I'm Mad Again

Just Another Punk Rock Fantasy

2010-01-28T03:25:00.000-05:00

It can be hard to stand in front of the world and talk about your fantasies. This is the deep stuff we're talking here, things that you don't share with anyone. They can be embarrassing, possibly illegal or even worse, painfully banal. And though the world is littered with Savage Love columns in which desperate readers ask how to get their lovers to understand them, I'm going to take a moment here and discuss one of my fantasies.

See, I listened to "Contra" and it's not bad really, not at all, but to me, the story of the album lies in "Cousins" and "Diplomat's Son", two songs that are punk in the same way my co-worker called me that when I carried thirty dollars worth of groceries in my arms instead of a basket. That is, off-the-wall and unexpected. Not to say that "Cousins" has no precedent (see "A-Punk), but it does present itself forthrightly to the point where Ezra Koening is able to spit the line "You've got ten fingers/and you're gonna use'em all" before launching into a guitar solo. That is some Ghostface on "Beat the Clock" confidence right there, just daring you to doubt it and be wrong.

Anyway, on to the fantasy: Whenever I hear "Cousins" I think the same thing: How awesome it would be if Vampire Weekend took a break from being critically lauded and fawned over worldwide and hide out under another name playing twitchy punk music. Looking at me or the screen like this is crazy will not accomplish anything, especially since there's a precedent for this. Anyone remember Quasar? No, of course you don't, because the odds are you were like ten when the Beastie Boys pulled that awesome stunt. Still, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened before, so maybe it can happen again.

This leaves us with "Diplomat's Son", which, with it's strings, tropics conjuring beat and six minute length seems anything but hard. On it's face, even I think I'm kind of crazy for calling the song punk, but just hear me out. Everything that goes into it is a two-fisted flip of the bird, a glorious six minute "Fuck you" from the band to its critics that won't stop harping on the whole "rich kids playing syncopated rhythms" thing. The band didn't necessarily mean it to be that, but from the M.I.A sample to the "Pressure Drop" breakdown on a Casio keyboard (which adds the jab of being a nostalgic/ironic callback to our toys of yore) of all things to the lyrics about living the good life on an island paradise thanks to a friend with political functionary parents, they take their perceived weaknesses and just like on "Cousins" dare you to call them wrong. Now if that isn't punk, what is?

(Video courtesy of Stereogum)

Catapulting To Fame Because A Funny Guy Thinks I'm Clever

2010-01-21T02:04:00.005-05:00

(picture via GottaTopic)
Keep reading, it'll make sense soon

One of the great things about the city is that there's so much free shit going on. For instance, if you've got a friend with some initiative and you're willing to take a day away from your mindless job and stand outside in the slowly dropping temperatures for upwards of three hours, you can go to The Daily Show! You should do it by the way, because it's totally worth it to see how the TV magic is made. For instance: they do the whole show in one take. Incredible really. You figure there would be a line flubbed here or there, but no, they push the no do-overs rule to its limit at Comedy Central. You could also perhaps play a small part in television history, like I did.

So on Tuesday night, after waiting in the cold, me and my friends Tim, Conal and JP (who has no internet presence but that's OK) walked into the magical Daily Show studio. It was small but contained huge amounts of stuff, cameras everywhere connected to expensive looking equipment and other bright shiny things. After we sat down, I noticed an enormous tripod with a monitor attached at one end and what looked like a telescoping rod with a camera at the end on the other side. Since I can only think about destruction, I mentioned it looked a little bit like a catapult, wondered aloud if the crew had ever converted the tripod into one. "But you know, not just a regular one, what's the French one called?" I asked

"Oh, you mean a trebuchet?" JP said.

This was exactly what I was thinking of and I got more excited because I finally knew how to pronounce the word. We sat around for a little while longer, listening to the pump up music, which included Bon Jovi and Jimi Hendrix and BOSTON, get louder and louder to the point where we had to shout to talk to each other. Eventually the warm up act came on and made some unlucky audience members feel very uncomfortable, before introducing us to Jon Stewart, for a promised quickie Q and A session before the show started taping. After the rapturous applause died down, he asked if we had any questions and I immediately raised my hand. Cable TV's best fake news anchor looked right at me, pointed and then-

"CAN I HAVE A JOB?" Yes, some uncouth bastard stepped on my question to ask for a job. Because that's how things work in TV, you show up in the audience and ask for a job and are granted one. Stewart humored him, asked him what he did ("TV producer") and then asked him what he'd produced.

"Um, not much."

"Well then I don't think I can do much for you," was the last word in that particular interaction. I thought I was going to have find that dude after the show for stepping on me, but Jon Stewart turned right back to me. "Yes, you had a question."

Now or never. I pointed to the tripod. "I was just curious, has anyone in the crew ever tried to convert that thing into a trebuchet." My friends laughed and we waited for an answer.

"Wait a what? What the hell is a trebuchet?"

"It's a catapault. Well it's a little different, but it's a catapault."

From there it became the perfect forum to watch two Jews argue as Stewart remained perplexed and I gestured wildly at the tripod, tried to explain that JP had just taught me the word and attempted anything else to hold my own and get my point across that we had been talking about trebuchets before the show.

"Right, but what's so special about a French catapault?" Stewart finally asked.

JP came in with an awesome save. "It surrenders more easily."

The audience laughed, Stewart laughed, pointed at her and said "You're hired." Take that, job guy!

A couple more questions were asked before Stewart walked over to his desk, and some kind of director or something gave us the countdown to cheer wildly. He hit one, the theme music hit and everyone went wild. Then, this happened:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Intro - Trebuchet

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

I just about floated out of my seat. I hit JP on the arm and laughed harder then anyone in the room, then watched the show with a grin plastered to my face. During the breaks between segments JP and I high fived and all I would talk about was the trebuchet joke.

I'm not going to sit here and say I'm famous now, but I will say that this follows a pattern than I always seem to follow, which is if given an opportunity to showboat in front of famous people or cameras I will absolutely make something happen. It's not very often, but this isn't the first time for something like this. When I was seventeen and had blue hair, I got to be the face of the globalization protests on UPN when I told the person interviewing me that, "Fair is fair. If [the cops] get riot gear, we should get riot gear too." When Sean Hannity showed up at a protest against the surge, in Times Square, I got on "Hannity's America" by doing the exact opposite of the people screaming curses at him. I started chanting "Hannity is a hero" and he came over and put his arm around me and called a fan. Before you get all angry, I also got my anti-war sign in the shot. Mission accomplished.

So if I can offer advice to any aspiring famewhores, it would be to look for the odd in the situation. Find your own trebuchet reference and run with it, and maybe you'll be telling friends and family that you wrote the first joke on that night's Daily Show. What? It's kind of true.

Oh, and don't be like the asshole that asked for a job. Or if you do, at least bring your resume with you. Jesus.

Your Sports Analogy Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad

2010-01-19T02:57:00.003-05:00

In looking for the best way to mark the Democrats blowing it in a place that is so liberal it's known as TAXachusetts, I immediately bypassed rage, because it's just useless at this point. I could talk about how it sure is interesting that despite having a 59-41 advantage in the Senate, the Bizarro World rules of our legislature has apparently turned them into the minority party, but I don't care. We all knew Ben Nelson's dithering was going to screw us in the end, and unless he comes out as some kind secret Republican in a WWE-like unveiling, pyrotechnics and all, said dithering is even more sad than it originally was.

Instead I'm going back to my point from last night that political types just can't do this sports analogy thing right. Witness a hapless campaign staffer (and I say that with respect and sympathy) speaking to Slate last night:

"Right now, we're fourth and long," said Don Murphy, a staffer for a Republican who's running for Congress in true-blue Maryland. "If Brown wins, we're third and long, but our odds greatly improve."

Don Murphy, you have got to be kidding me. How do you go from fourth and long to third and long in consecutive plays? You do not. But that's what it sounds like you're saying. Is it supposed to mean it's a new game and a new situation entirely? Then just say that it's a new game. Also, duh, your odds improve because you have two downs as opposed to one to reach your goal. Just leave that out of the analogy. Now I'm going to put this analogy together in about the most complicated way possible because I'm petulant and can't handle losing.

It was third and long for the Maryland Republican party, like third and fifteen. They reached deep in the playbook for a pass play that netted them oh, let's say six yards, because anything under third and five is actually third and short. Except, whoops, the refs called it an incomplete catch, which I guess in politics is like counting early poll numbers as set in stone? Sure. So now it's fourth and fifteen. But now that Scott Brown has won, it means the Massachusetts Republican party...threw a challenge flag? Sure, that works. And the play on the field, Ted Kennedy being dead and replaced by a gaffe-bot, is overturned and Scott Brown is ruled to be the Senator in play with both feet in bounds. Anyone see a problem here?

