar. In that post, I made a list of favorite musicals and quite forgot Spamalot.
I next visited the subject of theatre in one of my most popular posts, one that for some time held a place in the top five all time posts: T-shirt #125: Hair and the Barn Theatre. Spamalot earned a mention in this post, though I did not create a new ranked list of favorite musicals. I should revise the list and include Spamalot.
The only reason I had Scrooge in the top ten is because I played Scrooge in my high school's production of it in 1979.
CHRIS TOWER'S TOP FIVE FAVORITE STAGE MUSICALS
1. Jesus Christ Superstar
2. A Chorus Line
3. Godspell
4. Hair
5. Rent
Second five (to round out the top ten)
6. Sweeney Todd
7. Forever Plaid
8. Spamalot
9. The Rocky Horror Show
10. The Who's Tommy
Spamalot beats out The Rocky Horror Show because honestly, I love Monty Python and the Holy Grail more. In the least years when I participated in the floor show at local midnight showing of Rocky, my friend Steve and had started doing bits from Holy Grail because we were both quite sick of Rocky Horror by then.
I am including my review from the Barn's production of Spaamlot in 2012 on the page today.
I saw Spamalot in 2004 during the previews in Chicago with the stellar cast described below. I was surprised that one of the best scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the witch scene, was omitted from Spamalot. Other than that bizarre omission, I rather like Spamalot A LOT.
In closing, after my review from last year, I will post some of my favorite scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the one Spamalot song that I think is very clever (assuming I can find it on YouTube).
Thanks for reading today, especially if you returned after I posted an incomplete blog entry yesterday (which is today according to the date of this blog).
Spamalot
a production of the Barn Theatre
at the Barn Theatre, Augusta, MI
Attended Date: August 14, 2012
reviewed by Christopher Tower
The Barn Theatre continues piloting the rocket of its successful 2012 season with one of the best musical comedies of the last decade: Monty Python’s “Spamalot.” Riding the jet-fueled power of a fantastic company, a strong direction team, and tight orchestra, the Barn Theatre once again proves to local audiences that professional theater is a live and soaring to ever greater heights in the Augusta twilight. Audiences roared with delightful laughter from the first lines of “Spamalot” during Tuesday’s opening night performance, and once the show concluded, the loyal patrons leapt to their feet in enthusiastic appreciation rather than the usual standing, “we’re ready to leave”-type ovations often delivered for the curtain calls. The Barn more than proves its mettle with a production of
“Spamalot” that has already garnered many accolades. “Spamalot” is the brainchild of Python comedian Eric Idle who teamed with John Du Prez and Neil Innes to “lovingly rip off” the 1975 film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” as a Broadway musical. The show started in previews in Chicago in 2004 and soon traveled to Broadway in 2005 with an all-star cast, including Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria, and Sara Ramirez. Helmed by Mike Nichols, the show won three Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Since then, it has toured nationally twice, and productions have been launched in nine different countries. Though some Pythons have criticized it as “Python-lite,” the show played over 1500 performances in its initial Broadway run and reaped nearly two hundred million dollars, placing it among the all-time highest grossing box office gems. With few exceptions, the story follows the flimsy though well-loved plot of the 1975 film. King Arthur (Fee Waybill) “rides” through England circa 923 A.D. with the help of his faithful servant Patsy (Roy Brown), who bangs two coconut shells together to simulate horse’s hooves. The musical better integrates the sketch-comedy mind-set of Monty Python into a cohesive plot; thus, the peasants who engage Arthur in political debate become Galahad (Lance Fletke) and Bedevere (Nick Pearson),
