You can now like A Fistful of Soundtracks on Facebook

The first Spider-Man movie's closing credits deserved better too.

Although Facebook has its moments (like the girl's reaction to her mom's adult-contemporary ambush on the troops in the above snapshot), it can also be an aggravating place to be, as Kimberly from Cinebeats and TCM has astutely noted a few times on her Twitter. I think Jeannie Gaffigan, the wife of comedian Jim Gaffigan, put it best when she tweeted, "Facebook is like a big high school yearbook that never stops being signed."

I may find Facebook to be annoying for various reasons, but I know there are a few people on that site who listen to A Fistful of Soundtracks, so after about a year of hesitating, I launched a Facebook page for AFOS on July 1.

Drop by the new page and hit the "Like" button and maybe say hola. But don't go to the wall just to tell me I should remove a track you hate from an AFOS playlist. I'm not a fan of requests for me to delete a piece of music and I always ignore those requests. It's part of the playlist because I goddamn like it. I'm not going to yank it from rotation just because only poor little you can't stand it.

Speaking of disliking things, why doesn't Facebook have a "Dislike" button? Am I not allowed to dislike things over there? It's like a site run by The Care Bears, for fook's sake.

Around the world in 520 words

I don't keep track of the size of the Fistful of Soundtracks channel's international audience, but I know I get a lot of listeners from Europe. Some of them have mentioned AFOS in their tweets or newspaper pieces. A writer from England's Observer paper described my station's format as "tunes from films and TV, surprisingly listenable," while a British listener told me earlier this year he heard BBC Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox give AFOS a shout-out on the air.

Over in the Netherlands, someone plugged AFOS in a Facebook post.

In Dutch, the post says: "Jimmy Aquino draait al sinds 2002 Film- en TV muziek op zijn eigen radiostation, altijd in themas. Omdat het voornamelijk een one-man-show is, worden de programma's slechts wekelijks geupdate. Naast de wekelijkse show wordt het station gevuld door een jukebox vol trailers en de bijbehorende muziek. Aquino weet niet alleen ongelofelijk veel van filmmuziek, hij tekend ook strips en schrijft korte verhalen."


Google Translate's slightly malapropistic version in English says: "Jimmy Aquino has been around since 2002 Film and TV music on his own radio station, always themes. Because it is mainly a one-man show, then the program is only updated weekly. Besides the weekly show, the station filled by a jukebox full of trailers and the accompanying music. Aquinas not only knows an incredible amount of film music, he also signed comics and writes short stories."

I appreciate the praise, but like most blog posts that mention AFOS, it's not 100 percent correct about the details ("Because it is mainly a one-man show, the program is only updated weekly"). The Dutch listener is right about the Fistful of Soundtracks channel's one-man staff but somewhat incorrect about the weekly updating of episodes of the one-hour program that originated on college radio (which was also called A Fistful of Soundtracks). I do update the Wednesday reruns of that program each week, but I haven't recorded a new ep since "Dance Into the Fire" in 2008 because I've been underemployed for a while, and it's become too expensive for me to continue producing the program or to pay Bruce the announcer again to re-record the program intro in the reruns and introduce me as "Jimmy J. Aquino" instead of the now-outdated "Jimmy Aquino."

However, I haven't stopped updating the Fistful of Soundtracks channel's daytime playlists. A couple of weeks ago, I added to the "Chai Noon" playlist some Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge numbers from a new Shahrukh Khan soundtrack compilation and some tracks from the new Abhishek Bachchan/Aishwarya Rai movie Raavan, and then I added the Beastie Boys instrumental "Shambala" to the "F Zone" playlist after the Breaking Bad season finale devoted an entire sequence to "Shambala." This week's additions to "Assorted Fistful" are selections from Varèse Sarabande's expanded version of Michael Giacchino's Star Trek score album.

The above Dutch phrase "hij tekend ook strips" means "he has also drawn comics." Google Translate thinks the post says "he also signed comics." Yeah, I don't write comics. I just autograph them. The "Sampler" script and The Palace were actually the work of South Korean laborers.