It's still fourth and nine! It still cannot possibly be third and long because the refs don't just give you an extra down if you ask for it. To reiterate: you can't pick up a down from a penalty. You can lose one however, for intentional grounding. And we all know the political equivalent of intentional grounding is just desperately heaving a sports reference (the football) when still between the news item of the moment and the big sport currently being played (the tackle box) so as to avoid looking silly in front of the media (blitzing safety). So actually what poor Don Murphy did here is turn the ball over on downs to the Democrats. Better luck next year kid.

Hey Coakley! UR Doin' It Wrong!

2010-01-19T01:39:00.002-05:00

The fact that the Massachusetts Democratic machine didn't have a plan in mind for Ted Kennedy's death, like maybe a vat-grown thing called "Ned Hennedy", is proof enough they are completely terrible. Relying on Martha Coakley is just further proof of how worthless they are, like if your friend decides he can totally lose the cops and he should because, no it's cool I only had two beers but I don't want to explain that to them.

So should we really be surprised some state functionary (Attorney General, whatever) tries to win points on sports yak radio and totally muffs it? No, we should not. One should be annoyed at the pandering but not the factual inaccuracy.

What is truly rage inducing is, well, first off being dumb enough to be following this race. Second though is reading a passage like this, from The Boston Globe (found via Alternet):

Coakley, in an interview yesterday in Boston after addressing a breakfast meeting of commercial real estate developers [Emphasis added], said she believes that the climate is changing, that human activity is to blame for much of the change, and that the time for action is now.

Commercial real estate developers? Your opponent is out there driving around an original fucking Model-T built by Henry Ford himself and you're having breakfast with the kind of rich dickheads that got us into this mess. Awesome, great, raises and HJs all around. Where is your sense, any Massachusetts Democrat? Go meet with unions and poor people to trick them into voting for you, then you take the corporate money once you're safely in. I mean, it's not like you're going to govern.

Christ. The psychic toll of being a Met fan and a liberal is starting to become too much to take.

Hey MTA, I've Got Something You Can Suck On

2010-01-16T04:15:00.005-05:00

However, it is not my cock, nor any cock, because some people enjoy playing around with sweaty cock in their mouths and that is also totally normal. Sometimes I wonder about the efficacy of that insult. But we're getting off track here. Nor is the thing for you the barrel of a gun, because that could be seen as a threat. Instead, please amuse yourselves by sticking this 40.6" Hand Forged Samurai Sword in your mouths (every mouth at the MTA) because your shenanigans are too much to deal with on any given night, especially one where I'm actively trying to get somewhere.

And to think, none of this awful teeth grinding frustration would have happened if the Retail Jerk (a wholly owned subsidiary of Cerberus Capital) still had shifts that went until 1 A.M. See, getting off work at one in the morning, that breaks your spirit, makes you wanna just go home and die. Ah, but midnight, you're pissed and wanna blow off that steam. So off I went to see the excellent Luke Rathborne play a free show at The Living Room. Surely I would see most of the show, since the F train is only a ten minute ride.

WRONG ANSWER! The MTA, in its infinite wisdom, managed to schedule track work on the F line this weekend, a weekend of track work apocalypse. Which means getting to the LES from Brooklyn Heights took 50 minutes. What should have been a four stop jaunt became a seven stop odyssey, one that started with an evil portent when a work train sat halfway out of and halfway in the station for 5 minutes doing nothing, with an awaiting F train just hanging out in the tunnel, taunting me. And you best believe the train didn't run at normal speeds the entire way. Hell, the only reason I got there to see any of the set was because those jerks tied themselves in so many track work knots that they were forced to run the J through Broadway-Nassau. Had it not been for that, I probably would have missed the whole show.

Of course, this would be a relatively minor incident if it weren't for the fact that tomorrow I get to experience the joy of the three train commute because the G train is shut down for the entire goddamn weekend and the A is running locally. So it's Bushwick to Brooklyn Heights via the M to the J to the F. Good old MTA alphabet/cyanide soup, served up just the way mom made it.

And for the record, fuck the bus. I pay for trains, I want trains.

Come On New York, We Can Do Better!

2010-01-13T13:53:00.005-05:00

How is it that everyday (the last two days) I wake up, I'm confronted with news about my state/region that makes me cry out to the Lord for mercy? Don't I live here because it's great and it's the center of the Universe and that allows me to look down on everyone else in this great land, from the tip top of Maine to Baja California? At least I thought that's why I lived here.

Apparently not though, considering I woke up yesterday to find that motherfucking New Jersey became the first state in the tri-state area (NY, NJ and that made up one) to legalize medical marijuana. Sure it's full of cop-outs and legislators are already barricading themselves with language like this:

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton who sponsored the legislation, said New Jersey’s would be the most restrictive medical marijuana law in the nation because it would permit doctors to prescribe it for only a set list of serious, chronic illnesses. The law would also forbid patients from growing their own marijuana and from using it in public, and it would regulate the drug under the strict conditions used to track the distribution of medically prescribed opiates like Oxycontin and morphine. Patients would be limited to two ounces of marijuana per month.

Still, it's medical marijuana and it's fuckmook New Jersey beating us to it. It's like when they tried to steal the Statue of Liberty out from under us. Is it on your license plate? No, it is not. STILL HAVE NOT FORGIVEN THAT LAWSUIT ASSHOLES!

Then of course, there's Harold Ford, who I really wish would just walk into traffic while listening to his iPod a little too loud. God, this asshole. Remember how he could only get sympathy from Democrats when this happened?

And now he deserves to be the junior Senator from New York. Despite, you know, not living here for very long considering he ran for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. Even better, it turns out he's a greedy vampire working for Merrill Lynch making at least a million dollars a year. Surely he will have the interests of the working man in mind if he somehow manages to claw his way back to DC. Hey Harold, I know you think you can make New Yorkers think you're Derek Jeter, but it isn't going to work. Why would anyone vote the Yankees starting shortstop into Congress when they have no backup? Not to mention dude's range is deteriorating every season. Just give it up Ford, you make me want to move to Maine and buy a cabin with lots of guns.

Where's Your Cliche Post Title Now, Fred Phelps?

2010-01-08T03:36:00.003-05:00

It either says something about how Fred Phelps' stock has fallen in car-crash media circles or how few people read Byron Crawford's blog that no one seems to have noted with terrific irony that God snowed out his planned harassment of not merely people with questionable taste in music, but also gay high school students. As per Mr. Crawford:

I really was gonna pull a Chris Brown on Fred Phelps today, but the protest was canceled. It's snowing pitchforks and dreaded n-word babies here in the STL. I wonder if it'll clear up in time for the Lady Gaga concert. No homo.

Sucks for Phelps and his suspiciously large-schnozzed granddaughter. I guess Choine, the snow-nymph, won an arm wrestling match with Jesus.

For The Love Of God Cut To A Wide Shot

2010-01-05T04:05:00.004-05:00

Brit Hume blah blah blah old man hilariously out of touch blah blah blah Andrew Sullivan has something deep to say. Look at this dude's face!

Yes yes, the picture is huge and creepy (at least if you're brave enough to click on it), but it illustrates perfectly Hume's brain shutting down and seemingly become a conduit for babbling superstition, like even he didn't realize what he was saying.

The person we should really be asking questions about is the director. What kind of a sadist lets an old man hang out to dry like this? At least take the close up off after the man's slagged Buddhism, what are we sticking around for after that? Yipes.

Come Back Generation X! Come Back Hipster! All Is Forgiven!

2010-01-05T01:01:00.002-05:00

For once, David Brooks manages to scare me instead of anger me.

Moreover, the tea party movement has passion. Think back on the recent decades of American history — the way the hippies defined the 1960s; the feminists, the 1970s; the Christian conservatives, the 1980s. American history is often driven by passionate outsiders who force themselves into the center of American life.

I'm trying to think of things more frightening than this collection of delusional roleplayers who think Thomas Paine, if he were alive today, would watch Glenn Beck, becoming the watermark of our culture. So far I've only got this:

1. Actual fascist coup
2. Jason Vorhees learning how to fire a gun
3. Dick Cheney/Lynne Cheney Hustler spread
4. Being alive for the day some scientist announces the sun is about to implode
5. Being a songwriter for a company that writes Christian pop-punk songs. You know, whatever Leiber and Stoller are for the Christ-pop set. Think about it, you don't even get the groupies that will blow you or do anal because they think that isn't breaking the whole abstinence pledge thing. But I'm getting way off track here.

I know the whole "I'm moving to X if Y happens" is old, but the minute I see some motherfucker walking down my block in a tri-corner hat and whatever new book Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter's monstrous science child* has written is the minute I move to somewhere. Somewhere with no people. Maybe Mozambique.

*Believe me people, that kid has totally been made in a test tube and is in a bunker somewhere learning cry on command.

Untitled, II

2009-12-07T12:38:00.001-05:00

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I've Had It With Your Drones, Avakian

2009-12-07T11:22:00.003-05:00

There's a specter haunting New York City, and that specter is cute girl communists.