and the two soldiers who discuss how swallows might bring tropical coconuts to England become Sir Robin (Kevin Robert White) and Lancelot (Patrick Hunter). Some of the songs featured in the film, such as “Knights of the Round Table” and “Brave Sir Robin” are converted and expanded for the musical while other classic film scenes evolve into songs, such as “He Is Not Dead Yet” sung by the plague victims and Not Dead Fred (Matthew D. Wiggin) from the “Bring Out Your Dead” sketch and a trio of songs sung by Prince Herbert (Ethan Eichenbaum). The show also borrows from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” with Eric Idle’s signature tune “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Other songs are added for comic effect and parody Broadway musicals, such as “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway (If You Don’t Have Any Jews),” “The Song That Goes Like This,” and “The Diva’s Lament,” in which the Lady of the Lake (Amy Harpenau) complains about the show’s plot and her role: “whatever happened to my part?” Though the famous witch burning scene was cut during the original Chicago preview, most of the other famous “Holy Grail” sketches remain, including the taunting French soldiers, performed brilliantly and principally by Jamey Grisham. Other great sketches include The Knights Who Say Ni (Charlie King), Tim the Enchanter (Steven Lee Burright) and the killer rabbit, and the father of Prince Herbert (Ricky Philippi) marrying off his son Herbert for “huge tracts of land” featuring the ingenious confusion with his guards (Nic Balario and Matthew D. Wiggin). The Barn’s production is masterfully overseen by Hans Friedrichs, who is proving to be one of the summer theater’s best directors. Jamey Grisham provides hilarious choreography, especially during the Laker Girls sequence and the “You’re Gay” sketch with Lancelot. John Jay Espino guides the five-piece, veteran orchestra masterfully as he has done all season. The cast also proves its professional pedigree yet again with stellar performances, most notably Roy Brown’s rendition of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” and Kevin Robert White’s hilarious “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway (If You Don’t Have Any Jews).” Ethan Eichenbaum’s Prince Herbert is a standout of hilarity as is the work of Grisham, Burright, and Charlie King.
Amy Harpenau sings her guts out, quite literally, with a devilishly campy and wonderfully over-acted performance in songs that run crazy scales up and down the register and mix styles in goofy ways. Fee Waybill joins Harpenau well with a bluesy segment of the show’s power number: “Find Your Grail,” and his straight-man “I’m All Alone” song works very well as Patsy (Brown) reacts comically around him. The evening finishes with a musical revue bar show so much in demand that seats were sold out on opening night. The Barn’s production of “Spamalot” is top rate from start to finish, and the audience eats it up like “a lot” of yummy spam. Don’t miss it!!
THE VIDEOS
I am sure that every single person reading my blog has seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail at least once. If you have not seen it, this is something to dedicate yourself to IMMEDIATELY. If you do not have time to go get and watch the movie, then check out these favorite scenes of mine. If you have seen the movie, you will surely enjoy seeing these scenes again. I will try to keep my set of videos here to a minimum, but I would rather post the ENTIRE MOVIE, obviously. heh. "Obviously." Guard scene.
There's no reason that this scene should have been left out of Spamalot. Very silly. It's one of my very favorite bits in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Classic John Cleese: "She turned me into a newt" following the longest pause in comedy film: "I got better."
She's a witch!
Surely, no collection of videos for my favorite scenes Monty Python and the Holy Grail could leave out this completely hilarious and often quoted scene. LOVE IT!!
Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Guards Scene
Monty Python Holy Grail Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
Monty Python And The Holy Grail - Help Help I'm Being Repressed
I know, I know. I am leaving out MANY great scenes. Though the KILLER RABBIT never did much for me, so not that one.
Hey, I said I would keep it to a minimum. Four is rather a lot, really. THREE. "Five sir." Five!
Sorry. I get carried away thinking about this movie. :-)
If you want to see more, go SEE THE MOVIE.
And now one from Spamalot.
Several of the songs written for Spamalot (IE. not originally included in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) are well done. I especially like "Find Your Grail" and "Whatever Happened to My Part." But the song that struck me as most clever is this one. It's a great satire on musicals. Very funny.