Metric is streaming a sneak preview of their Scott Pilgrim music

Universal's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's popular comics by one of my favorite newer filmmakers, Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright, doesn't come out until August. But you can get a sneak peek of the star-studded soundtrack, thanks to the Toronto band Metric, which posted on Facebook this weekend one of several original songs they contributed to Pilgrim.


Metric provided the sounds for The Clash at Demonhead, one of the title bassist hero's fictional musical rivals, while Beck will represent Scott's own band Sex Bob-omb, and Broken Social Scene will represent another fictional band, Crash and the Boys.

Like everything else I've heard from Metric, "Black Sheep" sounds terrific. Hit the "Become a Fan" button on their Facebook page to hear "Black Sheep."

[Via Wright and Robot 6]

"The Best of Jimmy J. Aquino on Twitter," Part 1

In March, I gave up resisting Twitter and launched a page there to write any blog posts that are only two or three sentences long. I didn't like Twitter at first, but I've adjusted to it, and now I think it's a more enjoyable and appealing microblogging/social networking site than the cluttered and less stripped-down Facebook.

I've found Twitter's 140-character limit to be a great way to test out my humor writing and be better at brevity. On Facebook, members have somehow discovered ways to bypass the character limit on their status updates, which has resulted in two things: 1) a lot of users writing updates that are longer than the Iliad, which kills the point of a microblog, and 2) me glancing briefly at those long-winded updates and wanting to log out of Facebook as fast as I can.

However, Twitter has a few downsides as well. Too many Twitterers have used the site to write some of the most vapid and boring microblogs I've ever come across (which resulted in Lewis Black uttering on Attack of the Show one of my favorite quotes about vapid-sounding Twitterers, "I'm not that interested in my life! What kind of ego do you have to have to think other people are interested?... If you're walking around telling people what you're doing, then guess what, you're not really doing it, are you? You're describing it!"). Instead of tweeting nonstop about every single activity in my life, I've preferred to focus most of my tweets on either the Fistful of Soundtracks radio station, movies and shows I've watched, links I want people to check out or links to the posts I write here at afistfulofsoundtracks.blogspot.com.

But the biggest downside of Twitter for me is that unlike Blogger or WordPress, Twitter doesn't automatically create archives of your older tweets, making it difficult to access older tweets that either you or someone else posted. If you want to access an older tweet without repeatedly clicking on the "more" link at the bottom of the page, you have to have previously copied and pasted the tweet's URL somewhere on your computer (like on Notepad) so that you can copy and paste that URL into your browser.

Because of the lack of an archive section on my Twitter page, here's a compilation of the tweets from my page that have received replies or have been retweeted (Twitter slang for being quoted), starting with my very first tweet.

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Dammit. I give up. I'm on Twitter now though I'm not feelin' the concept. I'm joining only b/c writing 140-ch. posts on Blogger seems lame.
12:59 PM Mar 14th from web

Awesome. My first word on Twitter was "Dammit," which, in the Cosby household, means "Russell."
12:59 PM Mar 14th from web

You know who does the best dammits on TV? Kiefer. Not since DeForest Kelley has someone taken dammiting to a whole 'nother level.
1:00 PM Mar 14th from web


@pfunn I see that dumb new name and I think, "Shouldn't it be pronounced 'sy-fee,' as in the Syufy [sy-yoo-fee] movie theater chain?"
1:31 PM Mar 16th from web in reply to pfunn

Rotten Tomatoes Show on @current is the anti-Movie Mob. Their webcam reviews come from intelligent folks, not annoying attention whores.
11:15 AM Mar 20th from web

I prefer Savage Steve Holland (Better Off Dead) over John Hughes b/c SSH's '80s comedies aren't as racist as Hughes'--and they're weirder.
11:37 AM Mar 20th from web

Savage Steve Holland's How I Got Into College is on Fox Movie Channel right now. Damn, tanktop-clad Tom Kenny is paler than @jimgaffigan.
11:38 AM Mar 20th from web

