My second piece for the noted humor blog Splitsider is now online. I follow my report on Bob Einstein’s lost classic humor book with a close look at his brother Albert’s daring debut in the February 1971 Esquire magazine. As with Einstein’s Magic Book, “The Albert Brooks Famous School For Comedians” is another piece of overlooked comedy gold. Though the article made a splash at the time, today copies of the magazine are hard to come by—unless you visit the Nuttycombe Archives (Open daily 3-3:15 p.m.; call for appointment).

Please point your browser to Splitsider and learn something today! You’re welcome.

From the Nuttycombe Archives®, a Rhino Records presskit for an Emerson Lake & Palmer retrospective release revealed this fanatically exhausting flow chart, “The Roots and Branches of ELP,” researched and drawn by Pete Frame. (Click image for a much larger view.)

Pete has an entire book of such charts Here’s one for the Eagles and Poco. Here’s an interview with him.

Hat’s off to ya, Pete. Now, how many times have you listened to “Tank”?

I could only sit on the sidelines (football reference!) for so long as my dear pal Dave McKenna and my alma mater Washington City Paper were dragged through the mud by Dan Snyder and his hired goons. I’m sure you’ve read about it: here, here here, here, and thoroughly here. If you haven’t, please take a moment to do so, and also to enjoy the original Snyder takedown that set the tiny teamowner all a-twitter. (And, yes, I’m glad to add yet another link to the very thing Mr. Short Fuse did not wish people to read.)

Therefore, please enjoy my heartfelt “Love Song For a Frivolous Lawsuit.” Please sing along. You know the melody.

In case you missed it on your daily rounds of the Internet, my latest (and also first) piece has been published on the hot new comedy website, Splitsider. Mining the voluminous Nuttycombe Archives, I offer an insightful disquisition on one of the great lost humor books, Bob Einstein’s 1970 This Is My First Magic Book So I’m a Little Nervous.

I won’t spoil the fun here. Scamper on over to Splitsider, where you may see more photos. (But do come back, won’t you?) Thanks.

They say the future sneaks up on you. Sometimes, so does the past.

I was reading Gene Weingarten’s typically wonderful story on the new Chevy Volt and how it may or may not rewrite the future, and of course I’m reading it in the Post magazine, not online. Because I’m an olds and like to spend a leisurely Sunday flipping through printed pages.

After I’d finished the piece, I shifted my gaze to the spread-out pages on my lap, and my eye was drawn to one of Dustin Fenstermacher’s photographs. A clever homage to Watergate and All the Presidents Men, it’s a nice image. But for some reason, my attention focused not on the qualities of the picture but rather on the staples sticking through the paper. Nothing odd or out of place about that. Magazines have been stapled together for decades. In fact, a stapled publication is more prestigious than a collated one, whose pages can fly away with little provocation.

Staples in a magazine are something that we are used to ignoring, seeing but not seeing. But this time I saw them clearly, as if for the first time. I brought the magazine closer to my eyes, real close, so that I was just seeing bent metal tearing through thin paper. Metal tearing through paper?! Weird.

Then I drew the page farther back and saw that the metal was poking right in the middle of the picture, basically ruining it. Where normally my brain would have created some neurological workaround, erasing this gross intrusion into the photographer’s art — just as we turn the pattern of tiny dots in a halftone into a recognizable image — now the staples were all I could see. And I was just annoyed. What kind of way is this to present a photograph?

Answer: The best we can do it with the available tools. You might argue that the art director should not have positioned the image over the double-truck spread. But, to paraphrase another epigram, art direction expands to fill the space allotted to it. And, as I said, modern eyeballs have become used to not seeing these obvious pieces of an industrial process.

All of which brings me to the conclusion resulting from this epiphany: iPads and Kindles and digital delivery make perfect sense.

Now, what do I do with this new vision of the world? Give up the familiar comfort of lounging on the sofa covered in piles of newsprint? Just because it doesn’t make technological sense? The bill for my Washington Post subscription is due. Am I brave enough for the new world? Or lazy enough for the old?

Stay tuned. (No, wait — staying “tuned” is a reference to old-fashioned radio and television dials. Oh, boy. The future is hard!)

I saw 38 films in theaters in 2010, the same as in 2009. Here’s the venue stats: Regal Majestic (10), Landmark (9), AFI Silver (7), Bow Tie (Richmond) (4), West End (2), and one each at the Avalon, Mazza Gallerie, Royal Montgomery, Potomac Yard, Georgetown, and Ballston. I feel bad, and am surprised, that I only saw one movie at the Avalon last year. I’m a member, happily so. The Avalon has long been one of my favorites. It’s where most of Woody Allen’s (funny) movies premiered. Resolution for 2011: See more movies at the Avalon. (And please join!)

