Distracted by Words

ACE

2010-08-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

2 years late on this one. I feel like I could listen to this stuff forever:

CFCF's 2008 Discobelle Mix

Thoughts after Pitchfork Music Festival

2010-07-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

for some reason, i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and in Diplo's P4k interview today, I kinda got inspired:

"So this year I realized, if I don't do the stuff I feel like, if I make rules about what I can't do, someone is going to take my rules and fuck it and do it better than me. Someone like will.i.am will do a record that sounds like something I did and sell a million copies. What are we fighting for? You just have to do, you can't live by the rules of what you're supposed to do. I think every person is good at something and you just have to push that forward. If I can go from doing a record like Snoop Dogg, and then Rolo Tomassi, a punk record, and then work with Robyn and then Tiësto, I just think that's funny."

okay, maybe this quote doesn't totally capture it, but I realize a lot of what I/Everyone tends to do is try to recreate what other people have done in the past. Or, more often, take a bunch of things they've already heard and put them together in a blender and spit out the results. I mean, the Major Lazer show is a great example of something that really seems like something paving its own way. Let's look at it like this and break it down. You have:

-An insane hype man that seems like a dude from a different planet
-A DJ that plays everything from crazy-ass minimal miami bass music to dubstep to Ace of Base to Ska
-A completely bonkers theatrical narrative to an hour set (from chinese dragons to ballerinas to dudes jumping off of ladders and tying chicks in military outfits up with rope and "daggering" them)

Keep in mind Major Lazer has only been a real thing for about a year. ONLY ONE YEAR!!!

When people talk about there not ever being another MJ or Beatles or whoever, I don't think they are following things the right way. They're looking for someone with a TALENT larger than these idols in a kind of old-school way. Like looking for a better singer or dancer or better chord progressions or whatever. In my opinion, the new next level talent lies within what Diplo is talking about. The ability to evolve. The ability to break rules and make things that are amazing. To constantly push ones self and allow for mistakes to be made. While the Beatles and, to a lesser extent, MJ evolved from record to record, what I'm starting to see now are the great artists evolving in very large ways ON A MONTHLY BASIS. Which is something I find myself struggling to keep up with. Like I feel like by the time I figure out how to be as good as some of my current idols, they will have already gone on to somewhere five-levels beyond that.

Anyway, this is all exciting and exhausting and kinda makes me want to give up making music sometimes. But most of the time, it inspires me. Every time I think of giving up making music and just being lazy and listening to it and being a DJ or whatever, something out there online gives me a kick in the teeth and gets me back to my laptop, headphones and keyboard.

Balearic as Fuck

2010-06-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

So the sun is out. People are shedding layers of clothing and skin as music seems to keep pace with genres being shedded and metamorphizing into new rebirths. Not to be one of those dudes that lumps thing into groups and declare some sort of overarching humanistic movement, but this is the way we get the blog hits, I guess, so here I go.

Indie rock seems like all about dead. Chillwave is splitting and self-replicating into sub-stems of even more hilarious monikers: Witch House, Chill House, Beach Glitch, Sun Pop. Some of these will come, some of them will go. There is no doubt, however, we all like to feel something when we hear music, and lately that vibe has been mostly, well, good.

This post is basically an excuse for me to post about one of my favorite bands this year, whom I consider an important precursor to a lot of stuff that is coming out now and is very, very good and very, very under-appreciated. That band is the Tough Alliance, and they look a little something like this and sound a little something like this:

Tough Alliance- Hung Up on a Dream (Zombies Cover)

And then here is some other great stuff:

So yeah, they're basically like the Beach Boys meet the dudes from the movie "Funny Games" meets Swedish production. They fall into what some are calling the "New Balearic" movement. Not to be too reductionist, and this genre can probably mean a lot of things, but to me it means electro-tropical with a retro sentimentality. Kinda like the beats from Gloria Estefan's "Conga" slowed down a bit with people singing sort of nostalgically over it.

So what else is following suit? Groups like Delorean, Aeroplane, and Tanlines riff heavily on this kind of stuff, but I feel like the best is yet to come. Get ready for more posts on this and enjoy the fucking weather when the sun is shining down.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

2010-05-05T22:08:00.001-07:00

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti- Before Today album. Disgustingly good. Maybe a little mind-blowing.

Here is a song from it:

PS the image above is a drawing by Pink. The rest of the fuckupness can be found on his Angelfire account

Look I Found Her

2010-04-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

James Blake, yep he's good.

I wish I was an electronic computer wizard at 21.

This really works best with headphones and non-Youtube quality.

Lone

2010-04-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Like if Flying Lotus, J Dilla and Boards of Canada had a beach party. You're all invited.

A whole ton of chillwave

2010-04-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ride the chillwave until you get sucked out into the peaceful ocean of forgotten dreams.

MP3

MP3

MP3

MP3

New Das Racist Mixtape

2010-04-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

These guys are as divisive as health care. I feel like I'm on the right side of things when I say they are a Big Fucking Deal. I also feel like I should have posted this a week and a half ago when that reference would be relevant and this was fresh out. Anyway, peep this:

Das Racist- Shut Up Dude Mixtape

Das Racist

2010-03-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Like this response, like this song, like this video.

Village Voice: Your PR materials insist that you "have a great deal of street cred." I am frankly skeptical. Can you elaborate?

Das Racist: Rick Ross was a corrections officer, Ice Cube was the son of two college professors, Tupac was a theater kid in high school, Drake was on Degrassi, De La Soul are from the suburbs. The Clipse, Andre 3000, and Kanye have written and spoken openly about not having street cred, etc. I just mentioned like a dozen people with one biographical note about each of them that goes against the archetypal understanding of them, but I still didn’t actually describe who they were. These were all real people with long and complex lives who made/make real and effective art that has had an impact on black people and white people, rich people and poor people, Americans and the rest of the world. Bob Dylan was a college-educated Jewish man singing like a dustbowl sharecropper, and he got booed offstage when he went electric for sullying his folk purity, as if he had any to begin with. Do people get mad at Martin Scorsese for making gangster movies even though he hasn’t “lived the lifestyle”? I’m not arguing that context is useless for understanding art—on the contrary, there is no way to understand anything without context. My argument is for a less static and qualified idea of what “purity” is.

AlsO

Is one of you the Hipster Runoff guy? Just checking.

H: The fuck is a Hipster Runoff? Is that a YouTube?

V: It's a blog. I just Googled it.

New Hudson Mohawke Mix

2010-03-17T15:14:00.001-07:00

Still great. I think I might drive up to Chicago to see him in a coupla weeks:

Red Bull Radiate Mix

The newest Aeroplane chart mix is also just as delicious, just in a different way:

Aeroplane "Chart Mix" February 2010 by Aeroplane (Official)

The sexy, funky stuff

2010-03-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

All I have to say is please, DJ's, start playing more of this stuff instead of all that other garbage. K? Thx.

Sincerely,

Elderly Music Fan

Pegasus-I remember loving you

Conway and Temple- Love Lights

Isaac Hayes- Moonlight Lovin' (Menage et Trois)

Seriously, the best. Thank you late 70's/early 80's producers.

The sexy (sorta) dark stuff

2010-03-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Again, I'm new to this 'dance genre', so some of this old sexy italo disco/disco lemonade/funk stuff may be like been there done that, but I thought I'd whip up a batch of the freshest shi*. Most of these have that elusive "gauze of nostalgia" without sacrificing top-dollar production value that I think everyone is looking for in these scavenged-over gemmies.

Gino Soccio- Dancer

Project Sandro-Blazer

no preview vid for this one, but get it too:

Ripple- The Beat Goes On

You Will Join a Cult

2010-02-10T12:24:00.001-08:00

I used to be obsessed with movies. When I was a kid, before imdb, rottentomatoes, and online movie trailers, I would pour over thick movie guides and entertainment weeklies trying to find things that would tickle my interest. Then, eh, movies kinda started not taking the same risks they used to take and then music went and filled in that gap. I pretty much watch 2-3 movies in the theater a year now, and I usually can only come up with one movie each year that I would strongly recommend. This post is intended to break up some of the monotony of the mp3s postings and let me talk about something else. Blah, no one reads this blog anyway.

Anyway, welcome to Distracted by Movies (tm)!

Here's a few flicks I've seen in the past year that are totally worth checking out if you are sick n tired of the Hollywood turd-machine.

1) House: It was at the point in this movie where the young Asian woman gets assaulted for 5 minutes by flying mattresses that I knew I had made an excellent choice.

This movie features: a floating head biting a girls butt; a killer fluffy kitty that looks like its from those Fancy Feast commercials; a piano that eats people; a man inexplicably turning into a banana-man; an incongruous 70s psychedelic pop soundtrack; and a million other visual non sequiters. Petition your local cinema to acquire this nu-cult gemstone.

2)In Bruges: This movie is seriously like the best movie I've seen in the past few years. I think it's destined to become a late night cult favorite too.

Features: A midget dressed in a schoolboy outfit getting it's face fully blown off by a shotgun blast; Collin Farrel as a good actor; tons of funny suicide jokes; cocaine use and guns being used to casually gesticulate or scratch heads; and children being murdered in churches followed by funny visual gags. Oy vey, rent this from your local mom-n-pop DVD mailing service, now!

3) The Room: Look, if you haven't seen this, get on it. And make sure to bring tons of friends. The easiest film in the world to make fun of.

Features: Tommy Wiseau's bubble-wrap, crater-ridden ass; Music and lyrics by Tommy Wiseau; Mr. Wisseau attempting to speak but more sounding like he's chewing something large; 6 million dollars in production values; A legion of fans that will put the Rocky Horror Picture show out of business.

God Bless the Aeroplane

2010-02-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

One of the best mixes I've heard in a while. Just stellar:

Aeroplane "Chart Mix" January 2010 by Aeroplane

Let's Look Inside a Crazy Person's Mind

2010-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

There are certain high points I hit on the internet where I'm staring at my web browser and whatever is on it and I'm like "uh huh, this pretty much smashed everything else to smithereens". Lately, I've been feeling like the smashing to smithereens--while once too far and between--is now almost happening frighteningly too fast.

Here is a brief collection of things I've seen the past few months that I feel like might be front runners for "The Perfect Entertainment" that David Foster Wallace alludes to in Infinite Jest. I feel like these things kinda capture the zeitgeist pretty well, with just about a thousand layers of different things going on to the point it comes at you like a weird, hypnotic scream:

1) Earth vs. Funk. The aural and visual equivalent to getting Nickleodeon slimed while on a pep-pill buzz. This video is like some futuristic, insane homage/parody of the evolution of the internet, completely with bizarre, bargain-basement flash animation, obscure pop culture (Colin Mochrie's disembodied head?), and an unparalleled manic intensity. Be prepared to feel like you live inside a cartoon dreamworld after this one.

2) The Anger of Bonobo Violent. Upon rewatching this, it doesn't have quite the same impact as it did on me several months ago, and I'm kinda like "ho hum, dubstep, wampity wampity, who cares" now, but the editing and music on this video is scary intense, but kinda a fun rush too.

3) Die Antwoord. There's just a lot going on here too. They're from South Africa, and kinda make me want to move there to explore whatever the hell this art scene is. Also, this one about being in love with a Ninja is pretty great. It's kinda like Chris Cunningham meets Michel Gondry, or something like that.

4) Johnny Depp in China. This clip features: Crazy Japanese culture Bizarre yet adorable children; Hitler moustaches; Out of control music and choreography AND; an increasingly awkward American celebrity by the name of Johnny Depp. The clip starts out innocent enough, with a cute japanese kid wearing a Jack Sparrow outfit waving at Depp, and then the insanity hits the fan pretty quickly. Watch it.

CFCF-Come Closer

2010-01-26T19:12:00.000-08:00

This track is just amazing. Sexy and dark and head-bobbingly awesome, I can't think of anything I'd more rather hear at the beginning of a DJ set in a dimly lit club. Kinda like a cross between Junior Boys and Burial:

CFCF-Come Closer

Ready for Summer?

2010-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

Seasonal Affective Disorder has started effecting everyone, and I plan on changing that with a little bit of summer time rap. Feel free to bump these out of your boom boxes underneath those rain-soaked awnings or inside your winter cave; music can make the seasons change, baby! Here are some standout sunshine rap trax:

PS if anyone has the Deniece track that is sampled on this, I would love to have it. Pretty hard to find, for some reason, despite it's sampling ubiquity.

Beach House

2010-01-19T10:42:00.001-08:00

Beach House have a really amazing album coming up, and are also going to be playing with our favorite glo-fi dude Washed Out in Nashville at the end of April. Here's a fantastic track from their forthcoming Teen Dream. Wonderful melody over a complicated yet simple chord progression. Sounds like Grizzly Bear a bit too much, maybe, but you probably can't go wrong ripping those dudes off:

More Nashville Stuff: Non-Jersey Shore Edition

2010-01-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

So first off, I'm new to this city, so anything I post here about the goings-on is bound to be old hat amongst the cool kids, but here's some stuff I'm into:

1) JEFF The Brotherhood: These guys are probably like the Nashville equivalent to Portland's Starfucker (Ahem, I mean PYRAMID). Not so much music-wise, but in terms of the precipice of popularity they are currently resting upon and how many boners bloggers around here seem to be sporting over them. They have a new music video here, which isn't like the next On To The Next One mega-production, but a pretty good visual equivalent of what I think they're trying to get at sonically. House parties, slightly psychedelic slo-mo, aura of nostalgia and sentiment; a very simple video for a pretty darn good song.