They're literally everywhere, if by everywhere you accept my definition of "everywhere" to mean at two different places in the city at two totally different times and vaguely connected to each other by music. Seriously, there is nothing worse than meeting some girl you think is cute and wants to argue about politics and then drops that she's riding for the Revolutionary Communist Party of America. I'd rather her whip out her dick to piss in an alley than try and sell me Revolution. And I've fallen for this twice.

Two years ago, during CMJ I was walking with some friends and somehow started talking to some girl. As if I remember everything, this was two years ago. Anyway, after I realized I couldn't impress her with my totally unearned and free pass, I must have asked her what she was handing out because she started talking about communism and how great it was.

Now, if I were someone better at these things, maybe I would have been able to steer the conversation somewhere else. But I suck at many things, and one of those things is remembering that people in the RCP are true believers and they aren't going to just give it all up because some drunk guy on the street doubts that we're ready for revolution. So we argued about communism and revolution. Yeah, that's me, playa playa. Eventually my friends and I got where we were going and she gave me some kind of literature or postcard or something about Bob Avakian, Grand Poobah of the RCP. I halfheartedly checked him out and then forgot about it.

End of story? Of course not. Last night I went to see Japanther, but made the mistake of going alone and being very drunk. Japanther was opening for some band called Outernational, so once they were done, I started thinking about leaving when some cute red haired girl asked me who I had come to see. I told her Japanther and that I was weighing whether or not to go and see Bad Lieutenant. She didn't know what that was (whoops should have let it go then) but assured me that Outernational was great, real rockin', revolutionary. OK, fine cute girl, I'll stand here and talk to you then and listen to you fret and hope everyone there didn't have my idea to go to Bad Lieutenant.

So there's the whole what's your name (Alice) and what do you do thing and I tell her about how cool I am and how I work at a grocery store and Alice tells me she's in town to work at Revolution. God dammit, I must have "schmuck" written on my forehead both because this is another fucking pitch and I can barely realize it. My memory of the last time this happened still hazy, I make the same fucking mistake and start trying to figure out why someone would willingly join up with the RCP in 2009. We do our whole dance, me trying not to offend her and her trying to convert me. She kept talking about motherfucking Bob Avakian and reminding me of "Cult Leader" that Non Phixion song.

It gets even weirder when Alice pauses to text her friend and this old woman hanging around us jumped in. This woman was standing there watching us talk like she was a media minder or something. What were we talking about? Well, since drunk Dave is an asshole and doesn't know when to quit, I tell her. So now I'm getting the same fucking pitch, no worse actually because she tosses out the "Obama is Bush all over" and there's not even the remotest possibility of getting laid. Fortunately, Outernational took the stage not long after that and I was spared any more arguing with people who use the term "revolution" way too often. Bye bye Alice, off to get closer to a band that was eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeccchh.

So yeah it's only happened to me twice, but does this happen to anyone else? Do Scientologists send hot girls to shows to try to get people to join up? Or Hare Krishnas? I'm almost tempted to go to Revolution Books and see the state of communism is America today and listen to people impotently wonder why fat and happy 'Muricans aren't rising up against their capitalist masters and also try to pick Alice up but I feel like that's the RCP's hustle. It's why they think I "schmuck" stamped on my forehead.

Well that and Alice loved Outernational despite the fact that they were terrible. They're like if the worst parts of Rage Against the Machine, Anti-Flag and your embarrassing high school ska band (I never had one but I wanted to start one and name us Tupperware) had a baby.

And Iowa Laughs In Our Face Yet Again

2009-12-03T02:07:00.003-05:00

If I were a humbler man, I would perhaps save my crowing about East Coast superiority for a day, following the news that the New York State Senate is scared of catching the gay cooties and resoundingly defeated a gay marriage bill. I didn't need to hang around all day to find out about it either, I caught a newscaster on 1010WINS announcing the vote, and while it may have just been my own biases, I thought I heard a tinge of sadness to the announcement. Of course, it could also just be that reporting historical, groundbreaking news is more fun that reporting humanity continues to be a festering sore of ill-informed, backwards thinking bacteria.

38-24. Christ, what a massacre. So I guess Republicans and Ruben Diaz can crow about this one. Good job guys, you denied a whole class of citizens a right to pretty much be treated like everyone else, and you were able to do it without going on the Senate floor and rending your garments and gnashing your teeth and promising the homosexuals would be kidnapping our children. Well, some other person's kids, I don't have any.

“Advocates for same-sex marriage have attempted to portray their cause as inevitable,” Richard E. Barnes, the executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in the statement. “However, it has become clear that Americans continue to understand marriage the way it has always been understood, and New York is not different in that regard. This is a victory for the basic building block of our society.”

That paragraph annoys me more than any other in the article, probably in part because of my well known anti-Catholic bias. I'm getting sick of the argument that marriage now is the way marriage was in say, the 1850s, or even the 1950s, but I guess it doesn't matter how sick of it I am because that argument will never go away. Shit, I stopped going to Hebrew school after I got Bar Mitzvah'd and I still remember that when Abraham and Sara couldn't have a kid, Abraham just knocked up Sara's servant Hagar (with Sara's blessing). That sounds like exactly the kind of marriages that are around today and I'm sure the Catholic Church has tons of literature about open marriages and sex with one's servants. You know, traditional marriages.

We're Gonna Need A Techie

2009-12-02T03:28:00.003-05:00

The New York Post's AngerBot Andrea Peyser isn't really a fun read unless you like burying your face in your hands and then using it as another excuse to crawl deeper into your little heroin pit. She's a also a really easy target other internet people have shown. And while I don't mean to oversimplify an issue the way she does in this broadside (reproduced below) against anti-Atlantic Yards organizers, it seems apparent her logic processor is severely malfunctioning.

After years of legal combat that rivals the days of the Roman forum, the state's highest court has given a hearty go-ahead to the Nets basketball arena in Brooklyn. Finally! Sanity reigns in a borough where people will protest sunny days and rainbows if given the chance.

The Court of Appeals says the small knot of resisters who've refused to sell their properties to developer Bruce Ratner -- at handsome profits, I might add -- can be displaced by eminent domain.

This is good news to the many New Yorkers who will win jobs and affordable homes, and bad news only to the selfish handful who'd refused to let their neighbors get a shot at prosperity.

Smack in the middle of some of the richest real estate in the city sits Atlantic Yards, a spot so blighted, it's an outrage nothing has been built there in 40 years. Now, there's a chance.

Even better, big entertainment dollars will be sucked back into New York from New Jersey, where the Nets currently play. It's a win-win situation.

Bring it on!

Ignoring the idea that a conservative should probably be against the wholesale buying out of communities and residents' ideas of such things especially when the government is taking it, leaving aside that fact that New York is having trouble filling it's existing luxury housing, skipping the ridiculous argument that the residents of Brooklyn Heights don't want affluent neighbors, avoiding the sticky politics of why no one would build in Atlantic Yards when it was actually in need of capital, brushing off the fact that it's not as if the jobs at Barclay's Arena are gonna send your kid to Harvard and straight out skipping all that stuff about the affordable housing that will never come to be, we're left with one sentence of insanity, reprinted again for your viewing pleasure:

Even better, big entertainment dollars will be sucked back into New York from New Jersey, where the Nets currently play. It's a win-win situation.

This brings up an important question: what entertainment dollars? And many more questions to boot. Is Andrea Peyser really arguing that people from New York have been going over to New Jersey to see the 0-17 New Jersey Nets? The Nets, who have ranked near the bottom of the NBA's attendance figures even when they were the class of the Atlantic Division (it really happened)? They were taking big entertainment dollars from New York? Is that even a piece of pro-Atlantic Yards propaganda?

If it is and Peyser is that willing to repeat, I guess one can only turn to that old saw about a bridge in the major metropolitan area being for sale and how I can facilitate it for a small fee.

Somene Buy Netflix A Dictionary For Christmas

2009-11-28T01:53:00.005-05:00

Sure you're out there living your life and being debauched on Friday night at 1:30 AM and I'm at home on Netflix. But fuck it, it's the day after Thanksgiving and I spent all day traveling. Plus, I know you wouldn't see the meaning of a word get stretched well beyond its capacity for meaning out at P.J O'Drunkistan's.

Unless...

Do they kill Kevin James in Paul Blart?

Untitled

2009-11-27T17:25:00.001-05:00

Stocks and commodities dropped, Treasuries jumped and credit default swaps climbed after Dubai’s attempt to reschedule its debt rattled investors. The dollar briefly fell below 85 yen, a 14-year low, prompting speculation Japan will intervene.

More.

Twee Nazis Fuck Off

2009-11-18T00:34:00.003-05:00

It could just be the fact that this plays every single time I'm watching the Hulu, but seriously Google, what the fuck is up with this ad?

Shit, isn't this supposed to be a forward looking company? And yet here I am stuck seeing this oh-so-precious commercial over and over again like it's 2004 and Zach Braff is still a bankable movie star. My web browser may somehow eventually turn me into a furry, but better that than some asshole that goes to a rock and roll show and orders tea. I've seen it! In person!

