| (no subject) |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|12:00 am] |
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|02:49 pm] |
0044 3215 6455
LET'S DO THIS |
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| best of 2007 |
[Jan. 1st, 2008|11:17 pm] |
Favorite albums of the year. For some reason, I wasn't a fan of most of the comments I wrote about these records, so I replaced them all with comments taken from Amazon customer reviews of "All the Right Reasons" by Nickelback, in honor of that band's rumored impending move to Allston to work on a new album:
1. Baroness, The Red Album. Although there are many other good artists out there, this is one of the best albums to come out in a long time. It is more of a popish/alternative type of music as opposed to hard rock like metallica or a more alternative linkin park. If you are not afraid to like popular music than this is a great album.
2. Boredoms, Super Roots 9. Their melodies and big chorus' are enough to make an Ozzy Osbourne wet dream!!! The proof is in the pudding and Nickelback knows what they're doing. Are they my favorite band: No, but they write tunes that you just can't help but like!!!
3. UGK, Underground Kingz. The song 'Rockstar' is the greatest song of all time, the lyrics are very well-written, and the music compliments it until the very end. The lyrics 'the girls come easy and the drugs come cheap', or 'everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial' say everything about how much thought went into not only this song, but the whole album.
4. Earthless, Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky. The songs from this album that I have heard on the radio made me want to buy this cd. However, when I listend to it all the way through, it seemed like all the other songs were very hardcore alternative which is something I am not a fan of.
5. Times New Viking, Present the Paisley Reich. Even though their newest catalog release has more of a pop essence than their previous attempts, they have managed to do something else: ride the new pop-metal wave. Pop-metal, first created by newer alternative bands such as Seether or Evanescence, has seen it's share of ups and downs. This is most definitely an up.
6. Project Pat, Walkin' Bank Roll. I have been listening to nickelback for a long time Since i heard "How you remind me" i think that nickelback is one of todays greatest bands and if you like rock music it would be impossible to not like nickelback. I think when the time is right nickelback is definitely going down as of the the best bands to ever play and will surley end up in the rock n roll hall of fame. It is like what another great band said it "For those about to Rock "I" salute You"
7. Pig Destroyer, Phantom Limb. Truly rockin album! Reminds me of my wilder, younger days and prompted me to buy tickets to the upcoming concert. Loved it and so does my six year old!
8. Pissed Jeans, Hope for Men. Led Zepplein is still sold in stores. If you want the same old good rock and roll...Please call your local record store and file a complaint against Nickleback...We have an election coming up in 2 years and we can't let NaSS Car Nation win again.
9. Les Savy Fav, Let's Stay Friends. "Oh it all sounds the same, the lyrics are just recycled over and over, and I hate them cause they are so successful and have sold platinum album after platinum album." You should ask yourself this: "Why don't I appreciate all types of music and don't open up to all types of rock music?"
10. Big Business, Here Come the Waterworks. Generally, from what i've read, those who hate it don't even reference songs from the album anyway (ie haven't bought it), and are just writing to slag off at their deep seated hatred of any band who sells a few albums (ie rebelling against 'the man'). Hey, thats all cool, you guys can have your chordless, melody deficient scream metal.
11. Blood Tsunami, Thrash Metal. There are som super geat tracks on this album. The only reason I give it a 4 instead of a 5 is because there are a few songs with erotic language that I wasn't expecting and I think Nickelback is too great of a band to have to sing about explicit content. Leave that to the one minute pop sensations.
12. Bottomless Pit, Hammer of the Gods. You can tell Nickelback recorded this album for "All the Right Reasons." They sound terrific. Sometimes artists slack after a ton of success, but Nickelback sounds hungrier than ever. ATTR is both slick and raw with a lot of emotion and candor. A definite recommend.
13. Parts & Labor, Mapmaker. When I first heard "Photograph" on AOL Music sometime last year I didn't really pay that much attention to it. I actually didn't like the clip that I heard. But upon buying the album, only then did I realize what a great song it actually was. The theme of going through a photo album and reminiscing about your past and those that you once knew is what makes the song memorable.
14. Dog Day, Night Group. It's a shame that bands like Arcade Fire, Stars, Metric, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, Death From Above 1979, among dozens of other truly gifted Canadian bands are selling only a small fraction of the number of albums Nickleback is. Uninspired, uninventive, and oozing with bad rock cliche's, Nickleback is proof that there's no accounting for taste.