Is it me or do some Twitterers sound like Norm MacDonald as Larry King reading his USA Today News & Views column? http://tinyurl.com/d2m79h
4:08 PM Mar 21st from web

How nice. An earthquake just woke me up.
10:46 AM Mar 30th from web

Dammit, I can't get that silly Lady Gaga "this beat is sick" refrain out of my head ever since I first heard it on #Chuck last week.
1:30 AM Apr 11th from web


@gcdb She's the creation of a gay mad scientist who needed a new icon to worship b/c Madonna and Dona Versace are getting too old & creepy.
8:34 AM Apr 11th from web in reply to gcdb


@gcdb I bet every Canadian right now wants to bitchslap Billy Bob Thornton just like how Kurt Russell slaps around BBT in that movie.
7:56 PM Apr 11th from web in reply to gcdb

There needs to be an Asian American comedians' version of MST3K or Cinematic Titanic or #twitflixing (like the HGers' skewering of Crank 2).
4:08 AM Apr 17th from web

Why are Asian Americans always so serious and humorless and tweedy when they write essays or posts about racist pieces of shit like Crank 2?
4:13 AM Apr 17th from web

We Asian Americans need to take a cue from MST or HG or Paul Mooney and try a comic approach to ripping to shreds the Crank 2s of the world.
4:18 AM Apr 17th from web

@ALBaroza I want to do a live show in which an AA comic & I do snarky running com. on a racist flick. A RiffTrax-ish site might be dope too.
11:28 AM Apr 17th from web in reply to ALBaroza

"Why don't you make like a bass player and be inaudible?"--Metalocalypse. I've posted my all-time favorite basslines on @LivingSocial.
9:15 AM Apr 20th from web

Dopest basslines: 5. Jamiroquai, "Space Cowboy (Stoned Again Mix)"--the ultimate #420 anthem. Bassist: Stuart Zender.
9:18 AM Apr 20th from web


Basslines: 4. Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson's Barney Miller theme. Bassist: Jim Hughart. Rarely does a Jew on TV get a theme this funky.
9:20 AM Apr 20th from web

Basslines: 3. Freddie Hubbard, "Red Clay." Bassist: Ron Carter. ATCQ fans know this bassline from "Sucka N," which sampled a cover of "RC."
9:24 AM Apr 20th from web

Dopest basslines: 2. Slave, "Just a Touch of Love." Bassist: Mark Adams. Sampled by De La Soul ("Keepin' the Faith") and Das EFX ("Shine").
9:27 AM Apr 20th from web

Dopest basslines: 1. The Smiths, "This Charming Man." Bassist: Andy Rourke. His bass work is the coolest part of the chune.
9:30 AM Apr 20th from web


I can never hear "Ready to Go" by Republica again without thinking of Dr. Girlfriend.
4:33 PM Apr 20th from web

To be continued.

List habit

Matthew from the Culture Kills blog says he would like me to post what my 10 favorite film scores are.

That's too much pressure, Matt! I dig so many of them. Scores come in many different categories or genres (film, TV, synthesizer, 80-to-100-piece-orchestra, blaxploitation, espionage, poliziotto, lederhosen porn...). It's too broad a question, and it'd be difficult to narrow them down to 10.

I don't spend much time on Facebook(*) anymore (mostly because I now prefer the more stripped-down Twitter), but there's one thing I enjoy doing on Facebook: making lists(**) of my favorite pieces of music on Facebook's LivingSocial and iLike apps.

(*) Damn, even Facebook's CFO doesn't like the new Facebook either. He hates it so much he quit!

(**) The title of this post refers to the "List Habit" tag that Kim Morgan uses for her list-crazy posts.

In LivingSocial's case, the app has you post Top 5 lists of your favorite things. So instead of a "Top 10 favorite scores" list, I'll repost the Top 5 lists of favorite score cues (or scores) under certain categories that I've been posting on LivingSocial and Twitter.