Spamalot - Song that Goes Like This
COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 94 shirts remaining
Happy Monday to you all if you happened to stop by here on a Monday.
Grading robot is at full power plowing through two sets of final grades for three classes and then the normal week of grading all to be finished by Friday, though the final grades are due tomorrow. So this did not go up first in the morning because of Grading Robot's activity.
I just finished one set of final grades (due tomorrow) with one set to go, and as you can see, I am very excited for the Lions game tonight. Monday night football. GO LIONS!
Do I really need to discuss this KUDL shirt in any depth? It's the retro re-issue of our 2007 design that we did this year, like my T-shirt #237.
I may take an Ultimate hiatus. I am not sure how many Ultimate shirts I have left, but I am pretty sure that I am out of KUDL shirts. I have featured 29 such shirts (including this one), which is quite a few, especially since KUDL has only been active eight years.
Short entry today, but I have a few things already set up in tomorrow's entry, so it should be a good one.
I have shared about my fantasy sports play before.
I had a good week last week. I won in all six of my fantasy basketball games, with one I had a huge comeback victory on the last day of the week. I am inserting screen shots of the matchup going into Sunday and the final result.
I fell to a horrible 6-9 in picking football spreads for the week, while my colleagues all did much better than I did.
Fantasy football is not decided yet, so I may report back, but I had at least one HUGE win, so I am happy with that.
As you can see in this NO MERCY league, I was down 3-12 going into Sunday games. I had more players active than my opponent so I had hopes that I might pull out a close win. Given the small number of players he had going Sunday, I am surprised to keep under in the turnover and personal foul categories, in which the lower number takes the match. I did not think I would catch him in rebounds, but I was hoping to edge him in several other categories, which as you can see, I did. This was a good one and in large part due to my skill as a player in terms of my draft and my waiver additions. It's also nice to see a comeback as he had more games through the week, but I made it up on the final day.
The other thing I want to share today is a group discussion from Good Reads with Night Film author Marisha Pessl. I have already written about Night Filmas I mention in the message I posted to Good Reads. Marisha did not respond to my message, but I did not expect her to do so. Surely she read it as there were not that many messages. You can surely find the group if you are on Good Reads and you are interested. Once again, I want to promote Marisha's book. It was excellent!!
Welcome to the group! Marisha Pessl will be answering questions throughout the day on Monday, December 16th in this thread only. In the meantime if you have a question for Marisha, or just want to introduce yourself, feel free to do so in this thread.
I loved NIGHT FILM!! I don't have any questions, but assuming you get these all read, quite a task, and I wanted to add my voice. I wrote about Night Film on my blog, TWICE. :-)
My story about how my wife asked me to read the book as an anniversary gift to her is here http://365-tshirts.blogspot.com/2013/...
My review of the book is here http://365-tshirts.blogspot.com/2013/...
LOVED it!! And I think it's quite a rare thing to come to the book via my wife's request that I read it and start on our anniversary (as in immediately) as a gift to her. One quick download to my Kindle and off I went. We were in Hawaii on vacation at the time, so I managed to read much much more on long plane rides and soaks in the hot tub.
Thanks Marisha. You have added to my favorite books not just of this year but of all time.
T-shirt #269 - DAVID BOWIE - HEATHEN - Teaching featured musical artists of the day
The same people who wondered why it was 266 days before I featured Firefly, especially those who know me, will wonder why it took equally 269 days to feature the one musical artist who is arguably my favorite and about whom I am most passionate: DAVID BOWIE.
This shirt is from the Heathen tour, obviously
But some subjects are so large, so important, that it does not seem like something easy to tackle, so I put it off. DAVID BOWIE is such a subject. I must own at least a dozen books devoted to David Bowie. I have all the albums on CD and LP. I have listened to everything for many years and obsessively. I have favorites, lists of favorites, and facts to share. I have Bowie stories to tell. I came to love Bowie so much, when I first discovered him in college, that I would randomly shout "BOWIE!" to emphasize my love for the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack.
