Kitty: "What are zappa kids?"
Dharma: "You know, Dweezil, Moon Unit..."
(Kitty looks blank.)
[From Dharma and Greg season two.]
So of course I had to look up Zappa's kids. Hark at this from Wikipedia:
Moon Unit Zappa (born September 28, 1967) is an American actress and musician. She goes by the name Moon Zappa; "Unit" is her middle name.
Zappa was born in New York City, the eldest child of Adelaide Gail Sloatman, who worked in business, and rock star Frank Zappa. She has three younger siblings, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva. Zappa's father was of Sicilian, Greek-Arab and French descent and her mother was of Danish, French, Irish and Portuguese ancestry.
... Man, you can't make stuff like that up!
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By the way, how come it's always "actress and musician"? It's never "actress and novelist" or "actress and party organiser" or "actress and designer" or "actress and carpenter".
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Update: Alex pointed out I was remiss for not including a picture of Jenna Elfman. I miss her, I hope she finds her way into some good shows or movies soon.
34 comments:
Sometimes the gaps in your general knowledge surprise me; then other times I am surprised at which gaps I can fill in.
Still, you not knowing Moon Unit and Dweezil.
How about Hugh Laurie - Actor and Novelist?
Oh, and you post about Dharma and Greg, and you don't take it as a chance to put a picture of Jenna Elfman in the blog!
For example http://www.bestsexycelebs.com/jenna_elfman/pictures/2.jpg
Can't find a good one from "Krippendorf's Tribe" though. :-(
Remember I grew up in Denmark, it was pretty accidental what American data made it on television and what not.
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Yeah, and Stephen Fry too. But they are male and British. Obviously what I mean is that there is a certain type of person, especially in California, who just doesn't seem to have any other choice in life but to be an "actress and musician". It's just what you do.
Paris Hilton is a good example. They come from rich or celebrity-dysfunctional families and are so messed up and spoiled that they can't function in a proper job, so they are actresses and musicians. Probably hopeless at those too, but supported by the whole celebrity machine, so they survive.
Oooh, oooh!! I bet I know the names of more American and British actors and musicians than you know of Danish ones!
Ha, booya! :)
I know some actors with Danish sounding names. Surely Jean Claude Van Damme.
No , I didn;t mean for it to be an insult, just some things you seem to know lead me to think Frank Zappa would have been amongst them.
I can't even think of a Danish film, I've seen Swiss, French, Dutch, Norwegian, German, Spanish, Portuguese. How come no Danish? Hey I know some Danish heroes, like Nils Bohr.
As the old joke goes, "and with an ancestry like that, you say you're not jewish?"
Even my word verification says it: "jewdsyws"
Yep, Frank was an individual, no denying that. :) I believe he said something along the lines of, "The name Ralph has no beauty in it. But it'll be their last name that gets them into trouble." I'm paraphrasing obviously.
Alex, I see.
There are the Danish "Dogma" movies. Several good ones there.
And some Internationally significant ones by Lars von Trier.
Hey I know some Danish heroes, like Nils Bohr.
A nerd hero, but I guess if that's the best you can do...
Carlsberg - I knew that.
Lego - well that ain't an actress.
Bang & Oulefsen - never really thought about it.
Babettes Feast, Pele the Conqueror -I know them.
Maersk - they have big ships here all the time, and I'm always passing their containers on the road.
Heck, there is recent British stuff I don't know. I heard a new British word I didn't know before, it was either "twonee" or "twoer" meaning a 2GBP coin. Heck, when I left the UK Totty was only for girls (that is, the term applied to girls, guys were after totty) Now it's a bi-gender thing, after that footballer.
Anon, I guess you'd be after a more macho hero then.
Well, we have Captain Jakob Jensen, who killed Lord Nelson and took a poop in his throat. That should do it.
Jean Claude Van Damme is Belgian.
Belgium is made up of two main communities, one of French culture & origin, the other stemming from the Netherlands. Hence the "Van" in his name (and in his civilian name). In Hollywood, he's nicknamed "The muscles from Brussels". But I 'm not sure how much his muscles owe to mussels, though. :-)
BTW, I read this anecdote on his french Wikipedia page, told by Stallone in the british edition of FHM: Stephen Seagal once dissed Van Damme at a party, bragging he could "kich his ass". An angry Van Damme retorted he would take Seagall "any time", but SS dodged. And has been dodging JCVD's repeated challenges ever since! According to Sly, "Van Damme is way too strong, Seagall would be helpless in a fight against him".