2) Natural Child: These youngsters remind me of the Black Lips, since they look a little ratty but sexy too and they play jangly, who-gives-a-fuck guitar rock like champs. Gonna go check 'em out soon.

3) LOCAL SHOWS! We have some pretty decent shows coming here, finally. Of Montreal rides in on their psychedelic unicorn February 6th at the Cannery (the same night Girls play at Exit/In, way to go shitheads). Passion Pit plays Vanderbilt April 24th, so get ready for some insanely high-falsetto vox coming from the campus that day. Then, of course, those bepolo-ed light and catchy indie-rockers Vampire Weekend will be hitting up the Ryman April 5th.

Cool, man. Now we just need a good electronic/dubstep independent promotions company around here like Portland's Abstract Earth Project (who brought around the likes of Skream, Joker, Rusko, Nosaj Thing, Flying Lotus etc. to Stumptown before they were super-huge) and we can truly call this place Music City. Right guys?

Some Exciting News From Nashville: Jersey Shore Edition

2010-01-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

Oh sorry, I didn't notice you. I was rubbing suntan oil on this Boys Noize 12"

When I first moved here, I was excited to explore and understand the music/dance scene. Like, do people out here know how to dance without forming in a line and doing synchronized moves while the music tells them how to perform those moves? What exactly is a honky-tonk and do they allow black people? And where can I buy rhinestone-studded mudflaps?

I've been out and about for around 3 months, and my thoughts on the "scene" here are probably for another time and another blog. Let's just say so many bands have skipped over this town, I was genuinely shocked to find out Girls decided to schedule a date here (after they had made their tour schedule, too). Anyway, to sum it up, I've been a little frustrated with what Nashville has to offer in terms of music I like and want to see live.

That was, until I found out this was happening.

That's right, Pauly D AKA DJ Pauly D AKA The Man with the Tan has decided to grace us with his presence right here in Nashville downtown at McFaddens in 2 weeks. If you haven't seen the Jersey Shore, then you probably are trying to detect if there is hidden sarcasm in my writing. THERE IS NOT. I will firmly stand behind the statement The Jersey Shore is the greatest show about New Jersey since The Sopranos without a smirk, and also say that during the episode where Pauly D "Rocked it on the 1's and 2's" at club Karma was fantastic. I couldn't help but pound on my hardwood floor to the kick-drum crescendo he dropped before doing a few flip kicks and fist pumps. Thoroughly stoked for his arrival.

Merry Axemas

2009-12-25T20:10:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having a wonder xmas! I've got two presents for ya, and yep, you guessed it, they are music. One is a straight up, out-of-the-box song from yrs truly and the other is nicely wrapped in a zip file from an old roommate and music buddy.

Dark Beach.mp3

I recorded this one about half a year ago and it's unreleased. Major internet points if you can tell me what the vocal sample is from!

The next thing is a great collection of songs over at blogginess, mostly from this year, broken into 3 themes: songs you capital N need; songs that are a little bit out there but still great; and really frickin' sweet covers. You can't go wrong with free tunes, man!

200andfine songs

Washed Out Mixtape

2009-12-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

Lo-fi Lo-fi Lo-fi!

Washed Out Mixtape he did for His Wife

Top 10 Mixes of 2009

2009-11-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

1) Kutiman: ThruYOU

If you haven't seen these yet, ohhhhhhhhhhboy are you in for a spectacular, game-changing treat. Globetrotter and funkmaster genius Kutiman has really put together something special: an amalgam of YouTube videos spliced up and rearranged to make half a dozen songs. I feel like if I try to describe what is actually going on here, I will not be able to capture the multiple levels that are happening; just watch and listen to ALL of them. If this were an album, it would easily be in the top 5 albums of the year.

2)Crookers: We Make it Good Vol. 7

I feel like this mix (or at least the songs contained within), which came out sometime in January I believe, has influenced future-pop and dance music more than anything else that came out this year . Brilliantly paced, expertly mixed, with some top notch dance songs from taste-making Italian group Crookers, the masterminds behind Kid Cudi's Day N' Night infamous remix. If mixes were cars, this one would be a torqued out Maserati barreling between the Arc de Triomphe at 150 kmph.

3) Theophilus London: This Charming Mixtape

Rising Brooklyn blog-star Theophilus London put out a fascinating mixtape earlier this year, combining everything from Italo-disco to UK funky to Punk in a seamless journey of sound with a hip-hop lean. Exquisite taste here.

4) The Nag: Pierra Creperie French House Mix

I found this online, a mix a DJ made for the Hawthorne food cart Pierra Creperie, and was always disappointed to never hear the beautiful but morose looking girls playing it. I'm not sure they realized how good it was. The builds and releases are perfect, and all of the songs are top-notch glimmering french house (a genre I didn't know I was really into until this). Beautiful club music for cruising around to.

5) Hudson Mohawke: Fadermix

I already blogged about this recently, but I'll plug it again. Very fascinating mix from Warp's latest star Hudson Mo. Lots of interesting beats and mixing choices. Some really great obscure stuff on here, including a beat from the alternate production of The Blueprint 3.

6) J. Cole: The Warm Up

While not the most out-there mix on this list, this mixtape shows Roc-a-Fella's latest signee J. Cole's amazing talent and possibility. Maybe one of the best new rappers out there, in my opinion.

7) Tyler Tastemaker: NBD2K9

While the title to this mix sounds like a lame EA sports game, it's actually one of the best dub-steppish mixes I've heard this year. While most dubstep seems to get harder and gnarlier, Portland's own TT likes to choose the more laid-back, fun party jams and put them in the mix; you can definitely hear a DJ/Rupture-esque, world-music influence, too. A whole heck of a lot of fun right here from one of Portland's best DJ's, right next to Soul Night's infamous DJ Beyonda.

8) DJ 100Proof: Backyard BBq vol. 3

A great mix to light up a joint to (although pretty much all of these fall into that category), this one come's from Seattle's DJ100Proof, who puts together a chill, summery well-balanced mix full of mid-tempo soul, funk and reggae.

9) Ginz: Datatransmission

Joker's partner in crime put together a pretty good showcase of the purple dubstep sound here, and mixes it a whole hell of a lot better than most of the dubstep mixes out there.

10) Tokimonsta: Why So Serious?

A very interesting compilation of more low-key, Flying Lotus-y glitchy stuff, but never annoying.

Best Music of 2009 Pt 1: Top 10 Songs of 2009

2009-11-22T13:16:00.000-08:00

10 Singles of the Year

1) Washed Out Feel it All Around/New Theory

There's really no contest right here. These two songs are going to influence the direction of music probably more than anything right now. Feel it All Around is like a stoned-out dream on a beach, while New Theory feels like the saddest, most nostalgic feeling draped in a blanket of warm reverb and tape hiss. If there was ever any indicator that music has ascended to a higher art form in the past few years, this is the benchmark.

2) Joker Purple City

As dubstep has pretty much taken over the globe the past year, the wheat and the chaff are becoming more clear, with unfortunately more chaff than wheat. In what is a relatively neonatal genre, there are already beginning to be incredible amounts of subgenres sprouting up, with everything from brostep (filthy bass, simple repetition, moshable beats) to dubblestep (wobbly bass and dubstep rhythms at a blistering 130bpm). Joker is is the cream of wheat in this crazy-ass silo, and his massive tune Purple City pretty much blows up anything else laid in its path, no matter what the subgenre. This is the perfect tune for pretty much any mood: sad, excited, overwhelmed, anxious, happy. Just make sure you've got a good system with block-rocking bass, and you're good.

3) Animal Collective My Girls

Is was upon the second listening of this song, which was accompanied by the music video, that I saw the genius that was AC. Hopefully this just speaks for itself.

4) Dirty Projectors Stillness is the Move

A supremely talented group with a surprising full length effort this year, Dirty Projectors along with Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend have come to represent how something REALLY good can blow up incredibly fast, with DP already on their second big tour this year and gracing the covers of pretty much every mag. Stillness is the Move is easily their best track off of one of the best albums of the year, a jam that has elements of R&B, indie, eastern, classical, and hip-hop. You must hear it.

5) The Big Pink Velvet

Kinda like Trent Reznor meets Beach boys, this track is incredibly dark and incredibly sweet. Extremely epic without seeming maudlin and marvelously depressing without pushing you too far over the edge, this would probably be a number one track of the year in any other year, except the four tracks ahead of this were just too amazing.

6) Young Ray ft Chip Tha Ripper I Know

As far as bumping-shit-really-loud-in-your-car music is concerned, this synthed out rap masterpiece is the best of the year. In fact, it's pretty good for any occasion, as long as you're okay with feeling fresh as fuck. I am baffled this song does not get any play anywhere and nobody seems to know of these guys. The Cleveland rap scene should be taking over the world by now.

7) Major Lazer Pon de Floor

If you've been to a club the last year, you've probably heard this mixed in a some point. I'm not sure entirely if it's one of the best "tracks" of the year, but it certainly is 2009's dopest beat. Produced by Diplo and Switch, the dudes behind MIA's mega-banger "Paper Planes".

8) Grizzly Bear Two Weeks

A simply beautiful track from everyone's favorite Indie heavyweights. Looking forward to Jay-Z sampling this somehow.

9) Javelin Vibrations

This track combines pretty much I love about the lo-fi/no-fi aesthetic: chopped up, soulful harmonies, a bubbly beat, and a wonderfully nostalgic lead line.

10) Picture Plane Goth Star

Pretty much see above. Though this one's a little bit darker. Still pretty though.

NEXT UP: Top 10 Albums of 2009

This gets me excited for the Minnesota rap scene

2009-11-20T11:49:00.000-08:00

Wait, what? Anyway, just check it out. Some hungry-ass rappers right here, and with a dope, sinister beat to boot:

It's been a while since I've posted anything here

2009-11-17T13:22:00.000-08:00

No it's not, actually. I posted like a week ago. But here's something a bit off of the music path:

A COLLECTION OF RANDOM BLOGS THAT START WITH "IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE POSTED ON HERE":

"Shame on me for being a slacker. ;-) Seriously, I've been busy, but unfortunately, not with shooting as much as I would like to be.

I've been thinking long and hard about the type of work I want to do. In general terms, I'll shoot whatever. I gravitate to weddings because it's a happy occasion for everyone, and I love being a witness to love. I love commercial work, because I get to be adventurous in ways I can't be for a wedding shoot. I love portraiture for the same reasons.

So...what to do? Ultimately, I need to keep shooting. When I'm not behind the camera, I get cranky. ;-0

I think this spring/summer will bring new opportunities to expand my book and delve into areas I hadn't expected to go."

AND

Mid-terms came out a week ago, I'm getting a 75% average.^__^

I shall be in Europe in a matter of a few days. Is London a nice place?

and NIN June 2nd. Hell yes.

AND

"ITS BEEN A WHILE SINCE IVE BLOGGED.......SORRY I HAVE DICKS FOR FINGERS!!!! TO GET TO THE POINT CRUE FEST HAS BEEN A FUCKING BLAST. HANDS DOWN THE BEST TOUR IVE BEEN ON YET. SHARING THE STAGE WITH THESE BANDS IS AN HONOR. GETTING TO KNOW THESE GUYS IS THE ICING ON THE CAKE. THE TRAPT GUYS R COOL AS HELL. ROB THE GUITAR PLAYER AND I KICK IT ALOT....NICE GUY."

Thanks to Papa Roach for that last one.

For All Y'All R&B Heads

2009-11-12T16:03:00.000-08:00

Jeremih is another one of those dudes who's been out for a little bit, but snuck under my radar. He's pretty pop, but I can tell the guy is gonna be big in a few years once he hits his Kanye West-style "Insane Genius" period. Check out Imma Star, I've been addicted to it the past week:

Imma Star (Everywhere We Are) ...

The Harder They Come

2009-11-08T20:52:00.001-08:00

So this is older, and I suppose most "cool" people already know about this one, but I never knew about it until recently and have been loving virtually every track on it. Apparently this film came out called "The Harder They Come" and nobody cared, but then it got resurrected as a cult film kinda like The Room but with more gangsters and less football throwing and the soundtrack got really popular and then like all of America was banging reggae tunes out of their hi-fis, pretty much.

Jimmy Cliff, who played the primary character in the film, also did most of the soundtrack, and every single tune he did on here is golden. Here's a sampler, a song that Paul Simon or Bono or someone called "The Best Protest Song Ever Written...Period". I don't know about that, but it's pretty groovy:

Jimmy Cliff- Viet Nam.mp3

Merry Christmas

2009-11-03T15:29:00.000-08:00

Sleigh Bells (thankfully there's no clever "e" at the end there because they have a chick in their band) are basically like this equation:

The Go! Team+My Bloody Valentine+An Insane Hip-Hop Producer who doesn't know what "distortion threshold" means

Take it and eat it. Yum.

http://www.myspace.com/sleighbellsmusic

Hudson Mohawke Fadermix

2009-10-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

This shit is like DJ Beyonda, but with even weirder stoner stuff thrown in. In other words, I love it. Right click and save this one.

Hudson Mohawke Fadermix.mp3

Julian Casablancas from The Strokes

2009-10-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really excited for this one, I admit. I've always liked The Strokes and I think they are a mighty solid band, but for some reason, they never have really excited me.

