Glenn Rubenstein

Jun 12

This American Life - Season Two Episode 1 - "Escape"

I’ve been thinking about the This American Life episode “Escape” since I watched it via Showtime OnDemand earlier this week. I’ve been recommending the episode (and the television series) to almost everyone I know — especially to those who enjoy This American Life and Ira Glass in the series original incarnation on National Public Radio (NPR).

And also - SPOILER ALERT:

I’ve also been recommending the episode to anyone I know who is a fan of Johnny Depp - because, well, Johnny Depp proves what a badass he is by lending his voice to the incredibly moving second segment of this episode.

Okay, no more This American Life ”Escape” spoilers…

After talking about it to a friend who doesn’t have cable, and wanted to watch the video online, I did some searching around online video sites to see if I could find the episode, which was This American Life’s first episode of its second season on Showtime. However, there wasn’t anything on YouTube, Hulu, the torrent sites, or even a rapidshare AVI link to be found.

As an afterthought, I visted Showtime’s site for the series and then started looking around the Showtime site. I saw that Showtime offers the second season premiere in a free preview section - although you’d never find the streaming online video version that’s provided if you were doing a Google search for “This.American.Life.S2E01.avi.rar” or something similar LOL.

Thankfully, Showtime actually offers the episode in decent FLV-SWF quality via BrightCove, which allowed me to embed the video here. See, there are perfectly free and legal solutions out there for these sorts of things!

If you haven’t seen this episode, the main segment of the episode, which I referenced above, starts near the 6 minute mark (although both stories are quite good and the entire episode is worth watching).

I won’t spoil the surprise for those who don’t want to know in advance, but the latter segment is quite powerful - further underscored by the subtle contributions of one individual, whose involvement I wasn’t expecting.

Even though it’s synonymous with NPR, I personally think that Ira Glass and his compelling presentations of personal stories from around the country are better suited for the more visual medium of television. In my opinion, the above episode of This American Life certainly wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact on the radio version of the show. - Glenn Rubenstein

Jun 9

Duty Calls

It’s the Call of Duty… part 2.

It’s been about 11 months since I fired it up, and man - it still makes me think about what the world was like during WWII and the sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation. Probably not what most people are thinking about during a deathmatch across the more devestated parts of war-torn Europe, but my mind tends to find tangents at times.

It’s also still a helluva PC game, and while it doesn’t look as sweet as the next-gen eye candy of Call of Duty 4, CoD 2 doesn’t look bad at all when its running on a decent 3D graphics card with all of the bells and whistles turned on.

Thankfully, I kept getting the maps I’m not that fond of or else I’d still be playing at this very moment. I mean, if only it were that recreation of taking the beach at Normandy or one of the better UGC maps (like the airbase with the skyway transport)… - Glenn Rubenstein

Glenn Rubenstein on Arlington Road

Arlington Road was an alright movie up until the last few minutes… but at that point, its well-crafted ending kicks in, which greatly enhances the film. For that reason, I recommend watching it. - Glenn Rubenstein

Jun 6

Blood Of Abraham

Blood Of Abraham remain a unique hip-hop group to this day - there aren’t many serious Jewish rap groups in existence, and these guys were the first that I’d ever heard when their debut was released in 1993 on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records. They also had the most bitching print campaign ever, at least from my recollection of the ad that ran in The Source… it was quite simple, and said “Jesus was a Black Jew.” I was also lucky enough to meet the group in 1997, when I dragged my bandmate Dominic out to see them at Billboard Live in Hollywood, where they were opening for a band we’d never heard of at the time, called the Black Eyed Peas - Glenn Rubenstein

That Dog

I first heard That Dog when their album Totally Crushed Out was released in the summer of 1995. The song Ms. Wrong was on the CMJ sampler that month and I really liked the mix of harmonies, guitar rock, and violin. The rest of the album was hit or miss, but certainly an improvement over their self-titled debut CD which I picked up at the same time. I had the chance to see the band live, opening for Weezer at the Warfield in San Francisco, but instead went to the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma that night, which was a good thing because I caught the band Generation Y’s last show ever.

In 1997, I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of That Dog’s Retreat From The Sun, which is by far their best album and one of my favorite albums of all time. The songwriting had matured and the arrangements were solid - it would be hard to pick the single best cut on the album, but Minneapolis is probably the one I listen to the most. How can you not love the lyric, “by definition a crush must hurt?” - Glenn Rubenstein

Glenn Rubenstein's Fortune Cookie for 06/06/08

Keep your plans secret for now

I think this YouTube video offers all the proof neccessary that King of the Hill is a really funny show. Sure, it doesn’t get the attention that the Simpsons, South Park, or Family Guy gets - but I think it’s been surprisingly consistent over the years. And through the miracle of streaming online video, I can watch this clip anytime I want a good laugh.

“Glenn Rubenstein is on your side.” Glenn Rubenstein