Some have big muscles, others have them OUTSIDE their mouth. :-)
Never ever imagined I'd hear one day meek Eolake say "BOOYA!"...
(:-0
What next? FINALLY a government in Lebanon? Oh, wait: happened on friday. Wonders never cease. They might even get to work on fixing the country. (Whoa, don't panic, that last one was a joke!)
Speaking of Lebanon and actors, our last President looked remarkably like Egyptian superstar Adel Imam when he smiled. But with slightly less acting talent...
Alex said...
"Lego - well that ain't an actress."
You forget their Lego Studio line. Whith a digital camera, for making your very own picture-by-picture Lego movies. (There was a bonus made precisely like that on the Monty Python's Holy Grail! DVD. The "silly Camelot" dance & song, Lego style.)
With the latest boxes, you can create your own remakes of SpiderMan or Harry Potter, directed by Lego Stephen Spielberg® himself!!!
Captain Jakob Jensen? Dude, that right there is SO cool! Hurray for macho heroes!!!!!!!!
(Aw, what the heck. Let's add another line of them:)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Booya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, Jensen could kick van Damme's ass.
One of Jensen's men, Ole Juel Nielsen, boarded Lord Nelson's ship alone in the dead of night and stole the logbook. He was challenged trying to leave and had to kill five men.
Yeah, the $100 studio set came with a big clunky low res camera that was outdated before it was on the shelf almost. The same camera was also available for the computer controlled set (was that Mars Rover?).
The Spielberg head has shown up in a few other places, adn is one of the first heads on LDD (Lego Digital Designer/Factory).
I think the sexiest Legos are the three in bondage/leather, that is the two Leia's, one yellow, one tan, the other is Catwoman.
And as for Nelson, we were taught about Lady Hamilton, but that Danish guy, never heard of him.
Nah, I made him up. I couldn't stand Danes being thought up as wimps. :)
Of course if the choice is between the vikings who brought most of Europe under their thumb, and modern Denmark, one of the most cultured nations in the world... I guess that's a personal choice. :)
I'm not sure how proud I'd be of the Vikings, considering what they did. And they sure didn't control things for very long. As for Danish culture, how long are you going to dine out on The Little Mermaid? Give us something new! ;-)
Pascal, I heard The Muscles has a glass eye. Steven S is probably a pussy too, but I remember about '94 some story about Jean-Claude getting in a fight in some bar with some nobody and getting floored with one punch.
Ha ha ha
I meant glass jaw not glass eye! Of course, a glass eye might make his depth perception a bit iffy, and make him a bit useless in a fight! ;-)
I'm not proud of the vikings, but many are. Dominance is important to many.
It sure is. It's one of the reasons there will never be a war to end all wars.
Not that the Vikings were all bad, of course, and it must be said that the people they were attacking - like the Anglo Saxons - had used almost the same tactics in taking Britain in the first place. And the people they took it from had taken it from someone else, who had taken it from someone else.
Spielberg is not a pussy!
As for that French composer Jean Van Damm, Oxygene was a good album, I think I prefer Zoolook though.
Danes can take some comfort in the Monty Python song "Finland".
The main problem with the Vikings is, they didn't bother to write down history, 'twas mainly oral tradition. So they were portrayed by their enemies as nothing but looting murdering barbarians. While it is true that their piracy lifestyle (due in part to poor land back home, up North) and their conquest methods were jolly ruthless, the Romans for instance cannot claim to have been more respectful of human rights on their way to "world unification and civilizing endeavour". And one has to admit also that many Vikings settled down in the places they reached, to live in a far more peaceful manner, starting whole cities and populations and cultures. Heck, as a Lebanese I probably bear some viking genes! (Check Wikipedia for a map of all the places they reached.) And Roman genes, and from the Crusaders, and even some from the conquests of the Mongols. My native village is pretty close to the frontier with Syria, and some Syrians definitely have a clear type reminiscent of Mongolia.
Regarding The Little Mermaid, okay, it's a few centuries old. But ya hafta admit, it's one of the most romantic stories ever written. Touching, cute, and tragic.
[But don't count on the Disney hack-and-slash rewriting to remain faithful to the original. I bet they could revamp Peau d'Âne into a kiddie movie without any hint of an incestful father. Cripes, they even shamelessly "pimped" Hercules into the legitimate child of Hera! Zeus a faithful husband, that's a scoop!]