Julian Casablancas has a new album coming out, and its very good in a lot of ways, and maybe even a little exciting. First of all, it's pop-catchy, but like the Strokes, has that underlying melancholy to it which keeps it from become the latest cheese-whiz of the week. Secondly, it's kinda modern sounding, with nicely textured synths and electronic drums subtly buffering the structures of the song ably.

Here's one of the catchier tracks. If you like it, I would highly recommend getting the album, because there's more where that came from:

Julian Casablancas- Out of the Blue.mp3

Damn, Funk

2009-10-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

Dam Funk (actually pronounced Dame Funk), has been rocking my shit the past few weeks. It's like head candy to go back to his spaced out gfunk, dope beats, and beautiful hair.

He's putting out a five-disc debut. FIVE! This guy is insane. But, guess what, it's all really good and totally listenable. Each has it's own theme, from love to being gangster, and the gimmicky idea really actually works.

If you're still listening to boring, depressing music, you should really start spinning some of this stuff. It's like the new, completely legal and organic way to get high.

Dam-Funk-Brooksidepark.mp3

Surfing with the Aliens

2009-10-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

If I were a director and I was trying to come up with an epic ending to my movie about space travel and the nature of god and existence, I would totally put this track at the end. It makes you feel like you are flying through the asteroid belt about to touch the face of the creator, although He probably wouldn't like it if your name were "Fuck Buttons". Or maybe he would laugh, I don't know.

Fuck Buttons- Surf Solar.mp3

Go buy their CD Tarot Sport because it's really good. In other related "Fuck" band news, did anyone hear about Starfucker changing their name to PYRAMID? The hell?

File under W for Weird, Wonderful, and Waikiki

2009-10-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

So I've been sitting on this one for a while, and I thought what better way to start the music blog off with this one. The artist is Sandii, and she is a J-pop artist who recorded from '79-'90 with her band the Sunsetz.

I don't know much more about this track, including what album it is from and what year it was recorded, but it sounds weirdly fantastic, from the odd tabala-esque beat to the abrupt yet ethereal shift in tone of the song.

Silly Games.mp3

Official: This Blog to Become (Mostly) Music Blog

2009-10-21T18:59:00.001-07:00

Now that I'm in Nashville, I thought I'd turn this into music blog focusing mainly on cool ass shit that I like a lot. This blog will primary focus on:

-Rare soul
-Weirdo jams from who knows when
-Anything influenced by drugs
-Good disco
-Lo-fi and glo-fi
-Some dubstep, but only if its REALLY good
-DJ mixes that are dope
-Gothed-out 80s and any dark and moody dance music

Yeah. I feel like I've come a long way from Less than Jake and Primus. Next post tomorrow!

New Track from Forthcoming EP

2009-10-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here is my first track ever in a long time. It's all future electro and shit, so I hope you like that stuff.

Summer is The Future.mp3

PS If anyone knows how to post this better than Zshare, please let me know.

This is Water

2009-06-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Been meaning to get to around to this.

DFW's commencement speech

R. Kelly's I'm a Flirt (Remix): Lyrical, Tonal, and Historiological Analysis of Hermaneutics Presented in the Work Heretofore

2009-05-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

[Chorus: R. Kelly]
(i'm a, i'm a, i'm a, i'm a) flirt
Soon as i see her walk up in the club (i'm a flirt)
Winkin eyes at me, when i roll up on
them dubs (i'm a flirt)

R. Kelly nee Robert Sylvester Kelly introduces the listener to his first single off of Double Up--a simple conceptual album dealing with various taxonomies within the duality of human nature viz. aestheticism, Apollonian ideals vs. Dionysian temptations, battling solipsism between the left and right brain hemispheres--by the repetition of a simple declaration of self. Such declaration is thus segued into a serio-comic first-person limited narrative involving a woman Kelly sees entering a late-night establishment (whether or not this is a french discotheque, member's-only social spot a la a grange hall, or simply a local watering hole is yet to be determined).

Kelly implies that the woman 'winks' her eye--a motif that is further explored in this tragio-comedic allegory--at him as he then arrives at this social gathering center in an automobile outfitted with large wheel rims generally associated with the wealth and social prestige of a young, African-American male. Via the repition of the titular refrain I'm a Flirt, Kelly also sets up a sort of subliminal contextualization for the remainder of the song.

Sometimes when i'm with my chick
on the low (i'm a flirt)
And when she's wit her man lookin at
me, damn right (i'm a flirt)
So homie don't bring your girl to
meet me cuz (i'm a flirt)
And baby don't bring your girlfriend
to eat cuz (i'm a flirt)
Please believe it, unless your game
is tight and u trust her
Then don't bring her around me cuz (i'm a flirt)

In order to intially establish himself as a fidelous yet hyper-sexualized alpha-male, Kelly continues to embellish the chorus with a melange of character messages and altruistic warnings. He first acknowledge's that when he is in a relationship with a partner, he is still always in a flirtatious mode. Or perhaps when he's in a secret affair with a woman he's still willing to flirt with her across the dance floor. This line's ambiguation provides a great leaping off point for the creation of a relatable character that satisfies all lyrically-critical demographics; almost no rationally-minded person can see the harm in "flirting" in general, since the phraseology implies an almost innocent nature. On the other hand, those who are able to read into the hyper-sexualized subtext of the crooning and libidinous delivery can agree with the dog-eat-dog nature of hypersexualized alpha-males and the susceptibility of unnattended females to their predation. The brilliance of his sexual-lothario delivery versus his somewhat intially benign lyrical content ties back into his established dualism (hence Double Up)

[Verse 1: R. Kelly]
Now swear to tell the truth
And the whole truth
When it comes to hoes i be pimpin like i supposed to
Rollin like i supposed to
Shinin like i supposed to
In the club, fuckin wit honeys like i supposed to
I don't understand it when a nigga
bring his girlfriend to club
Freakin all on the floor wit his
girlfriend in the club
And wonderin why all these playas
tryin to holla at her
Just soon as she go to the bathroom,*
nigga i'm gon holla at her

Kelly continues to perpetuate his love-struck altar boy/sexual predator dual-character in the first verse by making an initial declaration of sincerity, thus vulnerably opening himself up for criticism of his sexual-creep self while simultaneously gauzing himself with a sheen of human-like purity. This is where the narrative gets meta. Despite intially coming off a little soft and apologetic for his carousing ways, he then reclaims his identity and self by implying that it is merely his Hobbesian state of nature that impels him to fulfill his role as a lust-driven, sexual being. Kelly then changes the tone from a debate of nature-vs-nurture to a lamentable screed regarding men who tote along their partners to the club, even when it is obvious that every male in the vacinity who is either R. Kelly or is like R. Kelly will immediately pounce on her with ferocious intensity given the fraction-of-a-second window of opportunity.

*It is unclear whether Kelly uses the opportune chance of the disparition of a female to the restroom facilities to approach her en route to the commode or while she is physically inside the restroom stalls (a scenario that seems ridiculous, but would probably make sense in Kelly's mind)

A dog on the prowl when i'm walkin through the mall
If i could man i probably would
flirt wit all of y'all
Yeah, yeah homie u say she yo girlfriend
But when i step up to her i'ma be
like, "cousin"*
Believe me man, this is how them
playas do it in the chi
And plus we got them playerette flirters in the chi
Now the moral of the story is cuff yo bitch**
Cuz hey i'm black, handsome, i sing plus
i'm rich and (i'm a flirt)

At this point, Kelly visually changes the scenario to another place where "flirting" runs historically and sociologically deep and rampant: the shopping mall. In this virtual mating-ground environment, Kelly issues the same litany of warnings to all men who are in committed relationships: you would be wise to monitor your girlfriend at all moments, because given the chance, Kelly's ultra-dense exudation of charm and charisma will inexorably draw her away from you and your special date and into his bedroom with fur rugs, rotating beds with thousand-count egyptian cotton sheets, and ceiling of mirrors that makes Versailles look laughable.

Kelly penultimately end's the verse with a broad assumption of the techniques of co-fraternization and socialization employed in Chicago, Ill. While many famous sociological surveys and epochal events of historio-sociology have occured within the confines of Chicago (IE limnal ethnic zonation, the whole 'Chicago School'), no definitive work has yet been released vis-a-vis the interrelationary modality of co-sexual habits of pursuit in the area. Despite lacking clear empirical data to support his claim, Kelly's forceful assertion seems enough to himself to suffice for ibid evidence.

Kelly's conclusion bookends his allegorical tale with the staple of all classic fables: a clearly disambiguous moral that was previously stated somewhat ambiguously (though we all probably could tell): keep your girlfriend/life-partner/romantic-interest/daughter/female co-worker away from me unless you strongly wish for me to have sex with her. In order to reinforce his statement, Kelly posits the logic that he has a quartet of desirable attributes, thus you should heed to the thesis of his narrative (that he will flirt with your girlfriend and sexually overpower her).

*Note: The line "be like 'cousin'" can be interpreted multiple ways, and given Kelly's (allegedly) sordid past with having sex with everyone ranging from a 14 year old girl on camera to the underage rapper Aaliya, it might even imply he is looking for a young girl who he shares an almost familial kinship with. Let it also be noted these are not the official lyrics, and other lyric based sites have Kelly quoted as singing everything from 'be like Tarzan' to 'see my buzz pan'.

**Note: Kelly may not be purporting to physically restrain your significant other in handcuffs versus the more likely hip-hop vernacular of 'cuffing' someone or 'putting a metaphorical restraint' upon someone, but he certainly seems to think the former might be necessary around him.

(i'm a, i'm a, i'm a, i'm a)

Segue into rapper T.I.'s verse, which is not relevant to the dissertation.

[T.I. Speaking. General male braggadocio and ad hominem towards anyone in a loving, committed relationship that is keeping the overall single female pool from being at a less than desirable watermark]

Segue into singer T-pain's verse, which is not relevant to the dissertation.

[T-Pain. Auto-tuned but generally unintelligible narrative about falling in love with strippers and flirting with them regardless of their geographic location]

[Chorus Repeat]

[Verse 4: R. Kelly]
It's the remix
Now if u walk up in the club
Wit a bad chick
And she lookin at me
Then i'm gon hit
Man jackin for chicks
I tried to quit
But i'm playa homie
So i had to hit
While u buyin her drinks (in the club)
Actin like u (in love)
Stuntin like u (all thug)
We was (switchin numbers)

As the song nears the four minute mark, Kelly reminds the listeners that they are listening to a remixed version of the song, so, there's more where that came from. Kelly basically re-hammers his initial thesis, while also going back to the examination of his fundamental struggle with his predatory human nature.

She lookin at u when i walk by
U turn yo head, she wink her eye
I can't help if she checkin for
a platinum type of guy
She be callin me daddy, and i be callin her mommy
She be callin u kelly, when yo name is tommy
I don't know what yall be thinkin
When u bring em round me (mane)
Let me remind u that i am the king of r&b (mane)
Do u know what that means
That means if u love yo chick
Don't bring her to the vip
Cuz i might leave wit yo chick
Just keepin it real my nigga
It's a playa's feel my nigga
Don't take no bitch to the club when
u just met her my nigga*
Cuz i'm flirt wit her (right)
He gon flirt wit her (right)
And if she lickin dat good shyt
She gon flirt wit em

The end is lyrically superfluous, as Kelly has sufficiently exposited his thesis, provided excellent and verifiable evidence to suport it, and done a sound job of safely landing his narrative parabolic trajectory. The last verse is also is a bit fast and confusing, especially towards the end when the thesis comes dangerously close to unravelling: Kelly starts referring, perhaps in an addled state of paranoia, to everyone flirting with everyone and no one staying faithful or monogamous with their partners, thus ending on a surprisingly grim assessment of the real possibility of true love and fidelity in a modern, hyper-sexualized society.

*While this is actually a new idea to the song, and perhaps a thrown in afterthought, it can still be seen as kind of lyrically superfluous since it seems like a huge social faux pas that even the most dunderheaded would likely avoid at all costs.

[Chorus: R. Kelly]

Some critical commentary on the new Kanye West video

2009-04-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

It really fucking sucks:

Okay, I take that back. Hype Williams really sucks. Seriously, the guy makes the same videos every time: ridiculously polished and completely devoid of feeling or giving a shit about the tone of the music. The video itself looks good, and by itself I mean the palate of colors, the scenery, the lighting, etc. But you can only stare so much at pretty waterfalls and expansive lagoons while an incredibly dark song about the loneliness of egotism plays in the background before wondering whether Williams actually storyboarded this video for an old Kanye song and just dropped its template and wads of cash on top of "Amazing".

I think I'm so angry about this because the song itself is pretty amazing. It has a lot going on with it, from the aforementioned creepy darkness that's completely different from West's entire catalog (808s included) to a weird emotional dystopian futurism that sorta sounds like Frankenstein's monster being built for heartache warfare.

Had I directed the video, I would have first spent all the excess budget on counseling for Kanye and done a 4-minute slow-zoom one-shot of him rapping from a coffin with diffuse underlighting. God, this video really looks like half PR packet for Club Med half outtakes from Lost. Can we please end Hype Williams career, and with it, the oodles of unnecessary money he spends in place of being creative or even clever?

We're Number Two!

2009-04-19T19:04:00.001-07:00

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/04/13/daily61.html

Lets go camping!

2009-03-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

The creepily normal looking woods on the cover of Dept. of Eagles "In Ear Park" is culled by Dan Deacon for his upcoming album "Bromst".