Free ad advice for Google: catch the wave of doom and anarchy before it crests and probably takes civilization with it. Death metal for every ad.

I Want To Know What The Lost Generation Thinks

2009-11-12T13:35:00.004-05:00

I have no problem with Veterans Day, even though as a civilian I'm basically totally removed from it, just like any other military related event in The Nads. On the other hand, I have a ton of beef with a poorly thought out puff piece that may have trouble getting into the Long Beach Herald appearing on a major news website. ABC News, why must you break my heart?

For generations, Veterans Day was all about old men, and of course, the members of their generation who never got to be old men.

These days, it's a different story.

Tuesday night, as men and women of the 1st Cavalry returned from Iraq, the pictures were every bit as poignant as those black and white images of GIs coming home from wars past. This week, President Obama invited a more explicit comparison between the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the great wars of the 20th century.

...

"We don't need to look in the past for our heroism, we have all created our own name for the newer generation of the Army," said Spc. Jessica Duggan.

But what about the greatest generation?

Ugggggggggh. It's been eleven years since Tom Brokaw's sloppy blowjob to his parents and for some reason we keep rewinding back to the money shot. How about who gives a shit what the Greatest Generation thinks? I love my grandparents and know they had it hard, but I don't exactly see whatever the fuck we're called having it very easy either.

Like they had it so hard. In the 30s and 40s you could go hobo around at farms or build a tank or kill some Nazis. Yeah we've got iPhones and DVRs but how is our economy not any more fucked? No one builds cars here anymore and all our food comes from south of the equator. The only work we have is in grocery stores and bars. We barely even have newspapers anymore! Shit, the only thing that was making money in The Nads was creepy, quasi-legal debt swaps and when that predictably exploded, it almost took down every bank in the goddamn world. And even then the only thing that saved us was dumping money into them. Money that, judging by the double digit unemployment rate, would probably have been better served being set on fire in a field in the Midwest.

Plus our wars are the fucking worst. Everyone who fights in them is coming back with PTSD because they have to blow away little brown kids which sounds awesome to them in abstract but then when you've got a little Hamid's eye goop all over your feet and haunting your dreams you eventually start drinking wayyyyy too much. And. And! No one gives a shit about our troops overseas or our returning veterans. Motherfuckers in Congress couldn't even get their shit together to update the G.I. Bill for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq until 2008. And even then people worried it might encourage people to leave the military for a career that doesn't involve your car driving over IEDs. Yeah, who would want that?

The only thing the Greatest Generation had that was better than us was Father Charles Coughlin. Sure he was a treasonous anti-semite, but unlike Glenn Beck, he was upfront about it.

In conclusion, fuck you ABC News for not realizing our suffering is also terrible.

All Hail Titan Maximum

2009-11-12T00:07:00.003-05:00

It seemed like a terrible idea: a parody of Japanese giant robot shows from the creative ~~geniuses~~ team behind Robot Chicken. Not that Robot Chicken is a bad show, but it gets tiresome after too long and the possibility of seeing two stop motion pop-culture fixated shows run on Adult Swim seemed a bit much. Then I actually watched Titan Maximum.

Without a doubt, the most surprising element of the show is its reliance on character gags and the serialized nature of its plot. For the uninitiated, a quick plot overview: the dysfunctional goons piloting enormous military robot Titan Maximum are forced to deal with the implications of their former (and smartest) teammate, Gibbs, deciding universal domination is more fun than being a good guy. Like any good giant robot show, each episode eventually devolves into two robots punching the shit out of each other, but bad guy being out of reach.

Much of the humor comes from the fact that the show is eager to do away with the archetypal noble heroes of the Japanese mecha and replace them with a crew of bickering famewhores and self-righteous jagoffs. It's a brilliant conceit for an American audience used to its celebrities self-destructing in spectacular ways. And make no mistake, even when we've advanced to the point of colonizing the solar system, all of our selfish impulses to be celebrities will still be around. Maybe even more so, considering the ego it must take to pilot a giant robot with a laser sword. I mean, really, isn't obvious that this would happen if humanity built a giant robot? And yes, that includes the ska music.

Titan Maximum isn't without it's flaws, including an over-reliance on dick jokes, it's strange fixation on punishing about the only competent member of the team; Jodi Yanarella; throwing her into bed with Gibbs and then broadcasting it to the solar system and the fact that the team members seem to hate each other to the point where it seems impossible to believe they could get anything done.

With two episodes left in its inaugural season though, the show has shown an enormous amount of promise, and if given the chance can probably flesh out the characters a bit more and get off it's crutch of dick jokes. Seriously, dick jokes are funny, but I think I counted one in almost every scene of the newest episode.

Maybe They Can Settle For A Gwen Stefani NPC in World of Warcraft

2009-11-05T15:59:00.005-05:00

From the A.V. Club Newswire comes the news, that Kurt Cobain can be a trendsetter even from beyond the grave. Take it away Billboard!

No Doubt has sued video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc over the use of their likeness on its new "Band Hero" product, accusing the company of turning the rockers into a virtual karaoke act.

No Doubt and Activision had a contract allowing the company to use the band members in the game, but Activision, which is based in Santa Monica, California, went beyond the agreement by allowing gamers to use avatars of the band performing songs from other rock groups, the lawsuit states.

...

In one instance of how "Band Hero" allows for unauthorized use of No Doubt's likeness, a feature on the game has the band's Gwen Stefani singing Rolling Stones song "Honky Tonk Women," the band's lawsuit states.

The feature "results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes," the lawsuit states.

Yes, I can just see it now. Johnny and Sally and their other stereotypically named friends will be playing Band Hero when Mom walks in with a tray of cookies and sees them playing "Honky Tonk Women" with a Gwen Stefani avatar. "Oh my goodness gracious!" she'll exclaim. "I was unaware Gwen Stefani consorted with prostitutes." "Shut up, Mom!" Johnny will shout and then she'll leave the room and wonder who Gwen Stefani is because she's old.

Anyway, there are much worse things than Gwen Stefani being associated with having sex with hookers. There is, for instance, Rock Steady. Just because I took that album out of the library doesn't mean I don't deserve my money back.

Catfight Smackdown at Double X

2009-11-05T03:58:00.002-05:00

No, we're not being sexist here, because this is too awesome for casual sexism. Double X, the Slate spin-off for ladies with vaginas (vaginae?) and their issues had a good old fashioned blog fight courtesy of Rachel Latimore's idiocy.

Latimore tried a quick, three paragraph drive-by on Planned Parenthood by highlighting the case of Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. In those paragraphs, Latimore makes vague and out loud ininuations that PP is pushing abortion to make those dollars and is thrilled my Johnson's sudden, Juno-like turnaround after looking at a picture from an ultrasound. Then she asks what NEFARIOUS SECRETS Planned Parenthood could be hiding, because why else would they, a culturally divisive organization file a restraining order against a former employee in a Red State who sounds like she got a touch of the crazy?

Thankfully, Amanda Marcotte was there to point out that essentially, Latimore was lazy and full of shit. Had she actually read the restraining order, she could have seen Johnson was apparently digging through and maybe stealing patient and doctor information to give to the pro-life group she's now affiliated with. Also that it's not like every other abortion provider in the world has just decided to not look at pictures of ultrasounds for fear of realizing they're baby killers. And let's not forget the fact that Johnson was also making allusions to "something big" happening at the clinic. Totally normal thing to tell your co-workers who you're on strained terms with. Anything else? Oh right, this bitchin' paragraph shredding the "Planned Parenthood is in the abortion business" charge:

As you allowed, Planned Parenthood probably does more to prevent abortion than any anti-choice organization on the planet. There's no reason to think that Planned Parenthood's small increase (5 percent) in the number of abortion performed is any evidence against this. Planned Parenthood has always come through when women couldn't find necessary services elsewhere, or at the right price. The growing number of women without health insurance every year alone would account for this, since Planned Parenthood specializes in helping the uninsured. But also, the growing number of threats—and of course, the actual murder—against doctors means it's that much harder for women to find a provider in the area, and Planned Parenthood is picking up the overflow. Instead of seeing this as ominous, I see it as further evidence that they are a brave group of people who deserve support, not weird speculation over motives.

To her credit, Lattimore didn't just turn and run in the face of such a smackdown, but she didn't save much face, continuing to harp on the "Planned Parenthood's business model is more abortions" charge and asking us to believe in the reasonableness of a Texas pro-life group and asking us all to just be patient while the truth comes out. The truth that will surely be that Planned Parenthood is doing all the abortions everywhere, just like Rachel Lattimore said.

Not That This Is An Omen Or Anything

2009-11-05T03:51:00.002-05:00

I'm not saying it means anything that the first time I ever saw a C train break down at Broadway Junction was the day after Mike Bloomberg got re-elected, but I'm not saying it doesn't mean anything either.