And it did not escape me that Bowie's 25th studio album, promised in 2006, finally came out in early 2013: The Next Day.
Luckily, at least for my ability to generate content, I have more than one DAVID BOWIE shirt, and so I can spread out my David Bowie love over several entries before my BLOG YEAR expires. Though it is a tough choice, I will present my favorite David Bowie song before I depart for the day. But the main content will consist of my my DAVID BOWIE POWER POINT PRESENTATION that I created for my Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.
I taught the media course for ten years. During the course, since our focus was media, I developed the FEATURED MUSICAL ARTIST of the day. Since the class met once weekly, this meant one a week. I would share some basic information about each artist (occasionally I would do two in one class) and then extract facts about the artist for bonus questions on my weekly quizzes. There was some controversy stirred up about my creation of such questions, but they were considered BONUS questions and hence extra credit and thus I did not feel badly if students did not know the answers. After all, they could guess. They had a 50-50 chance on the standard True-False bonus question and at worst a 20% chance on the standard multiple choice question.
These pictures come from my last full, regular length semester in the Winter of 2008 in the Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.
The purpose of the featured artist was simply to allow me to play music, show pictures, and talk about my favorite musical artists once a week. I did not spend much time on these features, on average about five minutes. The choices were motivated not just by my favorites, but in selecting artists that the students may not know or may not know well. My goal was to inspire and possibly turn on the students to some new music.
During these sessions I featured the following artists: Ani DiFranco, Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Joy Division, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk, Laurie Anderson, MIA, Erykah Badu, Patti Smith, the Pixies, Public Enemy, Robert Fripp, Suzanne Vega, the Clash, The Jam, and Velvet Underground.
I saved DAVID BOWIE for the final week of the semester, and eventually, I prepared a power point presentation to share what I wanted to share about David Bowie in my Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.
Today, I would like to share the slides from that power point. Because there are forty-four slides, I added a page break, so you will need to click on it to see the entire show. I made a few notes. But first, arguably my favorite Bowie song and video, and some pictures of my dear friends and teaching associates: Abigail "Crabby" Nappier and Erin Bauchan (now Erin Bauchan-Caprara).
COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 96 shirts remaining
- chris tower - 1312.15 - 13:46
HERE'S THE POWER POINT (note the page break)
this picture is from the Black Tie White Noise album
picture from Heathen
Madame Tussaud's wax depiction of Bowie left
Other wax dummies?
Bowie's various characters
Vanity Fair feature
Note in the classroom pictures
I have this on the document camera
while running the power point on the other screens;
the classroom contained four screens which could be set in pairs
Various shots of Bowie being androgynous
I tell a story about the demise
of the far too ambitious
Diamond Dogs stage show
which he junked to do Young Americans
The Thin White Duke
I talk a bit about Eno, but I am saving that for
another t-shirt
Arguably, my favorite album
When I was supposed to be writing
a paper on Moby Dick for American Literature
in my Sophomore year of college
I wrote an essay on David Bowie
My teacher said I started with a Bowie bang
but ended with a Pip (character in Moby Dick)
whimper.
I saw both Detroit shows
on this tour
Under appreciated great album
hours
Heathen was the best thing
since Outside or maybe even
since Let's Dance.
Presented here for the first time anywhere are pictures of my best friend Tom Meyers (better known as the Lord of Chaos) and me at one of his apartments in Bloomington, Indiana while he was in Law School. As you can see, I am wearing a t-shirt of some kind. I have no idea what this T-shirt is and if I still own it. But I owned it at one time, and I thought it would be fun, as a change of pace, to present the t-shirt here as the "Unknown T-shirt."
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Welcome to the group! Marisha Pessl will be answering questions throughout the day on Monday, December 16th in this thread only. In the meantime if you have a question for Marisha, or just want to introduce yourself, feel free to do so in this thread. 
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