I'll admit, while Park's light source is obviously the headlights of a serial killers 67' Camaro and not a high-powered flashlight inside a child's dream fort, the two share a striking resemblance.

Looking forward to Bromst, though, no matter how creepy Deacon seems.

The Abandoned Mansion of Mike Tyson

2009-03-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Sad.

Rumblings of something great

2009-03-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

First this, then this.

These are two huge steps towards something great and exciting. Check it out.

Or if you just want to watch something funny, then this.

The New AC Video

2009-01-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

It's coming together

Holy Two Posts!

2009-01-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

NEW BLOG BOOK BLOG ACT NOW LOOK LOOK LOOK!!!

Megaforce

2009-01-16T20:31:00.000-08:00

HERE HERE HERE

My New Favorite Phrase

2009-01-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

Nuke the fridge

2008: Year Wrap-Up

2008-12-26T22:17:00.000-08:00

As the candlelight dwindles from our menorahs, the soft glow of our christmas lights begin to fade, and the snow begins to slush and melt into a new year, let us reflect upon the things that brought us joy and anger.

1) The late '80's Cannes interview of John Lurie, subsumed in a post coke-binge morning haze, featured on the Criterion DVD of "Down By Law", with commentary.

I hate to start with something that is un-youtube-able, but it is so worth your time and effort that it deserves to be mentioned, despite not having an instantly gratifying clip available on the internet. In it, John Lurie delivers a bravura interview performance, ostensibly in the backyard of a yurt compound during the Cannes film festival in France. Cocaine is all but spilling out of his eye sockets and giving the off-camera interviewer a severe case of the uncomfortables. What makes the video particularly remarkable is the overlaid commentary, done by Lurie 20 years later, where he pontificates on his wild-eyed demeanor and self-aggrandizing statements. Utterly fascinating and hilarious.

2) My new favorite blog, everthingisterrible.com

If my internet were up to 2009 standard, it would understand how to embed videos, which as you can clearly see, is not my modus operandi. If it were, however, I would have embedded a hilarious video of magicians attempting to woo women through the powers of magic from everythingisterrible.com. The site, a blog of bargain-basement video tape segments shown sans context, however, manages to succeed in being up to speed with the latest online video technologies, so go check it out.

3) Finding money everywhere.

In my coat pockets! In my sock drawer! Underneath a frisbee! Where, o where, art thou, money? Everywhere, that's where. This truly was the year of finding cash when I expected it the least and needed it the most. Thank you, Money Jesus.

4) The movie In Bruges.

Woah, and this totally got nommed for a couple Golden Globes (although so did Mamma Mia, but I can't hate on ABBA!). It's really awesome and full of Collin Farrell acting hilariously fidgety and swearing a lot and has lot's of midget humor. Should easily win the Academy award for best Midget.

5) Getting platonic backrubs

Feels so good.

6) Snowgaddeon: Artic I-Death-arod and the return of Frostilicus.

Nothing was more fun than having an extended snow day for what seemed like an Alaskan winter. Nothing except for maybe the non-stop, boy-who-cried-wolf media hysteria and watching reporters freeze their asses off for the ratings bonanza. Top-shelf, Peabody germalism right there.

7) The economic collapse making me feel less like a factotum and more like a victim of society.

Over the last 2 years, I've gone through a lot of bunk jobs and career dead-ends. Before, I had nothing to blame but myself and a poor choice of college major. Now, with the economic avalanche befalling us, I have the perfect scapegoat other than my own lazy genetics.

8) Tea!

This was the year of falling in love with (noncaffienated) tea all over again (there's that phrase, yeesh). Be it the phonetic chutzpah of Pekoe or Oolong, the refreshing snap of mint, or whatever other flavors I can steal from my roommates, tea is the perfect beverage anytime of day (or night!). Just call me Mr. Tea.

FlyLo BBC essential mix

2008-12-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

So apparently there's this shit at BBC called essential mixes by popular djs. They're pretty long, so you have to be prepared for the ride, but they're all pretty good. Only problem is ol' BBC's lawyers don't think they're archive-legit, so you kinda gotta scour the netz if you want to find 'em.

Flying Lotus did one that I think is particularly Ill. Where could you find it? Well. It's probably somewhere out there.

Pushing the shit

2008-12-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder who will carry the producer torch now that Timbaland has sorta lost the midas touch and slowed down on pushing every sound and beat 25 years into the future like quincy jones on acid (sorry, i just lost the capitalizing function on my keyboard, but, like they say, the post must go on!)

anyway, i think this shit iz titeeeeee. ron browz hasn't really entered my radar, but he is kinda taking that torch and running like a motherfucker with it.

check it.

Music: Best o' the Year

2008-11-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

I figured since Uncut, Mojo, Paste, Blender, Q, and probably some obscure Balinesian monthly have already put up their top albums of the year, I should probably do it too, before someone accuses me of just copying Pitchfork or something like that.

Here.....dadadadadada.....itttttt....dadadadadada.....is!:

1) Vampire Weekend-S/T

Woah. It's like totally overhyped, but whatever. It still kicks a lot of ass; you can't go wrong with songs about idealized nostalgia and dormitory lawns. You just can't.

2) Starfucker- S/T

Yah Portland! You did it again, uh uh, you did it again. This CD will make you gaze at the stars and fall in love all over again, and maybe even make you want to eff them like the band.

3) Of Montreal- Skeletal Lamping

Who would have thought the follow up to pretty much the best album last year would be just as good and twice as sexual?

4) Sigur Rós- Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

I think this album didn't get due props because of its weirdo title that looks like the default script when we fill in unknown text at the magazine (quorum delorum et tu brute, etc.). It's good and fun and kinda makes you fall in love with Sigur Ros all over again (I really like falling in love, especially again, okay?)

5) No Age- Nouns

I was really really into this album for a solid 2 weeks. I played it all day and night, and even slept with it playing on my laptop under my covers. It's drunkish and scuzzy and passionate and about as lo-fi as I can tolerate, but still, it's music to my eardrums.

6) Fuck Buttons- Street Horrsing

Damn, this shit is good too. At first it's like tribal drum beats and shit, and then BLAAMMMMMMM, it's like a WWIII air-assault of thick-ass distortion and screaming into a playschool recorder and, well, it pretty much rules when you're driving to your job you hate and you want to beat heavily on your steering wheel.

7) Dodos- Visiter

Drums and acoustic guitar. Sounds boring, but these lads make the texture of their sound sad and sweet without going overboard into melancholy emo territory. Reminds me of the direction Death Cab for Cutie should have taken.

8) M83- Saturday's=Youth

You gotta love the French. The gave us Daft Punk, Justice, Baguettes, Parcour, and the Enlightenment. If you like that country or the band Air, you should probably listen to this.

9) Fleet Foxes- S/T

I honestly haven't fully gotten into this album, but I know its really good and probably belongs on everyone's top ten lists. And they're from Seattle! Go NW!

10) TV on the Radio- Dear Science

Same with this one. It's really great, but I haven't been excited to listen to it over and over again. Does that make me a bad person? Oh well, you should all listen to it, if anything to hear how far their production has come since Cookie Mountain.

Well. Regardless of what I say on this list, or how lackadaisical it seems to have been thrown together, you really should listen to everything on here.

Bush is Cool again

2008-11-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

Ice Cold

Bush has unveiled his list of presidential pardons before he bows out of an historic 8-year clusterfuck of lies, smarminess, and horribleness, and it's particularly noteworthy for not only being rather brief, but including a rapper.

The rapper in question is John Forte, who has done some collaboration with the Fugees among others. He was busted for cocaine and received some rather harsh sentencing under the current mandatory minimums that are being hotly contested right now, and now, thanks to Cool Daddy Bush, he is free.

I have no reasonable idea what was behind the decision for Bush to release him, other than maybe it makes him look Cool. I'm guessing he asked one of his Presidential Pages if they knew any Cool black people in jail for something stupid and quickly signed off on it. But what's even more Cool? He's not pardoning Scooter Libby, that one dude that was part of his circle and had a funny name and did something that was bad. Right now, Bush is so Cool, Steven King should retroactively add him to his "What's Cool" list.

Oh, I just found out this guy is much cooler.

The Wrestler

2008-11-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

Merriam Webster's definition of Lug

Mickey Rourke may just be the ugliest most loveable but also despicable leading man in all of Hollywood. When appearing in a movie, he mostly looks like a living version of Nick Nolte's DUI mug shot, and when appearing in real life, he pretty much looks the same but occasionally wearing a suit. On top of his battered, craggy looks, he has a pretty long list of eff ups, from teenage arrests to spousal abuse to DUIs--a quintessential ciriculum vitae for any ex-bodybuilder/boxer cum movieman.

He's kinda good in some stuff, but mostly stellar when playing someone close to himself; you know, washed-up, damaged, slightly hung-over and fucking ugly. He did this to a TEE in Bukowski's roman a clef Barfly as Henry Chinaski and is probably going to pull out the performance of his life in this thing that you probably should watch right here.

So this movie, The Wrestler, is directed by Daron Aronofsky, who seems to be taking a big departure from paranoid mathematicians and fractured existential parables with floating trees to settle down with a good ol' fashioned underdog story. I can see why he may have been attracted to the idea of making it, since The Fountain kinda made everyone's brain melt a bit too much and got half-boournsed at Cannes: he needed to win us, and everyone else in the industry, back over again. I also think this is all so he can get everyone on his side one more time before he unveils some even weirder shit, like an entire movie that takes place inside the vocoder-chip of Steven Hawking and is shot using an infrared lens that warps on contact with sound waves.

Here's the trailer

A heartwarming tale of the apocalypse

2008-11-17T15:34:00.000-08:00

For your book club

Brothers

2008-11-06T16:10:00.000-08:00

It always interests me when you find out two people are siblings when you don't initially make the connection. For example, it wasn't until the end of high school I realized Emilio Estevez was brothers with Charlie Sheen; he had decided to not align himself with his brother's Hollywood surname, thus keeping himself nicely protected from being associated with his success, fame, and collection of STDs.

In the news today, Rahm Emanuel was named Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. Turns out this guy is brother of noted Hollywood superagent and inspiration for Entourage's Ari Gold, Ari Emanuel. As much as I am looking forward to a change in the White House, I'm a little weary of the linkage. I mean, Ari Emanuel represents Mark Wahlberg! Imagine what the Lincoln bedroom would look like. Boogie Nights every day, I tells ya.

Anyway, this whole post was just an excuse to list a few other siblings you might not be aware of:

Kanye West's DJ A-trak and the Chubby dude from Chromeo

The dude who played Hyde on That 70s Show and the dude who plays Francis on Malcolm in the Middle

Joaquin Phoenix (who is quitting acting and launching his music career. Woo hoo!) and River Phoenix who is brother to Summer Phoenix who is married to Casey Affleck who is brother to Ben Affleck who is married Jennifer Garner who is daughter to James Garner (psyche!)

The Pre-election Buzz

2008-11-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

It's getting pretty exciting right now. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it has a lot to do with a real hope that the fucking United States and, in turn, the fucking world will change. I think a lot of us have been waiting for this moment for a long time and its quite surreal that it has finally arrived. I really can't say for certain how well whomever makes it into office is going to do, but I think we can all agree that it is an extreme relief that there will be some sort of dramatic shift in the next few years.

In less urgent news, Mr. David Duchony, my eternal doppleganger and Halloween costume this year, has hinted at plans to reconcile with his wife, Tea Leoni.

I ask: If a sex addict can reform his evil Hollywood ways, what better portent is there for the impending change that is to come?

New MacBooks

2008-10-31T15:34:00.001-07:00

New MacBooks are up on the Apple site. I may be incredibly late with this one, but it interests me because I used to work at a Mac Store and stuff like this was pretty much all we talked about. Now I could kinda care less, but it still looks pretty spiffy. It's also good to know the one I currently have isn't completely trash-and-burn obsolete, since they are still selling them at a nominally discounted price.

Hello, I will turn you into a new person

Other than the larger track pad and the solid aluminium casing, it seems like the only major upgrades are 2 gigs of RAM in the base model and a slight hard drive bump.

Oh, and apparently it's the "Greenest" MacBook yet. I'm not sure if that means you can bury it in your compost heap once its screen goes out or if it's using signicantly less power, but it kinda makes me gag when every product from Tampons to Televisions claim to be "greener than ever".

Stoked for this one...

2008-10-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

Beatles Rock Band game

So this is why Ringo won't sign his fan mail anymore: he's too busy weighing in to Harmonix on how to properly code his drum fills!

The Death Rattle of Old Media

2008-10-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

So, in case you haven't heard, newspapers and magazines are dying. Most of this has to do with the internet (I'd like to think my blog may have had some small part in dismantling these titans), and some of it has to do with the managers of these institutions not quite catching up with this phenomenon and failing to harness its power and innovate enough. There are a few survivors of the news apocalypse, of course, like the Wall Street Journal, and maybe the AARP gazette, but for the most part if you're young and hip, information is about the last thing you can imagine shelling out money for and anyone that reports news you care about is not able to put food on its table because of that.

With budgetary and editorial slashes galore, the biggest fear circulating around is that the quality of good investigative journalism will take a depressing nose-dive, and the information that floats the internet will be nothing more than an unbridled clusterfuck of rumors and slander. The NY Times, also one of the big-boys claiming to be running on fumes, has a pretty okay article on the current state of print media here.