Five favorite marches from original film or TV scores
5. John Williams, "The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)," The Empire Strikes Back
4. John Williams, "March from 1941"
3. Jerry Goldsmith, "Main Title," Star Trek: The Motion Picture
2. John Williams, "Main Title," Superman: The Movie
1. Terence Blanchard, "Fruit of Islam," Malcolm X

God, the Oscars are a joke. How could they not nominate Terence Blanchard for his 1992 Malcolm X score, which is filled with awesome themes like "Fruit of Islam," the cue he wrote for the film's Harlem march sequence? What was the score that won in 1993? Oh right, Aladdin. Give me a break.

Gene Roddenberry dug the Star Trek: The Motion Picture march so much that he recycled it for Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. TV composer Dennis McCarthy wrote an updated arrangement of the march, and it was performed by an orchestra that was smaller than the 90-piece orchestra that performed it back in 1979. That explains why the TNG version lacks oomph. I prefer the original 1979 rendition. I like how the brass sounds jazzier.

Five other favorite marches
5. Ennio Morricone, "March of the Beggars," Duck, You Sucker
4. Jerry Goldsmith, "Attack," Patton
3. Elmer Bernstein, "Main Title," The Great Escape
2. Elmer Bernstein, "Stripes March"
1. John Williams, "End Credits," Raiders of the Lost Ark

Five favorite film scores frequently sampled by beatmakers
5. The Mack (Willie Hutch)
4. Superfly (Curtis Mayfield)
3. Trouble Man (Marvin Gaye)
2. Enter the Dragon (Lalo Schifrin)
1. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (David Shire)

Five favorite Danny Elfman film scores
5. Dead Presidents
4. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
3. Mission: Impossible
2. Batman
1. Midnight Run

Five favorite original TV themes
5. It Takes a Thief (third season version) (Dave Grusin)



4. I Spy (Earle Hagen)



3. Barney Miller (Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson)
2. The Persuaders! (John Barry)
1. Cowboy Bebop (Yoko Kanno)



Listeners like Portland film critic and CulturePulp artist Mike Russell have told me they became Yoko Kanno fans after hearing her Cowboy Bebop score tracks on my station.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, what's the crappiest original TV theme of all time? I was going to say Enterprise, but then I remembered the Diane Warren-penned "Where My Heart Will Take Me" wasn't an original work. It was recycled from Patch Adams, of all movies. (In a sketch I wrote for A Fistful of Soundtracks' 2002 Halloween special, gangbangers torture a hostage by subjecting him to the Enterprise theme.)

The worst original TV theme is Joanie Loves Chachi, hands down. Click at your own peril.

Obama's inauguration: America reboots itself

For readers who aren't my Facebook friends, I've compiled and reposted the status updates that I wrote on the Facebook/CNN Inauguration Day coverage site on this uplifting day of history and balls.

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Jimmy just booed the arrival of Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life.
via CNN.com Live - 8:39am

Wow, the surviving Tuskegee Airmen are at the inauguration.
via CNN.com Live - 9:24am

Amen!
via CNN.com Live - 9:37am

Jimmy is wondering how the other cable channels are covering the inauguration. I hear the Sci Fi Channel sent Mansquito to interview the crowd.
via CNN.com Live - 9:47am

Favorite part of Obama's inaugural speech: "The world is changing and we have to change with it."
via CNN.com Live - 9:51am

Jimmy enjoyed that recent Slate.com article that basically said, "What's Bush gonna do now? No one will hire his ass."
via CNN.com Live - 9:59am

The President and the First Lady's parade walk was badass. South Side, walk it out!
via CNN.com Live - 1:19pm

TV One is doing the best coverage right now: Anchor #1: "Joe the Plumber is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame." Anchor #2: "And it's 14 minutes too long."
via CNN.com Live - 2:35pm

Jimmy is trying to figure out what the Howard U. Marching Band has been playing. Whatever it is, it's slammin'. Sounded like "I Need a Freak" by Sexual Harassment.
via CNN.com Live - 3:29pm