Pint of bitter and a Cornish pastie, please, luv. Ta.
THE CHICAGO VINNIE SHOW
Actually there isn’t a Chicago Vinnie show, but your superior correspondents are pleased to tell all of you veteran Vo Dilun music fans that Vinnie Earnshaw (aka, “Chicago Vin”) has been cast as “an evil aristocratic vampire” in a TV pilot titled The Fixer. Based on the Lawson Vampire series of books by Jon F. Merz (also the television show’s producer), they’ve already shot a pilot in Boston and are currently shopping it to the networks and cable.
So how did Chicago Vin morph into a potential TV vampire? “When friends of mine told me how much fun they had working on the film Amistad (in 1997), I said to myself that the next time a film comes to Rhode Island, I’ll put in for it.”
When Brotherhood began filming in town, Vinnie got cast as “an accident victim.”
“I was hooked. I started to take classes at Perishable Theater, which I highly recommend if you’re interested in acting,” Vinnie explains. “I also do the 48 Hour Film Festival, act in student films, work on film crews, and basically do every dirty extra job that comes around.”
Until the “evil aristocratic vampire” (the character’s name is Stephane Gautierre) becomes an actual television presence in our homes, Vin will be best-known as the bassist who worked with Jack Smith’s Rockabilly Planet and Loaded Dice as well as musical legends Carl Perkins, Sonny Burgess, Paul Burlison, Lazy Lester, James Cotton, and Gatemouth Brown. Most recently, he’s been playing with Jeri (Verdi) and the Jeepsters (they’re at the 133 Club in East Providence on Saturday) and working on his first CD in a number of years.
P&J look forward to seeing our favorite evil aristocratic vampire on the tube in the not too distant future.
BLOWN FIELD GOAL JESUS
Tough times lately for those football players and teams who had decided, obviously without consultation with the Man Upstairs, that God would be on their side.
First at Notre Dame, where a mural of Jesus on the Hesburgh Library overlooking the football stadium may have to be re-painted to morph from “Touchdown Jesus” to “Safety Jesus” given the team’s abysmal recent performances, this year ending 6-6, including a scintillating loss to P’s home state UConn Huskies. This signaled the end of the undistinguished head coaching career in South Bend of former N.E. Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie “Phat Phuc” Weis. While Weis may still find an NFL job, all that stomach stapling he did to get into elite hiring condition now seems an unnecessary annoyance.
And gosh, how Jesus must have wept — as did Florida quarterback and incumbent Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow after the game — when Alabama scuttled the Gators in the SEC championship game, ending their hopes of another national title. Tebow, an unrepentant Jesus freak, had on eye black on which said “John 16:33,” a passage in the New Testament from the Gospel of John which reads: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Well, Taliban Tim, seems the Big Sir had more than enough of a chore holding back the ’Bama pass rush for you, never mind overcoming the world. And the fact that you cried through your Biblical citation after the game makes it even more reprehensible, you big wuss.