I think this is partially true and partially perpetuated by the same people who don't quite have a grasp on where we are headed with all of this. My roommate once put it very well when he said "I trust Google more than Government", a kind of nice alliterative axiom that sums up a lot of things. While I don't totally believe in the power of a search engine over expert opinion, its pretty clear the ability to verify information has become easier than ever. Unfortunately, with this ease of validation comes the fact the everybody on the internet may be citing the same faulty source; but, if you look at certain stats on the speed that a Wikipedia page gets scrubbed when something erroneous is reported, or the lightning quickness of the backwards B story being debunked, it gives you a certain pride in the power of peoples curiosity and desire for truth.

While I have a certain faith in this invisible hand, it is only to a certain extent. It seems to only work with pop culture and other certain ephemera, which doesn't cover things that truly matter like corruption, fraud, and political fuckery. These are the things investigative reporters thrived on and tenaciously pursued; partly out of the desire to uncover the truth and partly out of the idea that they would make a name for themselves and become the next Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. With the elimination of the resources for this type of reporting, it gives me the howling fantods that the 4th estate isn't watching the other three, and we may be in for a lot of unreported and unknown shady dealings in the future. Criminals will always adapt to societies shortcomings, and this is a huge one.

Anyway, if you want to get more depressed, watch The Wire creator David Simon interviewed on Charlie Rose and read his article he wrote on his days working at the Sun. It offers a fascinatingly grim assessment of how we got here and where we may go. Then, if you think you can still take it, watch Tom Wolfe explain what he thinks here.

Merry Pranksters to get the Van Sant Treatment

2008-10-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I update this thing about as frequently as I cook a dinner for myself where the primary ingredients aren't cheese and pasta, but I thought this was noteworthy (I'm putting a ban on the word blogworthy for now, and I hope everyone else will do the same).

It looks like Gus Van Sant has signed on to adapt Tom Wolfe's novel The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, which is something I'm very curious to see take shape. For those not hip to the Portland scene, it's little wonder Van Sant took this on; Wolfe's novel follows the exploits of local OSU alum and outsider Ken Kesey and his posse of goggy drugsters across America, and if there is anything Van Sant is drawn to, it's tales of woebegone misfits and the Oregon region.

For me, Van Sant has been hit or miss, with the hit category mostly comprised of well-accepted, uncontroversial entries: hated Drug Store Cowboy, loved Finding Forrester and Goodwill Hunting, hated Elephant, and kinda turned off on what I heard about Gerry, Last Days, and Paranoid Park (I'm not a fan of "wandering around" movies, movies that really try to subvert the biopic trope, and movies that think using an entire cast of non-actors is a good idea). Fortunately, the material is pretty insane and its about a period of history that I always romanticize as being one of the most exciting times to live in (even more exciting than the internet age, can you believe?)

Speaking of Gus Van Sant, his new flick Milk is coming out soon (or has already come out in various markets), which makes me want to track down the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, which was recommended to me by a criminology professor at WWU mainly for the end (spoiler!) where the assassin of Milk claims what is now famously referred to as the "Twinkie Defense", or that the amount of sugar in his blood-stream was responsible for his violent act.

Finally, as a cap to this, you can check out Rolling Stone's pretty informative piece on the last days of David Foster Wallace, an incredibly talented writer who hanged himself recently. It gives a pretty good idea of what made him tick, and delves into his personal life and history a little more in depth than most other eulogies have done. Even if you haven't heard or read him, or if you have and have been inundated with enough retrospectives to fill a book with, give it a look.

Get swept up in The Bug mania

2008-08-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I get excited every time a music video employs large speakers as weapons of pacifistic resistance. I also get very excited when sexy, militantly-dressed dancers are digitized and pixel-warped to dubstep beats. Look:

Radiohead: Auburn, Washington

2008-08-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

Image Courtesy of Stephane

Radiohead are one of those artists that have achieved such a pinnacle of critical and commercial success, it is difficult to not attend their concerts without the highest of expectations. The atmosphere of the White River Ampitheater was thick with this expectation, as well, as this was their only appearance in the Northwest, and many attendees including myself had made quite a trek to see the diminuitive Thom Yorke and his merry band perform.

The opening act Liars, creators of my favorite album of 2006 Drum's Not Dead and the critically-acclaimed self-titled follow-up album, took the stage early with about a tenth of the venue's capacity filled. Despite the lack of audience present, they delivered a swift and energetic set, performing tracks mostly off of Drum and earlier albums. They closed out their set with a raucous version of "Plaster Casts of Everything", which amped up the slowly filling-in crowd for the headliners for the evening.

Radiohead took the stage around 9 p.m., just as the sun was fading over the horizon, backed by a hi-tech luminescent display of light-ropes and video monitors. As predicted by my friend, they launched with the opening track, 15 step, from In Rainbows, which immediately got the entire crowd to their feet. As the concert continued, they covered the entire Rainbows album, oddly with the exception of their latest single "House of Cards", and much of the rest of their pantheon. As the evening went on and people layered and zipped-up for intermittent rain, Yorke made subdued small-talk with the audience and, at one point, requested to shine a light on all of those huddled far out in lawn seating.

Even though it was a quintessential Northwest night, by no means were the performance or presentation chilly and gray. For those of us barely able to make out the bobble-headed Yorke, the light-and-video show were the real performers, certainly setting a very high standard for the future of concert visuals. Each song had a distinct tone and color-scheme, transitioning from warm oranges to icy blues to rich pinks. The large video displays flanking the stage and behind the band added a very exciting texture to the performance, as well; featuring a professional-appearing and intensly remixed visual medley of the livc show, it will be little surprise if what we saw on screen makes it into a live DVD or music video.

After coming out for a second encore, Radiohead left the stage with a droning analog signal and the word "Everything" rapidly scanning across the light-ropes. For most fans, this is an apt conclusion to a show by one of the biggest and best bands of the new century: a sense of foreboding and a call of responsibility to our generation.

Blog War: Cut-Offs

2008-08-17T00:20:00.000-07:00

Cut-offs, despite having a slightly negative sounding name like these guys , are the greatest reusable fashion statement to come along since thrift-store clothing. Cut-offs can be sexy, natty, or casual, and completely alterable to any of these styles simply with the provision of a cutting object. Although, for some, creating them may seem like a complicated and stressful task, one can create a pair with little more than:

1) An unwanted pair of jeans (or slacks) in need of repurposing

2) Scissors (krinkle-kut for maximum style points)

Also helpful are a bottle of malt-liquor for the courage to eviscerate a pair of pants beyond repair; a surveyor's level to ensure maximum evenness; a slightly self-destructive sentiment; and a box of milk duds for chewing pleasure. With these possessions and the right amount of determination, one can create a work of denim art.

The beauty of cut-offs lie not only in their aesthetics, but in the pure creative control afforded to the wearer: you are the designer, tailor, and, ultimately, the consumer. Some people, however, may pooh-pooh cut-offs for these exact reasons; they are afraid of their own taste in fashion and do not have the self-confidence to take the risk and wish for someone else, like a big denim corporation, to tell them what the appropriate length and style is. It is understandable that these naysayers don't like cut-offs, however, because they are in all likelihood at a very difficult stage in their life where they are not sure whether to dress hip and sexy or aspire to the fashions of this chick .

At other times, you may encounter people who are so anti cut-offs they may request you change out of them because they have a frayed hemline, look unprofessional, and are scaring away customers from your computer store. A quick fix would be to simply roll-up or staple the cuffs of your cut-offs. But, an even quicker solution would be to altogether ignore the anti cut-off person and glaring customers, finish your online crossword, and give your 2-week-notice immediately. This way, you will not be selling out your values of reusability and sustainability, and you will be also have a reason to leave a job you secretly loathe.

Cut-offs are an affordable, fashionable, and creative way to express yourself in a pants-less style. Some may tell you capris or cargo shorts are the way to go for the summer; if only they knew the ease and satisfaction of creating a pair of cut-offs, we may one day live in a truly pants-free and fashion-sustainable society.

Blog War: Milk Duds

2008-08-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

Ever since our nation developed an insatiable sweet-tooth, candy companies have been conjuring delectable confections to help ease the pain inflicted upon our taste buds by broccoli, vitamins, and fluoridated water. Noted chocolateer and midget-collector Willy Wonka put it best: We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams. Looking back at American candy history, our collective dream was to create the most delicious food ever conceivable no matter what the cost. Simply put, the only thing stopping from achieving our candied-goals is our own imaginations. And, to a lesser extent, obesity, Type I diabetes and tooth-decay.

Which is why a dream was hatched in a small chocolating laboratory in 1928 which eschewed the notion of moderation and attempted to create the gooiest, chocolatiest, milkiest, most caramel-infused concoction to sell to the hungry public. Unfortunately, something went horribly awry in the process. This unexpected turn of events led to a most serendipitous discovery, and out came what later would be known as a "Milk Dud"--a slightly lop-sided chocolate piece filled with a creamy, caramel center.

Despite having a self-deprecating name, Milk Dud's are known for their delicious, chewy quality, addictive aftertaste, and the ability for movie patrons to absentmindedly devour an entire Jumbo box before the previews have rolled. While some complain of the occasional difficulty chewing through the complexly sweet texture, most able-bodied and normally-jawed diners find no trouble in navigating the sweet, tongue-rolling journey that awaits ahead of them. Since their acquisition by Leaf and subsequent buyout by Hershey's, Milk Dud's have seen virtually no advertising campaign-- word of mouth and their inherently scrumptious qualities are all that have carried Milk Duds through times of war, economic uncertainty, and slanderous public health campaigns. Hardly the same can be said for other name-brand candies.

Although some like to badmouth Milk Duds, perhaps their naysaying masks a deep-seeded fear of trying such new, challenging and exciting things; maybe eating grass and pizza all day as a child has had such a dizzying effect on the palate that genuinely good food tastes bad to them? Until further scientific and empirical inquiry is made into their psychological profile, past eating habits, and aversion to and fear of excitement, it is best to ignore their critical assessment and wait until they mature into responsible, candy-loving connoisseurs like the rest of us.

Do yourself a favor: try a Milk Dud. Savor its buttery richness. Let its full-bodied flavor develop in your mouth before chewing. Allow its milky-cocoa bodice plunge down your throat into your happy tummy. The try another, you wont regret it.

Addenda: It is not recommended feeding Milk Duds to animals, as they are prone to want nothing more for their supper than a delicious, crystalline bowl filled to the brim. Also, If you wish to purchase Milk Duds from Amazon.com, let it be noted that they are found in the "Gourmet" section of the site. Let it further be noted that if you do an online image search for Milk Duds and children are present that it is also a euphemism for a females mammaries, which will return many inappropriate/unfunny pictures either a)juxtaposing a buxom young woman next to a box or b)simply pointing at breasts and calling them milk duds. Milk Duds, the Leaf Corporation, the Hershey's Corporation, and F. Hoffman & Co., the originator of the Duds, do not endorse the use of their product in such facile and prurient ways, nor do they endorse the facts or history presented by this writing.

2008-06-10T14:36:00.001-07:00

As the audience settles into their seats at the great World Wide Developers Conference in Cupertino, CA, the air is palpating with excitement. The lights grow dim and an opaque partition slowly rises to reveal a gigantic digital screen above the stage. The audience cant their torsos a little closer, imperceptibly, in their chairs and hang on with clamped breath and pinched buttocks for Apple's CEO and pitchman wunderkind Steve Jobs to take stage. Everyone has been scouring the blogs, starting office pools, and chattering non-stop about the potential announcements at this year's event. Not surprisingly, Jobs enters the stage in his usual attire--mock turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers. A hush befalls the eager crowd as Jobs begins his proselytization:

I want to thank David Pogue for that marvelous lead-in. David Pogue of the New York Times, everyone! (Audience applauds. Jobs takes a sip of bottled water) First I want to say 6 million iPhones and counting. Wow! That's just incredible. (Whoops, Hollers. Audience giggling with excitement for the big announcement) Now I bet you're wondering what's next. I know. I DO have the internet (Holds up running 2G iPhone with Macrumors blog displayed. Polite, nerdy laughter emanates from the seats).

A while ago I thought to myself 'I wonder how we can keep Apple as a major player in the market over the next 5 years?'. Technology is increasing at an exponential pace. Consumer demand and desire is becoming harder to predict. What will be the next big thing, the next must-have toy for the businessman, the student, the teenager? Well I have the answer, and the answer is 3G.

Thats right, Apple's next big product is the 3Gigabyte iPod shuffle.

Featuring a new sleek, portable design, multiple colors for maximum style, and extended battery life, the 3Gig Shuffle is set to revolutionize the way we listen to music, and all in a compact package for a low price. Featuring an additional gigabyte of storage space over the 2 gig shuffle, 30 extra minutes of battery life, and an adjustable lanyard dongle, the new shuffle is slated to be Apple's most talked about product of all time (begins slide-show)

After conducting multiple double-blind research tests on consumer groups, we've souped up this puppy with some of today's hottest colors. Off-white (slide). Taupe (slide). Ochre (slide). Brackish (slide). And finally Grape (slide).

While the 3G shuff still does not feature a screen or a touch-wheel, nor does it allow you to select the songs you wish to listen to, we put some of our top-tech guys working round the clock on some cool new features that are going to blow you away. Lets see what they came up with.

First, we decided to do away with the skip-song feature on the front in order to make room for a new button: the iTap (slide). What does the iTap do? Well, it provides you with a seamlessly integrated metronomic scale function with realtime audiowave synthesis. In other words, this little guy tells you the beats per minute of the song you are listening to.