"I remember about '94 some story about Jean-Claude getting in a fight in some bar with some nobody and getting floored with one punch."
I'm not sure about that story... Van Damme holds an impressive official fighting record. Normally, his fighting talents should be very efficient in real life. The only way some random bloke could floor him would be with a sucker punch, or because street fighting (pun intended) follows no rules, like no room to move freely in a bar for instance, allowing for any cheap shot.
Ah, glass JAW! You had me worried for a sec. :-)
The thing is, literally speaking pretty much everybody has the "glass jaw". It's one of the bases of boking: any half-trained person who can land a blow on one of the key points of the body can safely bet on a knock-out. Same with karate: in competitions, you only have to land the blow, because it means you would undoubtedly have won, but it is forbidden to bear them at full force because then they could genuinely kill an opponent.
I'm very good with the theory of fighting. I'm also very good with the theory of loving, and much better at practice than fighting. :-)
After all, how many wars were won in a bed? We'll never know. Probably many. Think of Mata Hari. [This is not off-topic, for Mata Hari was Dutch. Who's da man? Unh-hunh!]
"Dominance is important to many."
"In the age of chaos,
Two factions battle for dominance.
This is the world of Warcraft.
What, what do you want?
Why do you keep touching me?!?"
[The Paladin's song, audion track on the PC disc of Warcraft(2?)]
"It's one of the reasons there will never be a war to end all wars."
"Making war for Peace is like fucking for Virginity." - Sign at an anti-Bush pacifict protest.
Alex virtuously defended...
"Spielberg is not a pussy!"
He's not even gay! :-)
That peace sign goes back at least to flower power days.
Pascal the Romans gave us a hell of a lot more than the Vikings, who may have settled down and become farmers but didn't give us much else. We can thank them for destroying a lot of books in Ireland and setting back civilization several hundred years more.
As for Van Damme that link is to a Wikipedia article which lacks citations. I don't know about the story about his glass jaw but it sounds about right sinc he's a dancer.
Hey, those days were nice. And flowers DO have power. Just look at what's happening to the planet because there aren't enough plants left...
I can't be surprised that a peace sign from the war of Vietnam would re-emerge now. :-(
Anon, I'm not going to try defending the Vikings versus the Romans. Just meant that when it comes to conquest methods, they both merrily slaughtered and enslaved. One more than the other, perhaps, and with greater systematic vandalism, I see no reason to deny it.
Re. Van Damme, he's not a dancer. Unless you count his leg work on the ring. Guy's a pro fighter and several times kickboxing champion, no lack of citations can cast doubt on that. Besides, I've never seen him tango...
That FHM article might need a precise reference to abide with Wiki criteriae, but I believe it to be genuine.
Many Wiki articles do need more references or citations. I'm trying to do my part in improving that. Hey, you're talking with a registered user here. (Tell me, honestly, do you feel honored? Hunh? Hunh? Hunh? ;-)
Try this.
It doesn't have citations either, but it does cast doubt for me. Van Damme looks the part in his movies, but I'm skeptical about his real-life fighting skills. That's a lesser for future action stars - if you ever want to be an action hero you probably shouldn't ever study ballet*!
*Although personally I think ballet dancers have to be pretty tough and you definitely have to be quite athletic and very fit.
I really hope that adds something to the discussion heh heh.
So the fight sequences at the start of A Clockwork Orange really did look like ballet steps. If I were making a movie with a fight sequence I think I would want either martial arts skills of dance skills in my actors or body doubles.
Seems all the Bollywood heroes have to have dance and fight skills.
I think maybe I've taken too many blows to the head - I meant lesson, not "lessor". Kind of a typing version of the slurred speech and other stuff that boxers get when they retire a fight or two too late.
I dnot now what your takkin abot.
Ha ha - I spelled it lesser the first time and "quoted" it lessor the second. I think I'll go check myself into Arkham or something.
I dnot now what your takkin abot.
Yup, I'm used to it! ;-)
...I hope these comments, which add nothing to the discussion, will be forgiven their irrelevance. :)
No way, mistr. YOU SHALL BE FORGIVN for that rrelevance. Um... Or smtheng verry close!
(-:
Danks, P-Diddy. Slap mah fro! ah' wuz wo'ried dere fo' some minute. ah' know some sucka's duzn't likes dat shit. Man!
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