This year saw the appearance of a new movie outlet, the West End Cinema. Well, sorta new. It’s a fresh venue in a tired old location. When it was the Circle West End 5-7 in the ’70s and ’80s, I purposefully avoided the place. I loved the original West End, which offered a real moviegoing experience. (Saw Repo Man there. Also, John Cusack riding up to the box office on a bicycle.) But the 5-7 was in the basement of an office building and had all the charms that implies. And, though the new West End still has the same tiny theaters and tinier screens (see image above), the new owners are making interesting programming choices that mitigate the less-than-Cinerama experience. And they’re cleverly taking advantage of modern technology. Before a screening of the hysterical and disturbing Four Lions, they played a video that the director made specifically for this screening — and e-mailed to the theater. I think more films should start this way.

NOTE: For whatever reason, these annual lists of movies are big-time spam bait. I guess the bots are programmed to seek out big pop culture totems like Iron Man or Avatar. (Oops — now I’m just adding to the problem!) Well, so be it. Here’s the list:

REGAL MAJESTIC:

• Avatar 3-D (for the second time. Enjoyed it even more)
• Dinner For Schmucks
• Due Date
• Iron Man 2
• Nowhere Boy
• Red
• Salt
• The Expendables
• The Tourist
• The Town

AFI SILVER:

• 48 Hour Film Project (four shows)
• Greenberg (The most disappointing experience of the year. The trailer sucked me in. The movie just sucked.)
• Heavy Metal Picnic
• Music Lesson
• Of Flesh & Blood
• Robert Drew Event: Primary, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, The Faces of November

LANDMARK BETHESDA ROW:

• Catfish
• Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
• Crazy Heart
• Get Low
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
• Please Give
• Today’s Special

LANDMARK E STREET CINEMA:

• Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
• The Art of the Steal

WEST END CINEMA:

• Kings of Pastry
• Four Lions

AVALON:

• The Social Network

POTOMAC YARD:

• Hot Tub Time Machine

MONTGOMERY ROYAL:

• Sherlock Holmes

UNITED ARTISTS GEORGETOWN:

• Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (I was accompanying some youngsters. And their parents.)

BALLSTON:

• Get Him to the Greek

MAZZA GALLERIE:

• How Do You Know?

WESTHAMPTON (Richmond)

• The King’s Speech

BOWTIE CINEMA (Richmond)

• Avatar 3-D
• Alice in Wonderland 3-D
• Clash of the Titans 3-D
• True Grit

COLOR ME REDBOX

There are many films that I wanted to see, planned to see, but just didn’t make it to the theater to see. So, this year, I also began Redboxing movies.

I was never much on movie rentals, going back to the VHS days. Though I did have an Erols membership — and later a blue Blockbuster card after it bought Erols — and also a membership with Hollywood Video, which closed its store up the street. Mostly, I would buy previously-viewed movies from these stores. My philosophy has always been to see a film in the theater first. (See this smart NPR.org piece about the importance of watching films in a proper environment). But Redbox marries convenience and price, the only real factors anybody cares about. (Forget all this high-minded talk about innovation, the driving force behind all progress is human beings’ fundamental desire for cheap and easy, at whatever cost.) So, a buck a movie, right there at the grocery store checkout or in front of the 7-Eleven? And I can return the disc to any location? Done and done. And so I did (note the four Oscar-nominated films on the list; I’m also glad to find the odd independent feature in the machine as well):

RED BOX:

• Book of Eli
• City Island
• Date Night
• Death At a Funeral
• Defendor
• Inception
• Knight & Day
• Restrepo
• The Extra Man
• The Kids Are Alright
• The Other Guys
• Winter’s Bone

BLOCKBUSTER:

• OSS 117: Lost in Rio

But I did venture into Blockbuster on occasion, where I was surprised to find OSS 117: Lost in Rio, the brilliant sequel to the equally brilliant French James Bond farce OSS 117: Cairo–Nest of Spies. As my friend the photographer and philosopher Bill O’Leary sagely noted, the only proper way to make a Bond film these days is as a period piece. The 007 world no longer exists. Which is exactly what the OSS 117 filmmakers did: they created 1967 in glorious detail and then threw creme pies all over it in the form of Jean Dujardin’s pitch-perfect performance as the Double-O manque.

In all my filmgoing, there is one film I missed, though I feel like I saw it: Tiny Furniture. I admit to being curious, but then director/writer/star Lena Dunham began appearing everywhere — all over the Internet, in magazines and newspapers, on nearly every podcast I listen to, in everyone’s Twitter feeds. And she just annoyed the hell out of me. And I’m not entirely sure why. Jealousy? Sure, a bit. But she just seems so perfectly perfect, like she’s the straight-A student at Indie Darling University, this manufactured ideal of the bright, young film auteur. And she talks a mile a minute, both articulately and with just enough wry self-deprecation and humble acknowledgment of her good fortune that I want to scream. Again, it’s me, not her. But partly her.

Ah, maybe I’ll catch her film at the Red Box.

There are three nominees for Wammie Awards in the Country Recording category: “Should’ve Been By Now,” by Michael Butler, “Word to the Wise,” by Bill Kirchen, and “Elusive Online Dreams,” by Honky Tonk Confidential.