If that doesn't rock your world, this next feature will.

An all-new proprietary headphone jack (slide).

That's right. After much hard work and deliberation, we realized that only the best and truly soundworthy headphones that exist in the world right now are the Apple earbuds. Which is why we soldered on an additional ring around the headphone jack to ensure that those buds are the ONLY headphones you use to listen to your music at the optimal level. We wouldn't want music fans to hear their tunes purchased through the iTunes store any other way.

Oh yeah, and to ensure that listeners are receiving top-notch audio quality, we made the sure that new 3gig shuffle only plays authorized, DRM-encrypted music purchased from the iTunes store.

The Zune Killer, Unveiled

Finally, we've added a .0000000005 megapixel camera to the outside of the shuffle (slide). This gadget is a "snap" for taking great pics on the go. Simply point the shuffle, guesstimate if anything is in the frame at all, click a complex sequence of buttons, connect to your Mac with a special firewire cable (sold seperately), download the latest version of iLife '08 and separate drivers for the shuffle, import your photo, re-expand the compressed file via a 3rd-party expander, drag and drop the file into iPhoto, blow up the file to a viewable size, and presto, you've got a picture, hopefully, of something or someone, possibly. It's a great, compact solution for wonderful pictures and I've been using it at family gatherings for a while now.

You guys, this product is great. Go to your nearest Apple store and pick one up. They're only $299 with a 3 year .Mac account contract. Speaking of .Mac, guess what!

(continues on...)

Things Indie Bands Like #2: Unnecessary Band Members

2008-05-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

A lot of the times you'll go to an indie show and look on stage and wonder "why hasn't that guy/girl done anything for 20 minutes?" While this statement said aloud may get you stares--as indie music fans generally don't like talking, let alone movement, at their shows--you may have fully pointed out the largest, pinkest elephant in the indie music scene: the unnecessary band member.

The origin of the unnecessary band member can be traced to indie music's roots; that is, the fact that at one point or another, the band's roadie/manager/girlfriend got tired of watching from behind the off-stage and wished to join in on the fun or else they would quit/leave/break-up with the band. The tracing of the foundations of this phenomena strangely parallels the popularization of this instrument.

The epitome, and paradoxically the exception to the rule, of unnecessary indie band members is Joel Gion, who you may remember as the guy on the cover of the movie Dig, a documentary about The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Joel pretty much stood on stage and caught Anton Newcombe whenever he passed out in the middle of an angry diatribe or coked-out guitar solo, so, although the euphemism is often reserved for the drummer, one could say Joel was literally and metaphorically the backbone of the band. He also had cool shades and could dance really well, which elevated his status from unofficial band manager to full-time band member.

Other examples of this are: the cute girl that hits the xylophone for 3 whole-notes every fourth song; the extended family of backup singers in strange garb who are off-key and being paid in beer; the guy who runs around stage and throws out merch; hip-hop "posses"; the skanking guy from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones; DJ's there to add some crazy "scratch effects"; Cello players; anyone that has to physically be on stage to press the spacebar on their macbook; Sid Vicious.

Things Indie Bands Like: #1) Costumes

2008-05-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

This new section of Distracted by Words is about Things Indie Bands like. No it is not a rip-off of Stuff White People like, you goof! Indie bands are filled with a variety of ideas and embrace a diverse tapestry of fashion and culture, and are very difficult to pigeonhole like white people are. Fortunately, there are a few universal truths to the Indie Aesthetic which are ripe for the pickin'. And thats why I'm here to judge. Let us begin:

If there was one thing that Indie Bands and the sexual subculture of Furries have in common, its that their love of symbolizing alienation via costumes.

An Indie Band hoping you are giving out king-sized Snickers this year

Although Indie Bands may not have sex with one another while dressed like Fox McCloud or an Easter Bunny, they certainly have no problem conveying emotional disconnect to their fans in this fashion. Glance at some of the popular (but not too popular) music videos on Youtube, and you are bound to find either a flaxen-haired chanteuse or bestubbled lothario of the Indie-ilk either singing to or dressing up as someone in a costume.

Most of this has to do with budgetary limitations, more than anything, as Indie Bands tend to blow all of their promotional advance on vintage synthesizers on eBay, leaving them little recourse other than to dress up their roadie in a banana-suit and have him walk down skid row. This type of video, known in the Indie Music video world as a "24 hour shoot-and-boot", is best for bands that have run out of ideas and need to send something to their labels before the higher-ups completely forget that they signed them. It is also a nice touch to anthropomorphize the costume so the viewers can relate to its googly-eyed emotions.

The Jelly Donut that made Lady Sovereign cry

Also, a fun thing to do as an Indie music enthusiast is go to concerts in costume. This has a doubly positive effect, as it one ups yourself over even the most ridiculously dressed hipster and it shows your allegiance to the group by opting to remain sweat-drenched for 2 hours in a virtual hell-suit instead of wearing sensible, breathable clothing. You most likely will receive accolades from your surrounding peers and, if you're lucky, be asked to appear in the next Animal Collective music video. And if your costume fails to work, maybe there's a Furry convention going on right now in the lobby of the downtown Ramada. Just remember to cut your own holes beforehand.

Hayden Christensen: The Worst Living Actor in America

2008-03-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

Pull this string and he talks

Its probably not that controversial of a statement, yet it is one I feel so deeply passionate about, I had to write about it. Go ahead. Scour the internet. Watch all of your old movies you got at the Hollywood Video 5 for $20 sale. Take exit polls of 2nd run movie theaters. I dare you to find a worse headlining actor than Hayden Christensen.

This opinion didn't come to full fruition until the other night when I watched the movie Factory Girl, a so-so flick with Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgewick, Guy Pierce gaying it up as Andy Warhol, and Mena Suvari as some psuedo-lesbian that comes in every once in a while to inject dexadrine into Edie's ass. All well and good, until Mr. Skywalker comes in portraying this guy.

Thats Bob Dylan by the way, in case you though it was maybe Gary Oldman in the new secret Harry Potter movie. Anyway, Christensen does such a horrible Dylan impression its a surprise he wasn't asked to be in I'm Not There. It seriously appears as if he's never seen or heard Bob Dylan in his life; he mumbles a bit, tries to look profoundly through hazy eyes, but other than that, just comes off like his character in Shattered Glass but hungover. It is a staggeringly inaccurate performance and was so cringe-worthy I almost felt compelled to fast-forward to the scenes where Andy Warhol is masturbating to pictures of shirtless men.

Even worse was that I picked up the "Unrated, Uncut, Totally Sexy" edit of this movie, which usually means a few more boobs, possibly ones you don't wish to see, and maybe a visual gag involving semen. Little did I know it would mean one of the least sexy, most excruciatingly long love scenes involving the Worst Living Actor in America in what can only be described as Robert Goulet's Love Den.

The sheepskin rug that roughed it through multiple takes of Christensen's adolescent thrusting

The scene was very difficult on my boner, as it had a very hot Sienna Miller and then a very awkward and confused teenager with a faux-pompadour pretending like he knew how to take a bra off. Anyway, watch this movie and you'll really have to struggle not to agree with me. I'm surprised hes gotten such large roles, considering he should be in Uli Lommel films. Well, lets maybe not go that far.

Okay, lets go through the checklist. Make readers throw-up. Check. Establish Hayden Christensen as horrible. Check. Hmmm... sideswipe I'm Not There. Yep. There's gotta be one other thing. Oh yeah, I know. Tease my next blog. Here's a hint; see if you can guess what it is going to be about!

No, its not about ugly basketball players, but close!

The Greatest Job I Ever Had

2008-02-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my inaugural Positive Blog, where I only blog about things that make me happy, and give the reader, you, a warm, fuzzy feeling in that dark pit of despair during these gloomy, troubled times. This blog is about the greatest job I ever had. The reason for this topic? Because its topical. And why is it topical? Because I held it yesterday. But only for one day.

Nope, but close.

As reconciliation for not getting any love on Valentine's day, God (or Job. I hear he's in the bible...God of Employment?) gave me a wonderful present: a promotional job at a ski-resort. And what did I have to do for the entire, glorious, sun-soaked day? That's right. Snowboard and do tricks off of jumps.

Clocking in for a hard-day's worth of work

I basically snowboarded up and down the mountain representing (or representin') Emergen-C vitamin C drink. I wore a large, bright-blue backpack, occasionally handed out the packets like your favorite neighborhood drug-dealer, and busted gnarly tricks off of sick-ass jumps. Oh, and I got to ride for free, plus another free lift ticket. And I got paid a lot. And, the icing on the cake: I won a free pair of socks.

Socks: the black sheep of the cake-icing-metaphor industry

So, in honor of this being the first annual Positive Blog, I'd like to get a little Positive Feedback from those who read this blog. What is the best job you, the reader, have ever held? And, what cool stuff, if any, did you end up stealing/walking away with accidentally/handed and told "this is yours to keep, for free" at the job?

Please comment! I need to generate enough ad-revenue to pay for all of these copyrighted photos I keep stealing.

Blog War: The Black Dahlia

2008-02-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

An epic duel between two bloggers regarding the scandalous frock-line of Lady Guinevere

Welcome to my first, and quite possibly last, installment of Blog Wars. In this episode, I go tete-a-tete against the formidable Lady Nordeen AKA Heather the Chaste, a seasoned veteran in the blog game. The topic: the 2006 movie Black Dahlia. No no no, not THE Black Dahlia, the critically panned Brian De Palma flick starring Scarlett Johansson, dummy! I would never spend 3.99 of my hard-earned cash at my local mom-and-pop Blockbuster for a movie that got 34% on Rottentomatoes.com. We got the Ulli Lommel classic Black Dahlia, which, at the time, had NO critical ratings ANYWHERE, thus we knew we were in for a diamond-in-the-rough, cinematic treat. Or a steaming, fetid pile of dog-shit that no one would touch with a 10-foot hazmat pole.

Anyway! Here is my submission into the fray. Let the Blog War begin!

ULLI LOMMEL'S The Black Dahlia

Over the course of my life I have witnessed all sorts of Bad. Camp Bad. Ironic Bad. Bad Bad. Revolting Bad. Bad the Creeps up on You. Bad that hurts your Forehead. Bad the leaves a Bad-Hangover for a Week. Even Bad that leaves Bad-Bugs rabidly crawling over your skin from a particularly atrocious Bad-Binge. The best kind of Bad movies are the kind that you can hunker down with a friend, throw a bunch of peanut gallery comments at, and WALK AWAY from with a feeling of superiority and minimal amount of residual discomfort. The worst kind of bad, on the other hand, are those that make you question Existence, re-evaluate your feeling of living in America, and worst of all, who you are friends with. It is with much chagrin that I have to say, Ulli Lommel's Black Dahlia, in short, is the absolute worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. And the reason I am filled with such sorrow, is that my good friend, Christopher Woolsey, was kidnapped by Ulli and his gang and forced at rubber knife-point to star in this horrible, horrible movie.

Christopher Woolsey AKA Sutton Christopher. Photo taken shortly before disappearing.

Before I launch into this movie, I want to make this clear: Chris is my friend and I would never slam him; I think he is a very fine and capable actor that desperately needed money and was lucky enough to get paid movie work down in LA. That being said, it is unfortunate that he ended up in this incomprehensible pile of garbage.

Black Dahlia capitalizes on the torture-porn craze sweeping the multiplexes by essentially being a sequence of shots of young ingenues being systematically murdered at a "casting call". There really isn't much else to it, really. Interspersed is a pathetic detective "back-story" involving the cold case of the Black Dahlia--a notorious real-life case of a young starlet who was gruesomely murdered in the late 40's--and a shit-load of additive-dissolve bursts and ambient whispering. Thats REALLY it. You could read this whole paragraph and probably take away more from it than watching the actual movie.

My genuine hope for this movie is that it be revitalized 20 years later a la Troll 2 and shown at midnight screenings, though its so revoltingly bad I'm not sure people would be able to muster the energy to lob insults and/or food at the screen.

Lady Nordeen, additional thoughts?

lbk

Juno: Stop the Madness

2008-02-11T16:45:00.001-08:00

Though it will never, ever happen, the 9 most feared words in the human language right now are And the Academy Award for Best Picture Goes to Juno. And not because it is wrong, or it proves once and for all the Oscars are entirely irrelevant, or because having to read that off of a script without laughing breaks WGA code, but because of the horror, oh the horror, that will ensue once the studios realize not only does indie over-preciousness equal box-office gold, but it can be sweet gold statue-bait as well. And this means, oh yes, this means my friends, year-round, factory-assembled hipster garbage will be pumped out at the same rate of J-horror remakes and Tyler Perry films. Which is to say, we will be literally buried in twee.

So why didn't I like Juno? It has a lot of things going for it, thats for sure. I love Michael Cera and Jason Bateman. I enjoy the movies of Judd Apatow, even though he had absolutely nothing to do with Juno. Oh, and I do love strippers, especially when they can turn the tables they occasionally stand on and go from being exploited to doing the exploiting (in this case, the commercialization of indie culture).

Cody Diablo, wondering whether to use MLA or Chicago-Style editing

Then what did put me off? Juno starts out with an indie-by-numbers approach to filmmaking. Main character has established, albeit superficial, quirk? Check. Title sequence done over a handmade looking animation sequence? Double check. Does the main song have a whimsical, earnest quality that evokes feelings of childhood and/or sounds like it could possibly be a song originally intended for children? Check and Mate.