15. Sally Shapiro, Disco Romance. Nickelback has officially gone to...Chick rock. Now, don't get me wrong, I still love them. I just think Nickelback should get back to their roots. Thank you for reading this, and for those of you that didn't, go eat a banana.
16. Jesu, Conqueror. Sorry guys, but this CD is NO GOOD! If you want real pop ROCK music, buy Bo Bice's THE REAL THING! Bo's a REAL rocker and he's the REAL DEAl!! Nickelback can't sing!!!!
17. Prodigy, Return of the Mac. The lyrics of Next Contestant are so funny. Chad Kroeger can be so funny with some of the lyrics he writes as he is trying to find the right girl to go out with, yet she doesn't impress him...Here comes the next contestant, Chad sings.
18. Clockcleaner, Babylon Rules. I typically listen to it with my guyfriends while driving, windows down, stereo blasting--the way it's meant to be played. Maybe that's why they have a road/car on most of their CD covers
19. Major Stars, Mirror/Messenger. Ok first; I like lots of different music, some might say odd combos. Nickelback and Beethoven, Collective Soul and Enya, French and Italain pop... That out of the way I really do like a number of songs on this CD, thuss my four stars. Tracks 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9 are the best! I could put them on repeat for the next month and not get sick of songs like "Savin' Me". Chad's voice is really cool and strong, and I enjoy the mix of piano that is in a few of the songs.
20. Crime Mob, Hated on Mostly. Anyway it has been a long wait for this release, this morning had the Christmas feel to it. I took the day off from work ( I know you are thinking overkill, but it is not everyday in this era of downloading songs that sound good until the next catchy tune is in the top 5 I buy a new CD especially on its release date) I was at the music store at open time and paid 10 bucks for a cd I would have glading dropped twenty five for. I live in New Hampshire and if you did not know the fall is a great up here , nice crisp air and the leaves turning color...so I peeled the top off my wrangler and having no patience for the wrapping on cds I was able to crack open the case a bit to just get my hands on the cd and pull it out. I waited until I got just far enough out of town not to be distracted by local traffic to slip the disc in and head towards the mountains and let the music soak into me.
Others: Blues Control, Puff, Buried at Sea, Ghost EP, Circle, Panic, Dan Deacon, Spiderman of the Rings, Devin the Dude, Waitin' to Inhale, Dinosaur Jr, Beyond, Dizzee Rascal, Maths and English, Elliott Smith, New Moon, Gallhammer, Ill Innocence, Ghostface Killah, The Big Doe Rehab, Harvey Milk, Courtesy and Good Will (reissue), Harvey Milk, My Love is Higher than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be (reissue), The Hidden Hand, The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote, inblackandwhite, Say We Are Not Brothers EP, John Vanderslice, Emerald City, Kanye West, Graduation, Laethora, March of the Parasite, LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver, Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3, Marnie Stern, In Advance of the Broken Arm, Monarch, Die Tonight, Okkervil River, The Stage Names, Prodigy, Return of the Mac, R. Kelly, Double Up, Reports, Mosquito Nets, Shellac, Excellent Italian Greyhound, Silkworm, Chokes EP, Solar Anus, Skull Alcoholic (reissue), Statehood, Lies and Rhetoric, Torche, In Return, Trae, Life Goes On, The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour, Weedeater, God Luck and Good Speed, Wu-Tang Clan, 8 Diagrams, Zu and Nobukazu Takemura, Identification with the Enemy.
Shows: Moved back to JP this year and missed a bunch, actually. In semi-chronological order:
Les Savy Fav, Jesu, Prisonshake, Black Lips, Shearwater and Ghostface @ SXSW
Dismemberment Plan @ Black Cat
The time Nate got pocket aces twice in a row @ Foxwoods
Gil Mantera's Party Dream @ PA's
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone/Xiu Xiu @ TT's
Superchunk, Dan Deacon, Ted Leo and Thermals @ McCarren Park Pool
Dinosaur Jr @ Urban Outfitters (!)
Sloan @ Southpaw
J.C. and his Golden Oldies @ Cappy's
77BOADRUM @ Fulton Ferry Park
Major Stars @ Milky Way
Secret Stars @ PA's
Mountain Goats @ Middle East
Oneida @ PS1
Brian Kuh arguing about a possible Cruisin' USA high score @ Funspot
Endless Boogie/Circle @ Middle East
Ramming Speed/inblackandwhite @ my basement
A whole bunch of bands in a whole bunch of basements
Etc.:
- New job. Long-ass commute, but so worth it.