I Really Shouldn't Laugh At This But I Will Anyway

2009-11-04T00:54:00.002-05:00

About a month ago or so, I received an invitation from a party promoting company telling me how much fun I could have at a party at Tavern on the Green but that I would have to dres to impress. I guess whoever sent it didn't realize I listen to Animal Collective and was wearing shoes with the soles worn down so far I was getting my feet wet when it rained. I kept the flyer for a little while because it was hilarious and I wondered what kind of future the Tavern on the Green had.

Question answered after a bunch of Bobby Bottleservice types rioted on Halloween because they got shut out of their Tavern on the Green party. Even better, it was apparently because the promoters perpetuated a massive fraud. No, seriously. Newsday, take it away:

Paparo, who estimated she spent $400 on the entire evening, arrived with her friends at 11 p.m. to find the entrance to Tavern on the Green mobbed with thousands of costumed people.

"We waited on the line for two hours in the rain before we even got near [the entrance]," said Paparo, 30, who works at a law firm. It was then that the party turned chaotic, with bouncers unable to handle the expanding crowd. "Tables were being turned over, people were throwing chairs. Bouncers were screaming and cursing at people to get out," Paparo said.

Jennifer Colwell was at the front of the line when the party began to unravel. "It reached the point that I said 'This is scary.' I didn't even want to get in, I just wanted to get out," said Colwell, 40, a legal assistant from Seaford who was at the party with friends.

New York City Police were called to the scene when traffic on Central Park West was being disrupted by the growing line of people leading to the party, according to an NYPD spokesman.

...

Tavern on the Green said in a telephone message Monday that the restaurant contracted the party to Alex and Leo Promotions for 2,000 people, but that the promoters sold more than 5,000 tickets for the party. A promoter who sold tickets to the event and who didn't want to be identified, said Alex and Leo Promotions "didn't have a limit [on tickets]. Every time they got more money from us, they released more tickets."

I mean, maybe if I was the type of person who was willing to pay one hundred and thirty dollars to get into a party I might see this as a grave injustice, but I'm not so I won't. Truth be told, I don't really get bottle service, at least if you're a plebe. I understand you want to drink a lot at the bar, but even at five dollars a shot and a dollar for a tip, you're getting twenty shots of some kinda liquor. And let's be honest, you don't really need that, theoretical party person, because at about half that number you'll probably black out and make some horrendous (and sexy) decision that results in you walking back to the subway in your sexy (and horrendous) Halloween costume.

Favorite quote of the story? It has to be this one:

"He told me the VIP tickets would entitle me to a table for all my friends," says Paparo, "We could get any . . . bottle we would want - Grey Goose, Patron, anything."

Ten internets to the person who can actually fill in the ellipsis with the dirty word. Fucking? Fuckin'? Goddamn? Damn? The possibilities are kind of limited!

There are heroes in this story and their names are Alex and Leo Baskin. These modern day P.T Barnums saw the market available for people who wanted to pretend to be exclusive celebrities and bled it of everything they could walk away with. Ice cold Miller High Lifes for you, gentlemen!

Can We Just Take The "News" Out Of Both Of Networks?

2009-08-01T15:16:00.002-04:00

Great news guys, Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann have called off their feud!

Oh wait, they did it because their corporate overlords told them to.

Yes it looks like that friend you have who smokes too much pot and complains that politics is just professional wrestling finally has a newspaper he can wave in your face in between bong hits.

So basically what we have here is that Keith Olbermann found an easy target in Bill O'Reilly, because everyone does. Except Olbermann had a directly competiting show and took some funny shots and made up a stupid voice to talk as "Bill-o" and generally revealed O'Reilly for the clown he is. Until that is, Olbermann himself became a self-important blowhard, but that was much later.

Anyway, Bill O'Reilly either didn't want to name Olbermann and give him more recognition, couldn't find tape of him being a monster or knew Keith was right. So he launched the news entertainment equivalent of a "Yo Momma" joke and made it his divine mission to expose corporate malfeasance...so long as it was G.E. doing it and not, you know, NewsCorp. This meant saying absolutely insane things about G.E. doing business with Iran like, "If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt." Yes, totally classy stuff Bill. O'Reilly's mouthbreather viewers of course took this as gospel and sent ~~hyper literate~~ your typically gramatically challenged emails to G.E., probably calling them fags and America haters.

So Immelt got his panties in a bunch and then this happened:

At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in mid-May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.

Both moguls expressed regret over the venomous culture between the networks and the increasingly personal nature of the barbs. Days later, even though the feud had increased the audience of both programs, their lieutenants arranged a cease-fire, according to four people who work at the companies and have direct knowledge of the deal.

Ooooooh, tre collusion! Look, it's not as if I'm some naive waif who thinks that a battle for ratings didn't drive part of the O'Reilly/Olbermann feud, but it's just gross to think that the rich guys who control the stations finally got tired of it and told their dogs to go after someone else. How much of Olbermann's vitriol and how much of O'Reilly's blowhard victim card was genuine in that case? They both always seemed pretty damned agreived, and not for nothing, but they also brought up important issues about the opposite party, at least in the minds of their insane viewers.

So how much of this is true? Let's just ask Olbermann and O'Reilly, shall we?

Mr. Olbermann, who is on vacation, said by e-mail message, “I am party to no deal[.]”

OK, so Keith responds in his usual "Edward R. Murrow important guy voice", totally in character.

Fox News said it would not comment.

And Fox News won't talk to the Times because the reporter was probably some Obama voting America hater. Well, at least we know this deal hasn't changed the fundamental character or either party.

Uggggggghhhhhhhh

2009-07-30T03:41:00.002-04:00

ThinkProgress should know better. Or maybe they shouldn't, I don't know, I don't read that many openly liberal news aggregators because the comment sections drive me up a wall (and that includes AlterNet). But something tells me ThinkProgress should know better than give in to Family Guy's ridiculous hype and call it "edgy", mostly because anyone that's been alive during the 2000s can't possibly find Quagmire offensive, can they? Erk, I guess so:

The edgy comedy show “Family Guy” is known for its political incorrectness. It regularly features a sexual deviant character, put a McCain-Palin button on a character wearing an SS uniform, and has even taken shots at the Fox network.

Oh Jesus. Let's not go into the fact that the Simpsons have done almost every one of those jokes better and years before Family Guy (I'll give them Quagmire, since the Simpsons' writers never saw fit to use date rape jokes as a crutch) and focus on the fact that this just reads like a press release. Bad Amanda Terkel!

Anyway, boo hoo, Fox won't air Family Guy's abortion episode because according to Seth MacFarlane, they're scared to death to do it. Oh, sorry, "scared to fucking death," how edgy! It could also just be a stupid ploy to gin up interest for the DVD release of the umpteenth season of a show that peaked when it got canceled and came back believing its own hype, since the episode will be on said DVD.

It's a shame too, I'm sure Seth MacFarlane worked really hard on this episode. I can almost see it. He woke up in his solid gold house, went out to get his morning paper resting in front of the front door and saw a headline about abortion. "Aha", thought Seth MacFarlane, "no one has ever joked about abortion before. I'll be a naughty git and do it myself." Yes, Seth MacFarlane calls himself a git, you read it, you can't unread it.

He then burst into the writers' room and slapped down this side splitting scenario:

MEG GRIFFIN at the doctor's office, getting an abortion.

PETER GRIFFIN

Jeez Meg, your abortion is more boring than my date with Katherine Heigl.

CUT TO

Katherine Heigl made of oatmeal or something and being totally boring.

CUT TO

WACKY DOCTOR rolling around in vaginal goop and baby guts

Comedy ~~gold~~ tin, baby!

Peter King Discovering Youtube Is A Gift From Allah

2009-07-07T21:02:00.003-04:00

Peter King is a meathead jerk who didn't care when people in his clan were planting bombs but is very, very concerned about brown people doing it, to the point that he feels we need to monitor their religious centers. This doesn't make him much different from most Americans or most people in Congress, and if I hadn't grown up with his craggy face looming over my town (metaphorically) as my Congressional representative, I probably wouldn't know a thing about him.

Similarly, if Peter King had merely used the YouTubes just once in a strange and poorly filmed plea for campaign donations, I'd be apt to ignore it on the internet, but laugh and talk about it in real life, which I did. But now that he's veering into awkward vlogger territory, I hope Peter King never leaves the internet.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I think this is why they invented "WTF" or this guy right here. Who am I to judge though? I took one film class and college and all of a sudden think I can critique the poor intern who had to use a a camcorder from the 1980s to film shaky shots of patriotic fluff like fire departments and flags? And then uses that as the patriobread for Peter King's impassioned "Teachers and soldiers r gud" rant sandwich? No, obviously I don't understand, because what I do understand is that when the most famous person in the world dies the media will cover it non-stop. I also understand that if soldiers and teachers and volunteers were deified the way Michael Jackson was in his life they would probably get some serious personality disorders going too. Sorry, I guess that's psychobabble.