All is forgiven for a movie like this, though, if a script has a good, natural flow and quality dialogue. Diablo's method of screenwriting appears to be coin as many catchphrases and deliver enough quips to satisfy an hour-and-a-half long prime-time sitcom. Its good to have clever dialogue in a movie, but having every other line work-in some sort of pop-culture reference ("honest to blog", which may become this blog's new header, is one that seems to gather the most hatred from critics) or witty retort can easily make once was an aspiring movie look like a bad episode of Gilmore Girls.

Although the tidal wave of cutesy, quippy lines of dialogue tend to annoy, the final weight that sank the SS Juno for me was the sappy and contrived placement of lightweight indie music within the film. Although the soundtrack stands alone pretty well for containing some great Belle and Sebastian and Belle and Sebastian-ish tracks, their forceful entry into the movie is almost laughably ludicrous. Its the equivalent to being repeatedly smashed over the head with a twee-pop hammer, and it has the same, disorienting and derailing effect.

And because of its success, it is only certain now that the dawn of Juno copy-cats is upon us now. Like moths to the light, Hollywood execs are scrambling to assemble the next adorably hip, Movie-Of-Our-Generation, and probably hoping an ex-Circe du Soleil acrobat will have written it so every single entertainment rag, newspaper, and blog will write about it. In fact, the dawn of this age seems to already have come upon us (although I don't think, unfortunately, this one was written by anyone from a french-clown background).

Did punch-up for No Country for Old Men

So if Juno does get the accolades it so-much-doesn't-deserve (there's a decent chance Diablo's rags-to-riches backstory may sway the Academy to give her best original screenplay), we have nothing to look forward to but jugs of Sunny D and orange tic-tacs in our horizons, ill-placed children's sing-a-longs, and the tendency to emphasize quirk over character-development in our horizons. So do us all a favor, and if you want to see the movie, and still don't trust me, watch it illegally on the internet. Then maybe there will only be 10 of these things tops this year.

We Formed a Blog

2008-02-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

Right now my throat is heavily breaded, much like a fish-stick, with a sooty coat of smoke from ye' olde emphysema-ridden establishment, The Horse Brass. Less than one year from now, patrons and bar employees alike should be enjoying a collective gasp of fresh air, as Oregon will follow suit of most of the States and adopt a smoking-ban, effectively keeping your hair and clothes from smelling like the basement of hell when you return home. I, for one, am giddy with anticipatory excitement. I no longer will have to be concerned about my laundry cycles, nor will I any longer will I be forced to wear ugly "bar clothes" when I go out. I will sadly miss you, though, generic gray shirt.

Getting laid success-rate: 0.00078%.

So, as I sit here in bed, recovering from a night of second-hand smoke and hard cider, I will wistfully recall those smoke-free Washingtonian days of yesteryear by inaugurating this blog as the Best Of Blog. Within it you shall find delicious old morsels of writing from my Northern days in Bellingham, nuggets of wisdom from my fleeting moments in Vancouver, and all things in between. I'll even throw in a few free steak-knives in the form of Portland blogging and, of course, the ubiquitous "more-to-come".

So what's first up? My about my watered-down indictment of Costco, a pretty tame screed considering I wrote it as a employee with a slowly forming hernia:

Casket 2-Pack Sale!

2008-02-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted June 21, 2005

Many people think Costco was an invention of California. It wasn't. Costco was born and raised right here in the verdant NW, corporately masterminded in Issaquah. The first one sprouted up in the environs of Seattle almost a quarter of a century ago. Costco, a wholesale retail outlet that typically settles in remote locations to keep real-estate overhead at minimal levels, became embroiled in a heated battle with Priceclub in the mid 80s, winning out and buying out the rival company, skyrocketing Costco as the dominant membership based warehouse-seller in the US economy. It's no-frills, cement and re-bar environment paved the way for a new era of consumerism-- one that focuses less on flashy displays and superfluous marketing techniques and settles on the nitty-gritty: selling high-volume with rapid-turnover in addition to procuring membership fees in order to pass on staggering savings to the customer.

Costco has becoming synomous with exogenous perceptions of American culture: big, bulk, and uniform. Nothing at Costco comes "Le Petit". You don't go to Costco to buy a few items, or an impulsive pack of gum: you leave with more than you feel like you can digest. Costco is one of the only retailers where flatbed-carts are offered as a reasonable alternative adjacent to normal-sized shopping carts. It is based on the same subliminal and nebulous marketing technique known as "upsizing", where the consumer typically leaves with more material than he/she intended to leave with, at an inversely exponential fraction of savings. The lure of this indelible practice in our culture for retailers is as obvious as the gaudy displays of marketing grandiosity. Get the consumer in for a taste, then offer the whole pie for a little bit more. It preys on American's inability to eschew greed for moderation, and it works great.

When I was in Europe, I never saw any mega-stores quite like Costco. Sure there were markets that carried a bevy of goods, but none that held the sheer volume and selection of a Walmart or Target. Everything was localized. Most items were purchased at specialty stores, patissaries, boulangeries, brasseries, or open flea markets. European's last bastion of national individuality is held in this informal decree. When someone talks of the non-stop barrage of globalization, "Americanization", or "Mconaldization", they aren't specifically referring to the employment of 11-year-old Laotian amputees in sweatshops, but the growing tide of encroachment on these slowing drowning beacons of culture. The sad fact is, however, the economy is pretty much unstoppable. French people will begin to realize they would rather pay 11 cents for a baguette instead of 1euro40, and these monolithic superstores will begin sweeping into the historical outposts of civilization. Costco's tentacles only sinew up into the UK and Japan right now, and I doubt that it will spill into any of the EU for a a long time.

Neoclassical economics aside, and cultural morals aside, there's something I love about these stores other than the rock-bottom prices, the quality-control of the goods, and our AMAZING level of customer service in America (If there is one thing we take for granted in this country, its how respected the phrase "Can i see your manager?" is). It's the well-lubricated efficiency, the briskness of a management based structure, and all of it being a throwback to the heyday of the Rockafellers and Morgans and Pullmans (minus the employee-abuse).

Easiest way to smuggle-out 5 pallets of Kirkland Bottled Water

The other week Costco announced they would be teaming up with a California based funeral-services company to sell coffins. All obvious jokes aside, Costco has become an organization that is a microcosm of the country. You could live there and have all of your worldly needs attended to, from life to death.

5 Actors Who Could Never Play Convincing Normal Dudes

2008-02-09T15:48:00.000-08:00

Originally posted January 10th, 2008.

Well, with my last blog landing in far more esoteric realms, I decided this week I would make it simple: a list of actors with some acute and witty observations about their amazing talent and complete lack of ability to play normal people. These are all actors in the peak of their histrionic prowess that possess certain features, physical or eerily subliminal, that disallow them from playing the average Joe Shlub in the latest shitty comedy. Some of them "could" hypothetically summon all of their dramatic energy and channel it into being best buds with Adam Sandler, but it'd still leave us with an unsettling feeling afterwards. Here's the list:

1) Cillian Murphy

Most of you know him as Dr. Crane AKA the Scarecrow in Batman Begins. I know him as "The Eyes". Even if you see him telling someone he loves them, or is petting a kitten, be warned: some horrible shit is about to go down. You know just by looking into those bulbous, infinite blue orbs that whatever he does is going to be followed by slicing your throat with a penknife and unleashing locusts in your parents house.

2) Ben Foster

Most notable for playing characters that are absolutely, positively fucking nuts, you probably know Ben Foster best as Russell, Claire's mercurial, bi-sexual, sometimes-boyfriend in 6 Feet Under. From there he graduated to playing a self-loathing Jewish Skinhead that makes Edward Norton's American History X neo-nazi look like Hello Kitty. He's also played an Archangel of Death, a blood-thirsty vampire, and a nihilistic murderer. So no, he's probably not going to be in the next Hollywood heart-warmer anytime soon.

3) Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick

The fat guy on the right is looking calm, but right after this photo was taken, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick AKA Damien turned towards him and said "You promised to take me to Baskin and Robbins before this. We didn't go to Baskin and Robbins" before releasing a pustule of blood-soaked larvae and fire-ants from his forehead. There is an obvious reason why this kid was cast in the newest incarnation of The Omen. It's because he IS the child of Satan. Sheesh, when are they gonna start hiring actors instead of reciting incantations at casting calls and conjuring up the spawn of Beezelbub?

4) Christian Bale

I'll admit, Christian Bale has played normal guys before. Hell, he was even a Newsie! But that doesn't mean he can convincing pull down the Everyman schtick like, say, Tom Hanks. Want proof? Try to find evidence of him telling a joke in any of the movies he's ever been in. Do you get the creepy feeling that he's about to stab whoever he's joking with? If not, maybe you have a sick, sick sense of humor or you're somehow missing the perpetual maniacal glow in his eyes (the same glow that allows him to lose 200 pounds for a low-budget indie film like it was no big deal).

5) Jeremy Davies

Jeremy Davies will always be a slimeball. Or a sleaze-bucket. Or someone with 1001 ticks, idiosyncracies, and obsessive-compulsive neuroses. But he will never, ever, ever be the guy you trust to diffuse the bomb and save the city in the nick of time. Davies has played a lot of great characters over the years, from a small part as a Press Corps member in Saving Private Ryan to an emaciated, Mansonish character in the new Werner Herzog film Rescue Dawn, and he's definitely an underrated and underused actor. Just don't expect him to be Aquaman.

The Bucket List

2008-02-09T15:46:00.000-08:00

Originally posted December 28th, 2007. The start of my "writing reviews without seeing the actual thing" thread.

So I decided instead of actually waiting for a movie to be released and then reviewing it, I would submit a movie review sheerly based on watching half of a trailer, online hearsay, and whatever gaps my mind filled in for the rest.

The movie I've decided to review is "The Bucket List", a movie about to be unleashed upon the age-ed, decrepit, movie-going masses; in other words, those that don't illegally download movies and who are wooed in by Morgan Freeman's authoritative baritone and the come-hithering, arched-buttresses of Jack Nicolson's eye-brows.

The title "The Bucket List" derives from the age-old trope of the list of the 10, or 20, or, hell, even 100 things one should do before they die. The Acropolis, Skydiving, Same-Sex Experience; What sort of things would you do if you all of a sudden woke up and realized "Hey, I share the same hospital room as the narrator from every Frank Darabont movie and we're both going to be gone soon?".

So you wake up, put on your slippers, kick aside your academy awards, step-around your Harley that was a gift from Peter Fonda, stick the keys to your Crown Victoria in the ignition, and meet with the director of "This is Spinal Tap" and "Kate and Leopold" and talk about the great watermark-leaving opus you want to make before you die. You both discuss the details of the movie: Will there be an initial salty dis-ease between the two hard-veneered leads? Will they get into sticky situations with high-potential for comic pratfalls unbecoming of men their age? And will they, oh for the love of god will they, uncover the true meaning of Christmas (hint: it lies in the doe-like eyes of a adorably naive 6-year-old)?

You decide on the demographic of your picture: septuagenarians with adopted Chinese children who aren't yet old enough to know good from crap. Should there be a hi-larious scene where the two lads attempt to ride motorcycles? Would a PG-13 rated scene of sexual-misunderstanding and naughty euphemisms be too much for the adopted Chinese child? Will Annette Benning be willing to phone-in a scene with a burned Thanksgiving turkey?

And while wistfully looking back and reminiscing about the movies you've made, you decide you've created the perfect denouement to your solid-gold careers. The Bucket List has been completed. You can go home now.

And no, this man is not in it:

Struggles

2008-02-09T15:39:00.002-08:00

Originally Posted Jan. 19th, 2008. In case you are wondering what this is all about, it is a parody of http://everystudent.com/wires/jenniferm.html which was run as a Facebook ad for a while.

One student writes about his struggles with internet pornography addiction, and how god intervened and set his path straight.

I was 18 and living on a houseboat in an abusive foster family. My foster father used to toss his cigarettes into the water and make me jump into the lake in sub-freezing temperatures and retrieve them for him with my mouth, just like a dog. If only I would have been fed as well as one, I wouldn't have complained. If I didn't allow any of the cigarettes to get wet, he would occasionally let me smoke one, even though I had acute asthma and a weak lung. Suffice to say, these were some of my good memories of my teenage years.

When I moved away to college a year later on a student loan, I felt as astray and rudderless as the buoys that sometimes kept our houseboat afloat during those tumultuous times. In order to satiate the yearning void of loneliness, I turned to the only natural avenue of escape available in an alcohol-free dorm: Internet Pornography. In stead of checking my grades, I'd check on the nakedness status of my cam-whore subscriptions. Any idle moment available became an opportunity to scan the latest updates at bigtitsroundasses.com. I'd sometimes stay up till dawn surfing the web until my eyelids were chapped with the crust of the new day and my fingers were but mere sacs of blistery fluid.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was addicted to internet porn, big time. And even worse, I didn't realize it had anything to do with my abusive foster father and his mongrelization of me, thus I didn't have any way to figure out how to right myself. It wasn't until one late Spring afternoon when I stumbled upon a campus Christian potato-sack race that I found Christ and steadied my wayward skiff.

I was searching for the ResTek offices, since the internet had been down for an hour and I was starting to get pangs of withdrawal-related nausea, when literally "tripped" upon this glorious beacon of hope in the stormy sea of my amorality. "Look Out!" screamed a girl, but it was too late. Just like the Holy Spirit, she knocked into me like a force of nature. Seeing how this was my first physical contact with a real human girl since I had matriculated, I was so befuddled by the interaction I tried clicking on her breasts with an invisible mouse.