Now, Mr. Butler’s latest video is “Charm City,” a paean to, as the song puts it, “my home town.” Charm City is, of course, Baltimore. Inclusiveness is all nice and everything, but an organization called the Washington Area Music Association should, I suggest, cater first to Washingtonians. Which includes inside-the-Beltway Silver Springers.

On the WAMA-affiliated Crosstown Arts page listing award-winners, I count 57 Wammie Awards for Mr. Kirchen, including his induction into the Wama Hall of Fame. As if that weren’t enough, Kirchen is represented here in a duet with none other than Dan Hicks. Bringing in a San Franciscan superstar just seems inherently unfair, don’t you think?

Which leaves us with Honky Tonk Confidential and “Elusive Online Dreams.” Yes, HTC has earned a respectable 14 awards. But I do not get to share any of them. I will happily display the 2010 Wammie Award for Country Recording should voters choose wisely. Because I wrote and produced the song. So much for unbiased. I am completely biased. Also, in the full disclosure department, I helped make a WAMA video for last year’s event.

But, really, why do I care? It’s true that the Washington Area Music Association has earned its share of criticism. My pal Steve Kiviat took the group to task last year. My pal Sarah Godfrey raises some questions about this year’s nominations. And I cannot say I entirely disagree with these assessments.

Still, an award is an award. I want to win. As Prof. Clint Eastwood once said, “Deserve ain’t got nothing to do with it.”

Again, here is my toe-tapping tune. Here’s the Wammie ballot. Vote early, vote often, vote for me, dammit.

While gathering material for the production of my VeriPhone video, I went searching for the Brokeback Mountain theme song. And at Amazon, I found a whole bunch of albums featuring Gustavo Santaolalla’s heartbreaking Brokeback song.

Except they were actually ALL THE SAME SONG!

Yes, though the “band” names differed, from the generic Soundtrack & Theme Orchestra, to Western Sounds Unlimited, The Cowboy Band, the perhaps misspelled The Wester Film Band, obtusely named APM Music, oddly named The Remotes, grandly named Marquis Expression, confusingly named KnightsBridge, to the apparently versatile Movie Sounds Unlimited, which was represented on four different collections — it turns out that each album offered the exact same recording.

And not a great version at that. (For whatever reason, the original soundtrack was not available as a digital download at Amazon, so I had to go to iTunes. Grumble-grumble, Steve Jobs…)

The practice of anonymous orchestras covering hits of the day is not new. Much of the material that became the bedrock of the “Lounge Revolution” of the ’90s was drawn from records released in the ’50s & ’60s by major, and minor, labels using nameless studio musicians. And some of those records were made just to keep the studios busy and fill the pipeline to retailers.

After Herb Alpert’s spectacular success with Whipped Cream & Other Delights, there was practically an entire industry of faux Tijuana Brass records released: The Mexicali Brass, the Monterey Brass, anything with “Tijuana,” “Mexico,” “Brass,” or cactus on the cover. All performed by anonymous studio cats, sometimes the same players as on Alpert’s recordings.

More recently, producers have been traveling to Eastern Europe to record with large orchestras that are available at much cheaper rates than U.S. counterparts. Hollywood does this all the time for soundtracks. I suspected much of the work I found on Amazon was an example of this practice — and in fact, it is.

Several Soundtrack and Theme Orchestra albums were released by X5 Music Group, headquartered in Stockholm, with offices all over Europe. But S&TO also does work for Countdown Media GmbH, a German company with offices in Nashville — which explains why “The Cowboy Band” is also on its roster. Countdown also does business as CHV Music Factory,” for which “Movie Sounds Unlimited” records. “Factory” is the operative word, because among Countdown Media’s services are “[r]eady-made compilation concepts…available upon request for almost any need.”

And offering the same material in different packages works. Just ask Time-Life Music. Or, more precisely, me.

I was channel-surfing late one night and stopped at one of the ubiquitous Time-Life TV ads, this one offering AM Gold, a multi-disc collection of ’60s hits. The list of songs scrolled by, the clips played, and I found myself saying, “I like that one.” “I like that one, too.” “That’s a good one.” And soon my will was destroyed and my credit card out. Even though I knew I had most of the tunes on 45s.

It wasn’t until about the third AM Gold disc arrived that déja vü set in. I not only had the 45s, I had these songs on CD. I went to the shelf and, sure enough, there was another 10-disc Time-Life collection I had bought: Super Hits of the ’60s. It was THE SAME SONGS! IN THE SAME ORDER! Only the album title and cover art had changed.

But at least I got the original versions. Nothing on there by KnightsBridge.

I blow the lid off of the latest development in the tech world.

More media mayhem as NPR Senior VP Ellen Weiss resigns her position over the Juan Williams fiasco. Who will replace her? Why, me, of course! Here is my excellent application for the job. And all true, by the way.