And let's not forget "We Are The World" inexplicably raised 60 million American dollars for aid to impoverished African countries. Yeah I only like the video because it's hilarious and yes celebrity "we care" wankfests are excruciating, but if Peter King could raise 1 percent of what "We Are The World" did for any charitable cause I'll eat his hat. And no, money for the IRA to bomb the English does not count as charity. Nice try.

Thank you again, old angry white men, for showing us all how rage and ignorance is truly done.

Because I'm Too Lazy To Actually Talk About Iran

2009-06-19T03:20:00.004-04:00

Real talk from the War Nerd, Gary Brecher:

But, to get coldblooded about it, so what? They’re not going to overthrow the state. I don’t usually like that word, “the state,” but I’m using it here because it works better than “Ahmedinajad.” He’s the official bad guy here, the classic bigmouth runt who wants Israel turned into a gravel pit and America turned into a colony of Venezuela. Hell, he’s all kinds of obnoxious, down to the ratty beard and beady eyes and the way he dresses like a hungover Soviet janitor.

But he’s not the Islamic Republic of Iran.

...

Even if he fell, the IRI, the real system, would barely wobble. The President is a mouthpiece; the real power is purposely divided up by a half dozen creepy Islamic gangs that never talk to the BBC or CNN. All of them are seriously armed; they’re mixed up in everything from religious seminars to land deals; they’re sleazy but smart, a bunch of mean old survivors.

Shockingly though, we also get some empathy:

They’re sick of it, which is easy to understand; living in the Islamic Republic of Iran must be a lot like going to a Catholic school where you never, ever graduate, where kissing is a felony and not wearing the uniform is a crime against God. Hell yes, they’re sick of it, and they have every right to be.

Honestly, the whole thing is a laff riot.

And don't think this cynicism is an Exiled thing, Slate sounds just as downcast:

Yet there is a limit to how much conservative forces will give. The last 10 years have seen the ascendance of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to senior political and economic positions. Veterans of Iran's war with Iraq, they are committed to the current regime and are suspicious of any challenge to the system. They do not travel or meet with foreign reporters, but they are the country's power elite.

...

Mousavi himself is likely to disappoint. A prime minister in the 1980s, when the regime was far more revolutionary than it is today, he is a creature of the Iranian system. Indeed, in order to win approval to run for president in the first place, he had to pass an ideological and political litmus test that rejected more than 400 other candidates, leaving only Mousavi, Ahmadinejad, and two other establishment types. As prime minister, he approved Iran's effort to purchase nuclear technology from Pakistan, and during the 2009 campaign he defended Iran's nuclear program. Clearly he is an improvement over Ahmadinejad, but that is damning with the faintest praise.

...

It is possible that if he somehow won a new election Mousavi might prove to be a reformer in the Mikhail Gorbachev mode, pushing the dilapidated system so hard that it breaks. More likely, however, he will move away from some of Ahmadinejad's most obnoxious policies but not fundamentally change the nature of the regime. This betrayal would be the saddest cut of all for the brave Iranians who dream of freedom and are now risking their lives to put him in power.

Maureen Dowd Makes Me Do The Facepalm

2009-04-12T22:55:00.004-04:00

(This is me when I read Maureen Dowd. Bald head and all.)

Oh hey guys, Maureen Dowd wrote a terrible new column and if you're reading this you'll now be forced to read it.

California’s having an identity crisis.

Once the West Coast glowed with prosperity and was the harbinger of hip new things. Now it’s in the grip of recession and repression. California’s cool has been stolen by, of all places, Iowa.

White-bread, cornfed, understated Iowa was the first state to ratify the black rookie Barack Obama and has usurped the role everyone thought California would play as a leader in the fight to give gays the right to marry.

Now it’s flyover country that’s starting high-flying trends.

The mayor of Des Moines, Frank Cownie, called the San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom, to leave him a message about the Iowa Supreme Court decision.

“That caught me, candidly, by surprise, proverbially flat-footed,” Newsom said in an interview at City Hall. “It was around April 1st, so I thought, honestly, it was an April Fool’s joke.”

OK, first of all, something tells me that Iowa has the recession too. State legislators may not be selling blood to help close the budget gap in Iowa, but that that doesn't mean they're popping champagne and dumping it on video hos either. And duh, of course Iowa gave Barack Obama his first win, it was the first primary of 2008.

Most important though is the fact that gays were allowed to marry in California long before Maureen Dowd even had the idea to write this incredibly poor opening thesis to her column. Which, I may remind you all runs in the Sunday New York Times, a rather prestigious place. Come on Maureen Dowd, did you not know the California Supreme Court allowed gay marriage in 2008, or did you just willfully ignore it? And for that matter, where's your evidence that the people of Iowa wouldn't overturn their own court decision if given a ballot referendum and wouldn't do so in even greater numbers than in Cali?

Max Mutchnick, the co-creator of “Will and Grace,” who married the entertainment lawyer Erik Hyman in Beverly Hills just days before Proposition 8 passed last November — theirs is among the 18,000 or so marriages now in legal limbo — was tickled by the idea of Iowa as the new California. “Will we see David Geffen rollerblading in the Des Moines skywalk?” Mutchnick mused. “Will paparazzi chase after farmers looking for candid shots? Will Ashton and Demi be BlackBerrying friends from their corner table at Applebee’s? Will there be a new line of Kiehl’s products for goats?”

Oh fuck, thanks for that because it's not like Midwesterners already think people on the coasts don't take them seriously. I mean, isn't it like so droll that those plebes eat at Applebee's*? And what's with them and goats? Oh those little people. Maureen Dowd, you play shitty fucking defense for the liberal media conspiracy to make the coastal elites look good and I would say you should be fired but you provide too much good material.

(*Editor's note: Of course Applebee's fucking sucks, just like T.G.I. Friday's and Ruby Tuesday and Queso de Monday's. But how does it help to court Iowa to do anything when you're giving them backhanded compliments?)

It's Either Time To Quit Doing Drugs, Or Do More Of Them

2009-04-09T14:39:00.003-04:00

I don't mean for this to become some kind of Videogum link dump, but this is definitely the best video on the internet. Ever. "Boom Goes The Dynamite" has been replaced. Salvia. On daytime television. Being smoked.

Sorry, I'm just having a hard time using my words here in between all the laughing. You think there's some snot-nosed little Students Against Destructive Decisions president out there who got to tell the producer that 1 in 2 kids gets high? Roffle. Even the government doesn't tell people that 1 in 2 kids get high. Christ, they'd be shooting junkies in the street if that were the case.

Nothing however can beat the "lead the stoned guy out on a leash" segment. I mean, whenever I get stoned, I make sure to bring my sober friend along so he can keep me from scampering away and sniffing other stoned people's butts or getting hit by a car.

Srsly The Doctors, keep up the good fight. Because if you don't bring stoned people on leashes in front of a live studio audience, no one will.

For A Second There I Was Worried They Were Going To Leave Out "I Like To Move It Move It"

2009-04-02T21:09:00.004-04:00

I have nightmares when I go to sleep. Not like, night terrors or anything like that, but generally I have very unpleasant dreams. I wonder if it's because I have an uncomfortable place to sleep or maybe it's because I get super high every night before I go to bed. Whatever it is, I always wake up with this sense of dread because of the blurry visions of terror running through my subconscious every night. And now science and the internet and Videogum have allowed me to share these nightmares with you.

So next time you see me and I look tired or worn down, you'll know why.

Is The Ecstatic Just Some Kind Of Cruel Hoax?

2009-03-02T23:03:00.002-05:00

What the world is sorely lacking, aside from a functioning economy and maybe free cotton candy machines on every corner, is a new Mos Def album. Think about it: The New Danger came out in 2004, when I was still in college, and it was kind of weird and totally unlike Black on Both Sides. I mean, I wasn't going to begrudge Mos for going all crazy and trying to take rock'n'roll away from white folks, and the album had some solid songs like "Sunshine", 'The Rape Over" and "Champion Requiem". Then there was Tru Magic which no one listened to, literally. There are zero people who listened to that album because by then it seemed Dante was more interested in rapping about the GMC Denali and appearing in the remake of the Italian Job (WTF, mate?).

So for awhile all was quiet on the Mos Def front and hip hop was all the lamer for it. Then one day I saw this post on Byron Crawford's blog with "Life in Marvelous Times" and my life was changed forever, literally (not literally). Honestly, I must have listened to the track one hundred times the first week it hit the internet and told all my friends about it and how they had to listen to it or they were lame. I was having visions of The Ecstatic hitting the streets any day and blowing everyone away with the force of a Class Five Hurrinado. Seriously, just listen to it.

And then...nothing. I started looking around for a release date or some news about the album, but I couldn't seem to find anything. Considering this was the lead single for the album and it had dropped at the end of October, why the hell was it December and I still wasn't hearing anything? The World's Most Accurate Encyclopedia gave the release date as June 2009, and still does, but come on, that shit seems ridiculous, especially since it's completely unsourced. Shocking, I know.