Luckily, like all of god's children, she was forgiving of my prurient ways and settled on teaching me how to sack-race. Before I had the chance to make an off-color joke like I would normally do on a comment page, I was off and running with the flock, and being slowly but surely saved by the invisible, indiscriminate hand of god in the process.

As it says in Matthew 3:29 "...And he shall no longer looketh at the anointed cup, nor the 2 comely young virgins supplicating over the receptacle, or he shall bring shame unto himself and other onlookers", and in Luke 30:15 "...avert thine eyes from thy boobie".

I feel lucky to be saved.

My Mom and Walter Powell

2008-02-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted Oct. 26th, 2007.

After returning from an extended stay-over in Europe and Asia, my mother returned to Portland nearly penniless but instilled with the vim and vigor traveling abroad puts in one’s world-view. She was strolling downtown Portland one afternoon and came across a tiny bookstore. Yes, it was Powell’s, but not the monolithic mega-store it has become today, but a modest, intimate building several blocks away from the current location. Inside, she found a wonderful coffee-table book about hiking destinations in the area, filled with lush photography.

Since her stint in Europe, my mother had become a shrewd bargainer, and was still teeming with the same confidence she left behind at the Spanish marketplaces and Parisian vendors. She inquired to the older gentleman running the store what it would take to get the book at a discounted price, hoping to talk him down to slightly above wholesale cost.

“I’ll tell you what” said the man, “I’m a little short-staffed today, and the shelves are a mess. If you help me for a few hours, the book is yours.”

My mother, having already mastered the vagaries of the dewey decimal system as a part-time librarian in the university library, felt as if she would be up to the task. She accepted his offer and had the shelves ship-shape in no time.

Years later, after beginning to see this man more prominently in the press, she would realize that this man was the store owner, Walter Powell, which leads me to wonder if I unconsciously lied in the job interview that I am indeed related to a Powell’s employee.

Emily Powell; Depending on what happened during those 3 hours, may also be my cousin

I love and heart you, internet

2008-02-07T18:14:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted May 18th, 2006. This is one of my favorite, infamously exhausting rants on the eroding standards of the world.

I used to take the time to correct my spelling in IM, even sometimes carefully taking the time to insert "commas" (haha, remember those wastes of space?), apostraphes in contractions (I'm lovin' it!), and using a painful assortment of words to describe difficult moments in my life instead of using the emoticon with the X through its mouth (yeah, that one). I used to even DESCRIBE to people where I was going, giving them a reasonable time-frame of expected return, and then informing them when I was returning with an affixed apology in postscript.

Wait, hold on a sec...BRB. Ok, I'm B.

HAHA!!! What a n00b I was.

But the real question is, with the encroaching dumbening down of language: what is life going to be like, etymologically, linguistically, culturally, etc... 10 years from now?

Here's a GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE FROM A FAKE TIME TRAVELLER WHO DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO THAN BLOG HIS EXPERIENCES RATHER THAN BET ON THE SUPERBOWL AND THE TRIPLE CROWN!!!!

I should probably try to make SOME money to make payments on my DeLorean, though

10 years from now communication is solely going to based on Napolean Dynamite quotes, extremely long acronyms (IWOTAMPMRNWAPP: I'm waiting outside the AM/PM right now with a pizza pocket), and the phrase "oh, just read about it in my blog". All other forms of communication, especially amongst the exiled "literati" (the non-philistines who read "outside of the blogosphere"), will be punishable via reintegration into the sub-comminicae by being forced to read a 14 year old girl's myspace "likes and dislikes" page until their eyelids attempt to fully devour your eyeballs.

Saying phrases like "I appreciate Rousseau, but I think his earlier works were a tad defeatist", "Wasn't Jesus really Black?" and "I actually read the preface AND the epilogue!" will all be punishable by death. All foreign films with subtitles shall be banned, for people do not wish to "read" when they go to the movie theaters. In fact, movie theaters will no longer be allowed to display any words, including on the marquee, advertising, and confusing movie times, for they remind patrons of books too much. All books will be adaptations of existing movies, and even then, they will always be far worse than their cinematic counterparts so no one will buy them.

Your summer-reading assignment

"Ulysses", "Gravity's Rainbow", and "The Old Man and the Sea" will all be downloadable in text messaging format, with the main characters thoughts and feelings expressed with an animated cartoon owl in place of rich and descriptive prose. By this time, text messaging will be so obsolete that barely anyone will do this, thus leading libraries to replace physical tomes with text message transcripts. People will still read the inside liners to write their book reports.

Unfortunately, book reports will be banned several months later because they drive down standardized test scores too much. Speaking of standardized test scores, thankfully they will have not left ANY CHILD BEHIND...except the poor kids, the minorities, the males in writing and reading comprehension, the females in mathamatics and science (okay, far fewer than in that category than the males in the other category), and the teachers' inner children. But thankfully, well-endowed, predominantly-white schools and their children will not be left behind...they will be WELL-COMPENSATED for keeping ahead of the pack while having started 3-laps ahead.

They will all be given complimentary text-messaged copies of the book "Superfudge" by Judy Bloom.

TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>

December Wishes

2008-02-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted Christmas Eve, 2003.

PRESENTING! The most cliche, sentimental, and pretentious christmas post ever!

Remember when you used to wake-up in the middle of the night a hear your dad trip over the space-heater, and think Santa Claus and his Reindeer had finally arrived?

Remember setting those cookies and carrots out and waking up the next morning to find them half-eaten with your mothers shade of lipstick on them and a note written in her hand-writing on the table, but being too naive to notice?

Remember tearing through presents christmas morning, skipping over the softer wrapped gifts for the harder and bigger ones?

I remember when I was really young I peeped out of my room and thought Santa had brought me a spaceship (which was really a particle board puppet theater assembled by my father). I couldn't get any sleep, fancying all of the distant galaxies and nebulas I would visit in my newly acquired spaceship that night. The excitement and anticipation of waking up the next morning, feigning surprise, and learning how to operate the nodes, dials, and buttons in order to pilot my way to Cignus 5 to visit our extraterrestrial brethern while my parents opened up relatives gifts of pottery and candles, was excruciating. I turned on my hummel-like christmas house-lamp and read through every one of my magazines, even "National Geographic Kids" and "Highlights", in order to fall asleep. No such luck was had, so I tried the tired and true method of counting sheep jumping over fences in the back of my mind. Still a bust. I eventually fell asleep around 4am, with visions of ET and guitar-picked shaped space aliens flashing me the "live long and prosper sign" then heralding their outer-planetary visitor as their honorary emperor.

The dissapointment of finding out I wouldn't be cruising to the Andromeda galaxy the next day was crushing, but I learned to love my puppet theater. I created short little Shakespearean tragedies with paper-mache puppets, typically which involved bashing the King and the Friar puppet violently together, and then doing the same with the King and the Queen to indicate they were making out. My whimsical plays never quite evolved out of this childish template, however, they just seemed to involve more and more puppets as I soon figured out how to manipulated several on one hand.

What amounted to a grotesque orgy of flannel and terry-cloth, I soon gave up my puppeteering racket and retired the theater to the fabled annals of the geodesic shed, the graveyard of all flash-in-the-pan presents and failed knickknacks. Out there also lies am Olympic diving trophy which I'm pretty sure my dad never won, a Tweety Bird mask from halloween that accidental merged with surgical tubing and a caulking gun, creating the most macabre looking looney tune since Daffy Duck got shot in the face by Elmer Fudd, fireworks long past expiration, and I'm almost positive at least one dead transient.

Well, on the delightful notion of me harboring a dead hobo in my shed, I bid everyone a Merry Christmas! I hope everyone gets their spaceships and ponies and dirtbikes and Redrider bee bee guns and Nintendos and Teddy Ruxpins (and if you dont know who that is, you obviously were not a child byproduct of the 80's).

Remember, if you didn't get what you wanted, there's always receipts, and if the receipts are MIA, then there's always the black market and the potential for smashing stuff.

Ugh

2008-02-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted October 12th, 2003, I think this simultaneously foreshadows my musical elitism and retroactively negates all of my musical opinions in the Bands I Like section. But I'm posting it because I still find it pretty funny.

Bands I fucking hate:

Dave Matthews "Band"

Creed

Good Charlotte

Any band with "Mud" in their name

Any band that purposely mispells a word in their name, or inserts backwards letters, in order to connect with their illiterate, low IQ fanbase.

International Noise Conspiracy

Jack Johnson or any shitty open mic artist that attempts to cop his "style" or mentions that he used to be a surfer. Yeah, douche, he also was a heavyweight boxer that nearly stole the title from mohammhed ali.

Phish. Take a shower.

Alien Ant Farm. God, the inverted mohawk is so anti-everything, you rebel.

Bush. Stop whining about how handsome and rich you are, and how every time you bang Gwen Stephanie she screams out her bassists name.

Dashboard. Stop whining about everything, ditch the ovaries, kick aside the miles of tissue, and punch yourself in the face, ugly. (Some people say I look like Chris Caraberra)

Coldplay. Fuck Coldplay. Wow, life is miserable. I'm a goodlooking brit with oodles of money who's boning Gwenyth Paltrow, whom worships the ground I walk on.

Limp Bizkit. Wait, I already covered them with the misspelling category. Shit, they deserve to be on here twice.

Maroon 5. I don't really know who they are, but I hate them already.

Metallica. Seriously. Never has there been a band that has caused me to hastily turn the radio to NPR faster than these white-trash dinosaurs. And fuck Lars Ulrich for ratting out his fans and starting the RIAA's crusade to get people to stop listening to music. Everytime I hear one of your shitty songs off of "Saint Anger" you should pay ME royalties for having to endure your turds.

Slipknot. Fat trailer trash in clown make-up pretending to make jock rock. At least KISS exploited it better than you did, number 1-8.

All-American Rejects. Whiny emo kids tailor-made to sell style over substance. Possibly some of the worst stuff I've ever heard.

Incubus. Okay, they aren't that terrible. I'm just sick of every dude with a backwards Abercrombie and Fitch hat think that he's rebelling against conformist rap when he blares another "5 dudes and a DJ" band out of his Toyota Tundra.

The Vines. Okay, where are they now?

Bands that are still kicking my ass:

Modest Mouse
Minus the Bear
The Mars Volta
Wilco
Sigur Ros
Unearth
Mos Def
One of These Days
Hella
Stretch Arm Strong
Dillinger Escape Plan
Atmosphere
The Witness Protection Program
Rythm of 84 (thats not a misspelled name, I just dont know how to spell that damn word. Sigh, after all of these years in public education)
Led Zepplin (Who?)
Darkest Hour

My commencement speech: 2006

2008-02-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

Originally Posted April 20th, 2007

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Dean of Students, Karen Morse for inviting me here to speak. If you are wondering where the money went to getting a commencement speaker of more status and integrity, then look no further than your Student Recreational Center. Man that’s one sweet rock-climbing wall!!!

I’d like to congratulate you on reaching a pinnacle in your educational careers. Now we can all start the exciting process of moving back into our parent’s basements.

Over the years at Western, I have learned many things.

I have learned that campus has over 3 million bricks, I think. I have also learned that 2 and a half million of these bricks are precariously dislodged and in no way help you out when you are 10 minutes late to your final exam.

I have learned that a member of our faculty can semi-publicly wish a cancer-stricken student to die, and somehow not get fired.

I have learned in 2003 that apparently Mathes hall is actually an elaborate terrorist training institution run by left-wing hippies.

I have learned that streaking in front of a camera is best done in a ski-mask during live coverage of the aforementioned residence hall.

I have learned that the best place to put level III sex offenders is within several blocks of a college campus in a poorly lit neighborhood.

I have learned that online file-sharing is, shockingly, illegal, unless, of course, no one catches you.

I have learned what plagiarism is. Plagiarism is the usurping of intellectual property, either intentional or unintentional, from a non-public domain source, without properly citing and giving due credit to the legal forbearers of said information. I came up with that one MYSELF.

I have learned that Sodexho, the food-service provider for our dormitories, also is the number one prison caterer in the United States.

I learned that downtown Bellingham has an incredibly vibrant night-life. It’s the only place you can walk a single block and see a college guy puke in the bushes, a homeless man masturbating, and a police car driving by ignoring all of this so he can go issue MIPs at a well-controlled house party

I have found that you always seem to get an MIP a week before your 21st birthday. I have also found that the 30 hours of community service getting an MIP entails is surprisingly easy to “do” if you have a knack for mimicking certain styles of handwriting.

I have learned that the free New York Time’s kiosks run out quite faster than the Western Front ones do.

I have learned that open mic at the underground coffeehouse is a great place to perform in front of a diverse audience of other musicians waiting to play and their girlfriends.

As you can see, the many great classes at Western have taught me vital life skills.

Many of you are wondering what’s next? Graduate School? Internships? Becoming one of those creepy older guys that still go to college parties?

The answer is not a simple one. For some, you may consider taking a year off, traveling around Europe, and coming back broke and hating the United States slightly more than when you left it. For others, you may wish to enter the existential hell known as working--perhaps for “the man” or perhaps for “the man known as your father at his used car dealership”. Regardless of your life’s trajectory, one thing is for certain: You WILL wish got you got a few more seconds in on that keg stand before leaving behind this glorified summer-camp.