Warning- this humor isn't for everyone! I took the liberty of deleting the full swear words in the text, but you read at your own risk. The views and opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the webmaster although she did find it a bit amusing...
In spite of Josh Bell being one of those snooty classical music types, he's really pretty cool. For one thing he has a Stradivarius named "Tom". He could have called it Vladimir or Yasha or Edwin. It's his f***ing violin- he could call it "Froghead Spongebath" if he wanted. But he let it be just plain Tom. Don't confuse us with the facts, okay? Just let us have this "Tom" thing. Also he's from Bloomington, Indiana, which is the birthplace of Hoagie Carmichael and David Lee Roth. Toast staffer Ian was born in Bloomington, Indiana also- think about that for a moment. Now let it go. Feels good to get rid of it, huh? Josh Bell and Ian have similar fantasies of playing with an all female topless symphony orchestra. Well, maybe that's just Ian. Not sure. But if Yo Yo Ma came up to Josh Bell and said, "Josh, hot chick action symphony, baby. All female, all topless and they want you to play Bruch's Scottish Fantasy with Winton Marsalis." We bet he'd say "Aye Laddie, you can count on ma' strong good Tom." We'd pay to see that. Josh is also featured in the movie The Red Violin due out this year. Well, he was some kind of body double or something. But the violin playing in the movie is all his. Oh yeah, did we mention yet that he is one hell of a violinist? Well, he is. Even when he has to wear those white tuxes and stuff. He's got one of those really cool calluses on his neck, like all violinists eventually get. Looks like a dueling injury. It's cool. Really. Anyway in this movie he also is the 'artistic advisor' which we think means he told everybody stuff about playing the violin so they'd look like they could actually play it. It's a movie about the fictional history of a rare violin through three centuries and we guess that Samuel L Jackson and Greta Scacchi probably get to look like they are playing this violin when it's really Josh Bell. Remember that lame Ralph Macchio film Crossroads which had all the good Steve Vai and Ry Cooder guitar work in it? Well, it's sorta like that only this movie is directed by Francois Girard and has Samuel L. Jackson instead of Ralph Macchio so already it's bound to be less sucky. We figure that Josh was not the body double for Greta. Josh has all these really cool pals like the composer Edgar Meyer. They organized a quartet with bluegrass musicians Sam Bush and Mike Marshall. The next step for Josh is to think about covering some Dambuilders tunes or linking up with Nikki Garrat and Ten Bright Spikes. We think Josh would like to rock out a bit. We think he has it in him. Just think what he could do with Andy Partridge! No. Not that. We mean play music, jeez, what the hell are you thinking? Get a grip. Really. Did we mention he's won all kinds of big-a** awards? The remarkable Mr. Bell has won all kinds of awards since he was like, 14 years old and he's met all these big-s*** classical violinists and he gets a lot of praise from them, which is pretty hard to get because you know how everybody hates a show-off 14 year old. Almost everybody hates singin', dancin', actin', or violin playin' kids. And why shouldn't they? Who didn't really secretly hate Ricky Schroeder or Emanuel Lewis? Who are they trying to impress- other kids? We think not. They're just making a**-kissing brownie points with adults. So then your parents say, "Why can't you practice your violin more like Joshua Bell does?" and you can't, as a kid, say "Because I'm not some motherf***ing prodigy, that's why!" because if you said that your dad would give you the business end of his work boot. At least Josh Bell was a prodigy. Nobody's parents expect them to be a prodigy after age 20, anyway. They give up hope and just wish you'd get a job that entailed more than a work-logo'd polo shirt and a name tag that said "Hello, My Name Is Loser, Here To Serve You." If only you'd quit dating that Jerry Springer trash and go back to college and BE something, they'd be happy. That's all they want now. You've blown their dreams of getting filthy rich off your talent and would now be satisfied if you'd just move out of the basement. None of this ever happened to Joshua Bell. But don't hold it against him. He was a prodigy. He couldn't help it. Even if he slacked off and didn't practice he still played violin better than any one of his peers. That's why them there classical music types have to hang around with adults, because they ain't got no peers. Joshua Bell works really hard, too. He gives over 100 appearances in one year. That's a hell of a lot of fiddlin', my friend. He's got really beautiful hands and he knows how to use them. Oh yeah. Also he's been featured in a lot of magazines and s*** because he is a pretty hot lookin' guy. But actually, if you never saw Joshua Bell and you just heard him play, he would seem far more complex and deep and harsh and gentle and magnificently ugly and uncompromisingly beautiful. If you see pictures of him, he's just a cute guy. And cute guys are a dime a dozen. Actually, with inflation the way it is, they are now a quarter a dozen. But that's still cheap seeing as how you can only use one or two of them at a time. Using any more than that is just wasteful. Please, think of the environment and only use a couple of cute guys at a time. After you're through with them they just hang around creating a real mess. Give a hoot! Don't pollute!
Let's ditch this article and get back to the important stuff!