Elsewhere on the internet, the consensus seemed to be sometime in February, but as I look at my calendar today, I notice that the month is Not February, otherwise known as March. So where the fuck is my new Mos Def album? The only news on Pitchfork was some wack ass writer throwing the single up there and then not acting like it was hot fiyah, even though he knows it is. The Amazon page lists the release as December 20, 2020, which is "ha-ha very funny" except that it's a joke at my expense about something I desperately want.

There's fake copies of it floating around BitTorrent, which isn't cool but totally predictable, but our best hop now lies in the mysterious Tom Minogue who writes for the Collegiate Times, which I've never heard of. He gave The Ecstatic an "A" and in the link to this review, The Rap Up gives the street date as May 19.

So really, what gives? Is it label issues? Some kind of production issue because Mos is being a perfectionist? Or is he just fucking with all of us, releasing an awesome single and then retreating to his Rapcave to cackle about people going nuts over it? I kind of hope it isn't the last option because as I've made abundantly clear, the world could use another Mos Def album. But, if it is the third one, at least scientists will finally have proof that the long rumored Rapcave does in fact exist.

That's Quite Enough From You, Clint Eastwood

2009-02-28T03:09:00.003-05:00

You know what would be funny? If we all got together and told jokes about how every Clint Eastwood movie is insured against him falling down and breaking his hip. Because he is old, get it? HAHA, stereotypes!

Seriously Clint Eastwood, it was bad enough when you (a rich, spoiled Hollywood actor) were busy telling everyone my age that we're a generation of pussies. Fuck, let's just ignore that whole thing and the fact that you said it to Esquire magazine of all places and let's focus on the latest dementia-spawned rambling to come up through your dentures (two for one):

"People have lost their sense of humour. In former times we constantly made jokes about different races. You can only tell them today with one hand over your mouth or you will be insulted as a racist," the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

"I find that ridiculous. In those earlier days every friendly clique had a 'Sam the Jew' or 'Jose the Mexican' - but we didn't think anything of it or have a racist thought. It was just normal that we made jokes based on our nationality or ethnicity. That was never a problem. I don't want to be politically correct.

Jesus, are you really talking about political correctness? Did you learn nothing from my harsh words for Facebook guy? And seriously, what the fuck are you saying there? That you and your honky friends would make fun of "Sam the Jew" and "Jose the Mexican" or that your honky friends had friends that weren't ofays? Totally confused here.

You do know that in polite company people still tease each other about ethnic differences. The only difference between now and the 1930s, where you live still, is that Bob Hope isn't making jokes about Mexicans' affinity for tequila because we understand that Mexicans drink all kinds of liquor. I mean, you can't make a cartoon about the cops shooting a monkey that kind of gets construed as the cops shooting the President, but you'd have to be an idiot (work for the New York Post) to do something like that.

You and Nick Young seem to be confused as to why people don't run down the street screaming that Jews don't tip (this used to happen). Maybe a brief history lesson will help you. See, back when you were hanging with Sam and Jose, they couldn't even get a fucking job working for AT&T, which according to my grandma had all the jobs back then. All of them. Neither, for that matter, could your friend Seamus the Mick, because WASPS ruled the world and treated it like it was one big White Dude Party (invite only, suckas). It was a little like the end of this Young Buck video where he finds the Illuminati behind a clearly marked door (around 4:30 in if you hate Young Buck and/or Pauly Shore).

Umm, anyway, the point is that once Sam and Jose and Seamus realized they were getting royally screwed, they pissed and moaned and told people to stop calling them cheap or lazy or drunk and give them jobs. So, Bob Hope and all those other guys had to stop tailoring their acts to making jokes that were at everyone's expense except for WASPS and people were happy for awhile.

Oh but wait, then political correctness died a fiery death in the late 80s and early 90s because everyone got sick of it and just started trashing each other again, but in a clever way. Jesus, Bill Maher had a show called "Politically Incorrect" and Chris Rock got famous doing a bit about black people vs. niggers and Quentin Tarantino screamed "dead nigger storage" for like, eighteen minutes during the credits of Pulp Fiction. Look it up. Of course, these people had smart and funny things to say outside of the bounds of politeness and that's why it was OK for them to do it.

But hey Clint Eastwood, don't let all that stop you from using your arthritic fingers to log on to Facebook and write a note about how you hate political correctness. I just hope your eyesight is good enough to read your keyboard (I'll stop the age jokes when I damn well please).

Reading Rick Reilly Is Like Receiving Oral Sex From A Bag Of Glass

2009-02-22T19:15:00.002-05:00

Rick Reilly is terrible. Not only is he terrible, he's also very, very boring (there is no metaphor about how boring he is). His milquetoast jackassery is what makes America so fucking awful. Rick Reilly will tell you Forest Gump deserved the 1995 Best Picture over Pulp Fiction because it was accessible and family friendly. Rick Reilly still thinks the Grammys matter. Rick Reilly and Mitch Albom once had a maudlin-off but the results were never found out because the judges all killed themselves and their families. Then Rick Reilly wrote a column about never giving up on your dreams even though you and your family are all tragically dead.

Now Reilly gets to write a column once a week for ESPN: The Magazine (not to be confused with ESPN: The Shouty Television Network) and gets paid something like 48,000 dollars a word to do so. His column is the usual lame-ass, back page space taker upper, the kind of thing magazines just feel compelled to do because unlike the Village Voice they can't just put ads for Asian masseurs and clinical drug tests back there. I don't know why though, because that shit would be so much better than Rick Reilly. Who is terrible.

See, now that A-Rod admitted to using steroids and everyone is generally freaking the fuck out, Rick Reilly is here to bring calm to America by...rearranging the baseball MVP awards from the last 20 years. Yep, totally makes sense.

It's been tougher than a $4.99 steak. Got chased by Dobermans eight times. Had to hire five different sticky-fingered third-graders. Broke into the wrong house twice.

You broke child labor laws. Dick.

But it's finally done. I've been able to retrieve every single MVP award that was wrongfully won by every single suspected 'roid ranger over the past 20 years. You can see them all shining on the table next to me. Got the stains off them and everything. Now I'm ready to give them to their rightful owners.

And why not? If Bud Selig can talk about giving Barry Bonds' phony-as-tofurkey home run record back to Hank Aaron, why can't we right all the wrongs of the Syringe Binge?

Yes, except that Bud Selig capitulated on that immediately, and even Hank Aaron thought it was stupid. I bet he thinks you're stupid too Rick Reilly. What a shock, by the way, that two of my most hated figures in sports share the same inability to deal with reality and things that have actually happened. The part where he calls Mike Greenwell is boring, so let's skip that, until we get to this.

(Don't feel bad for Canseco. We're replacing the award he never deserved with one he did: the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Jose, can you see how much we believe you now?)

I kind of feel like calling up Steve Coll and asking him what he thinks of Rick Reilly taking away his much deserved Pulitzer for Ghost Wars and giving it to a Jose Canseco for a book he didn't even fucking write himself.

Step up here, Mike Piazza. The late Ken Caminiti of the San Diego Padres stole your 1996 NL MVP, then admitted he was into more juice than Jack LaLanne. Yes, it's 13 years late, but the nameplate is new! And here's yours from 2001, Luis Gonzalez, after you finished behind The Barry Bonds Pharmacy. We won't even mention the home run title you would've won that year.

Oh my God a Jack LaLanne juicer joke. Reilly's jokes would get him shot in the Borscht Belt. Also, make sure to remember the Luis Gonzalez thing, because we come back to that in a moment.

Now, for the man of the night. I have a U-Haul of hardware here for Jose Alberto Pujols Alcántara of the St. Louis Cardinals. You already have two MVPs, Albert, and you're about to get three more, since Barry Bonds ripped you off worse than Bernie Madoff to win the award from 2002 to 2004. You hit .335 and averaged 41 bombs those years and yet you finished second behind the clearly creaming Bonds in '02 and '03, and third behind Bonds and Adrian Beltre in '04. We're throwing out Beltre since, while he denies ever using PEDs, he fell off the face of the planet once baseball put in stricter steroid suspensions in 2005. If he wasn't cheating, I'm the Queen Mother.

Right, we get it, you hate Barry Bonds. But that's hardly the most shocking part of this paragraph. Rick Reilly just used a major national platform to launch a totally unverified claim at Adrian Beltre, whose only crime was having a career year in a contract year. Because no one has ever done that before. What's even more bizarre is that he slanders Beltre for the same exact thing that Luis Gonzalez did (your new 2001 MVP I guess), namely, having an outlier year.

Luis Gonzalez never hit more than 30 home runs again after 2001. Hell, he never hit more than 29 home runs after that year. But we're to believe a guy in his age-33 season hit 22 more home runs than he ever had before and that isn't suspicious. However, a player who always was seen having had a ton of potential has a breakout season at age 25 and you see fit to slander him in a nationally read magazine. I won't call you the Queen Mother, I'll call you an asshole.

