Days of Lore

I’ve turned 100-ish
Ahh … time flies when you’re having fun, don’t it? It certainly flies when you occupy a small space every week in the back of the paper by the Spicy Personals. That’s right. It’s been almost two years since I took over as arts editor from the sweet, sassy (a term of endearment, promise!) and sexy Jason Cassidy, and found my little home near where advertisers advertise and people seek out that special someone—including the woman who wants me/you/him and/or her to “constrain my softness until my true beauty shrieks your name and my welted flesh glows testament to your hand.” Dig.

A recent perusal through the CN&R archives showed that I was actually approaching my 100th column. This was monumental! Cause for celebration! Sitcoms lucky enough to hit that magic number sometimes celebrate with a montage of old clips accompanied by some sort of sentimental pappy song (Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” comes immediately to mind) aimed at playing off feelings that viewers have really gotten to know these characters on some demented level. Dig?

Missionary ACCOMPLISHED
What you are reading here is officially-ish my 100th-ish column … ish. Give or take an ish. My first inclination was to sift through past columns and find those special little nuggets to regurgitate while providing a link to an equally special song to listen to as you read. But that would be lazy on my part, and a disservice to you.

Still, I was reading through my very first column from December 2005, and I couldn’t help but get a little misty eyed. I was so young-ish and innocent; just a baby bird being nudged from the nest by its mother:

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Mark Lore and I will do my damndest to follow in [Local Bastard’s] footsteps—sans the porn—in giving my sarcastic, witty, childish two cents on local happenings, the absurd and whatever else may be on my ADD-riddled mind.

Mmm … good stuff. Prophetic, even. Now you know why they’ve let me carry on for 100-ish columns. Maybe I should change my focus. That’s it! I’ll write a sex column! With real sex! I’m going to make the missionary position cool again.

Greatest American Zero
Those who read this column-ish know that I do not have a television. While that is generally a good thing, I do miss turning the brain off and watching people’s pets do the darndest things as I drool on my pillow and reach into that open box of cereal.

Good thing I have good pals.

I was recently invited to watch the hottest, newest, totally rad reality show—The Next Great American Band. I must admit I agreed to watch it more for the company than for the show itself. It was bad … but I couldn’t turn away.

The three judges have the personalities of paper clips—we have our token Simon Cowell in Ian “Dicko” Dickerson (not sure what qualifies him aside from the fact that he’s British, and an asshole). Then there’s Sheila E. and the Goo Goo Dolls’ Johnny Rzeznik—the latter of whom reels off lines like, “That was great, man” or “Awesome sound, man.” As exciting as his music.

The bands were fun, though. Like Ohio’s Northmont, whose handsome frontman bitched out his bassist after being told by judges that he was playing sloppy on the band’s killer Matchbox 20 cover. Or Light of Doom—the pre-teens who knocked out a hawt-arse version of Iron Maiden’s “Flight of Icarus.” These young lads from San Diego are influenced by three things: Ninjas, boobs and explosions … which, interestingly enough, are the very same things that influence 95 percent of American males … oh, and Agent Meecrob.