Speaking of letting people down, Alex Rodriguez admitted last week he cheated like a Three-Card Monte dealer from 2001 to 2003 as a Texas Ranger. He was the AL MVP in '03, stealing it from then-Toronto Blue Jay Carlos Delgado, who finished second. Just to recap: He cheated. He admitted it. He won the MVP. And yet the people who gave Rodriguez the award— the Baseball Writers' Association of America—decided last week that he could keep it. "It's [A-Rod's] award to do what he wants with," BBWAA secretary-treasurer Jack O'Connell told a reporter. "Listen, the wool was pulled over all our eyes. We had an election and those were the guys that won. The awards are theirs."

Thank God O'Connell isn't a judge. Yes, you admit you robbed the bank, but what the hell, why don't you go ahead and keep the cash? Buy yourself something nice.

Look, it's not like A-Rod had needles hanging out of his pockets for the whole season. You can't just take the award away and arbitrarily determine it goes to the guy in second place. Those games A-Rod played in? They happened. They're a matter of historical record. If we get into doing things like this all the time, the next thing you know we'll be raising Richard Nixon from the dead and announcing him as the true winner of the 1960 Presidential Election because that son of a bootlegger Kennedy stole Chicago and we'll have some kind of zombie president thing going on. History happened Rick Reilly, just fucking deal with it.

Also, I bet if Jack O'Connell was a judge, he'd tell a bank robber something like this: "You have been tried and found guilty by a jury of your peers. Your sentence will be handed down shortly." That was boring and unfunny because the law is in fact both of those things. But then Judge O'Connell would turn to Rick Reilly and say, "Mr. Reilly, you are guilty of being a terrible fucking writer and you now go to Videogum jail. Goodbye." Then a flock of specially trained pigeons would fly in the room and take Rick Reilly to jail. Bye, Rick!

Time For Another Edition of "Funny, Not Funny"

2009-01-16T01:07:00.003-05:00

Funny!

Not funny!

(Still totally seeing this movie though)

Charles M. Blow Is Global Warming

2009-01-10T17:51:00.003-05:00

This is a little complicated, but science always is. That's why I was so bad at it in high school and still don't quite get where babies come from. My friend Dave told me they come from this creepy MTA maintenance train with a bunch of tubes and shit we saw one night, and he seems to know his stuff. Anyway.

Charles M. Blow is a columnist for the New York Times, though I'm hard pressed to remember any other time I've seen one of his columns before today, though that could be due to the fact that Saturdays are reserved for sleeping late and immediately reaching for a beer when I wake up. In a totally ironic set of circumstances, Chuck wrote a column about cocaine. You know, cause coke is blow. But oddly enough, the column isn't about how he got to be known as Charlie Nose Candy, nor is it about how he doesn't want people to call him Chuckie Coke. Instead it's about like, how coke is bad and shit.

I know, right? Everyone knows coke is awesome and is only bad once bad things (nosebleeds, owing money to angry Colombians) start to happen. Shit, our last two presidents have done coke and they grew up to be, um, presidents. So M. took a bunch of space on the Op-Ed page to scare all the parents of white children and tell them that their babies are skiing much more often than the black children of America.

So I guess that would be bad and stuff, except that he never gives a straight number of how many high school kids realize coke is the elixir of life and when you look at the helpful graph the Times provides, you realize only 3% of white high students are doing coke, and you're probably having the same reaction I am: "WTF mate?" I mean, if you break it down, it's probably like, 1.8% cool kids in high school and 1.2% druggie losers. And everyone knows the cool kids in high school go on to great things in life while druggie losers will always be losers. Don't even bother with the rehab part of the graph, because you and I and Walter Johnson know rehab is for quitters/losers.

The column also has an awesome scare quote from the National Drug Threat Assessment (???), "The decrease in perceived risk suggests that adolescents are becoming less wary of trying cocaine, which may sustain demand for the drug in the near future." Shows what the fuck they know. There will always be a demand for coke you jokers, because as we went over above, coke is awesome and the president did it so how about you stop harshing my buzz because I think I'm on to something here.

So what does Charles M. Blow have to do with global warming? Christ, I have to explain everything to you people, don't I? OK, so the New York Times is a newspaper. Newspapers are printed on paper, which is made from trees, trees that you have to cut down and thus deprive nature of its oxygen delivery service. So let's say the Times' circulation is ummmm, eight million papers a day and printing Charles Blow's columns takes a page of the paper whenever it's printed. So, since we know the column is a waste of paper, that is eight million pieces of high grade newspaper paper wasted every time he writes. And let's just say for the sake of my argument that everyone gets so angry at Charles M. Blow every week that they hold mass burnings of his column whenever it runs. Eight million newspaper pages burned every other week or whatever, leading to an excess of smoke and soot and ash clogging up the atmosphere, trapping greenhouse gases, raising global temperatures and melting the icecaps. And we and our future children have to suffer the consequences of rising tides the word over all because Charles M. Blow doesn't know how to have any fun. Thanks, Chuck.

Science!

Hey Facebook Person, It Is You Who Is The Dummy

2009-01-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

Something tells me I should be less than proud about writing angrily abut something I saw on Facebook. But dear, dear F-Book is now the way we communicate in the Future which is happening right now. Anyway, I had a little time at work today and decided to see if I got any more awesome requests to end global warming or kill a Hamas member of be someone's best friend ever in the history of friends, both regular and best. What I saw instead was a stupid game of "tell me about you tag." Way retarded and could only happen on the Facebook. But attached to the game was a note from someone I don't know that was so stupefying I almost booked a taxi to Bill Gates' house to go and demand he unplug the internet. I'm totally for real, I thought of taking a cab from Manhattan to Seattle. Because I was angry. So very angry.

What could make me so angry? Feast your eyestalks on this picture and perhaps you too can fantasize about destroying all the good works of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Oh my Godthatdoesn'texist. First off, complaining about the world being politically correct (or "PC" in non-computer related acronym language) is so Rush Limbaugh mid-90s that you should be ashamed of it Nick Young. I decided to include your name in the screencap because it's a crappy name and I know this because you are a crappy person based on the dumb you just vomited all over my internet. Thanks for that. But more importantly...

EVERYTHING YOU SAID IS DEMONSTRABLY FALSE! YOU ARE MADE OF 100 PERCENT LIES AND IGNORANCE HORRIBLE STATEMENT PERSON!

See, this is not real, it is an urban legend/practical joke/drug hallucination:

I know because Snopes told me so, and if you had done a three second Google search, you too would have known this. Instead, you start your incredible series of lies spoken as truth with the most retarded, out of date argument ever. Kind of like if you started a knife fight by stabbing yourself in the face/other body parts over and over, which I hope you do tomorrow you human sack of calumny. Also, telling kids to eat only cookies does promote obesity. Also it would be PC to say it's OK to be a fat waterhead that European supermodels laugh at, as opposed to encouraging kids to eat a motherfucking carrot or red pepper sometime in between refilling their Kentucky Fried McBurger and 6 gallon soda trough. Still, point remains, the Cookie Monster (not Veggie Monster) still likes cookies. NPR knows this, so why can't you? Oh right, because you are made of stupid with moron cream filling.

In light of all that above wrong, you somehow keep going, making the totally ridiculous assertions that the Count was removed for offending OCD people (waht????) and Oscar the Grouch was trashed (comedy champion is me!) for being offensive to the all powerful bum lobby. Srsly, the bum lobby controls Washington, more than the Jews and the mole men put together. No, j/k, Jews run Washington! It goes: Jews, bums, people who think Jesus watches them tug it to internet porn, then mole men. Anyway...

I wish you would introduce me to those people who are complaining about these things, because they don't exist. But maybe I just can't see them and that would make them ghosts maybe? Are ghosts complaining about things that never happened on Sesame Street? I hope not, because if I were a ghost I would spend my time tugging my ethereal junk while watching ladies ~~pee~~ ~~shower~~ cook delicious steak.

And yet you somehow keep failing, falling on your ugly pock marked face when you attempt to stick the landing but, um, like I said, fall on your lumpy misshapen face by making the bizarre declaration "sometimes a monster living in a garbage can is just a monster living in a garbage can." WRONG. Oscar represents being a grouch, fucking duh. Also, he was once orange. Imagine that.

You also encourage all of us in the world to "RAISE HELL TO THIS REAL SHIT AND FEEL THIS!" I really really wish I know what that meant. Am I to raise hell because you said something so profound and deep about our way too "PC" world? Have you made it to real for whiny liberals, Michael Pollan and me? Or are you perhaps encouraging me to "feel this" anger which you have filled me with? You are so GD confusing, which will happen when every sentence you string together would make more sense if it was jumbled up in random word throwerarounder. That thing doesn't even exist yet, but I will create it just to make sense of your hideous lies.

In conclusion, you, Nick Young, win the award for being the worst at the internet. Collect your prize at bottom of the ocean (hint: your prize involves not being not alive anymore).