- Getting sent on my first real adult business trip. Admittedly, it was in Houston, and the reason I didn't write anything about it was because it was COMPLETELY FUCKING INSUFFERABLE, Astros game and drinks with Brent from ILBB notwithstanding, but I think it was an important step - the first time I've ever really taken a long trip somewhere new and not felt a little twinge of regret at having to leave. Girded me well for future trips to grade-Z American cities.
- Spending $200 on disco lights and a fog machine for the basement. A good call.
- James Turrell's "Meeting" at PS1 while Oneida was playing "Sheets of Easter" outside and alienating the whole crowd.
- The go-go Red Sox! Totally stoked for '08.
- Funspot! Super Zaxxon, sit-down Spy Hunter, 1942 (I have the high score!), a dozen bizarre 2D cockpit helicopter sims that a grown adult can barely fit into, two whole hangar-length walls of semi-working pinball machines, and more weirdos, gambling addicts, and no-good kids than you'd ever expect to find in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire. Across the road is a bar called the Looney Bin, which appears to have been transported directly from the movie "Road House." Next time.
- Playing in Wiimbledon, losing badly in the first round, briefly winding up on ABC News.
- Winning a corporate spelling bee and subsequently getting tons of compliments from upper-level administrators at new job.
- The Drinking Fountain, Jamaica Plain MA. See also Swifty's "Worst of 2007" list.
- Season six of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
- Contra 4 for Nintendo DS
- Best Christmas present: Christine gave me a 1988 Rickey Henderson action figure. I don't even care that he has a Yankees jersey on. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 11th, 2007|11:33 am] |
http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/horse_racing/articles/2007/12/11/post__time/?page=full
Other horses arrive with bad reputations. Take Ruhlmann, who once won a million dollars before 100,000 fans at Santa Anita.
"We were told that Ruhlmann was the orneriest and meanest horse that ever lived," says Blowen, patting the stallion's back. "If you did something he didn't like, he'd take a chunk out of you.
"One day the groom got sick of it and took him to his stall and apparently tried to teach him a lesson by showing him who was boss. For a couple of weeks Ruhlmann was like a big ol' puppy dog.
"Then one day when the groom was bringing him back to the stall, Ruhlmann looked around and there was nobody else around. So Ruhlmann reached down and tore his testicles off. And then he just stood there. He didn't run away or anything.
"We are very careful around Ruhlmann. He's a very nice horse now. As long as we do exactly what he wants, exactly when he says so."
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 29th, 2007|02:21 pm] |
So "Manhunt 2" is finally coming out this week, in a slightly redacted form (M rating) of the version that received the Adults Only rating from the ESRB last year. In today's "New York Times," Seth Schiesel does a pretty good job analyzing the implications of the rating change and the necessary amendments to "Manhunt 2" that the game's developer, Rockstar Games, conceded in order to get a domestic M-rated release. ("One scene that depicted a pair of pliers being applied to male genitalia has been cut," Schiesel notes, further commentary withheld.) Schiesel also points out that the level of violence in "Manhunt 2" doesn't significantly exceed that of "Saw IV," the latest installment in the horror series, which opened with a Halloween-abetted $32.1 million gross this weekend.
Schiesel implies that the ESRB's decision and the resultant level of publicity "has probably been good for the industry," which is a debatable point at best - if people are going to buy "Manhunt 2" for the same reasons they'd buy a ticket for "Saw IV," sure, but it's a stretch to say that the goals of the ESRB are the same as those of Rockstar or the game development industry as a whole. Standards enforcement and credibility are one thing - adherence to subjective moral codes are another entirely. (Having said that, Nintendo, by far the least lenient console maker, won't allow AO content on its Wii Ware platform, yet they will release the M-rated "Manhunt 2" for Wii. Just sayin'.)
Additionally, the element of complicity between the ESRB and major game retailers might serve to defeat the purpose of the AO rating entirely. What good is an AO game if adults can't buy it at Target or Gamestop? (Amazon is a notable exception to this, but most brick-and-mortar chains refuse to stock AO games.) Were AO games to be regularly developed for consoles, they'd be akin to those weird 8-in-1 unlicensed Nintendo games with names like "Super Moses Bros." that you used to be able to buy at that one store in the mall that sold nothing but Zondervan bibles and "Hang in there, baby!" kitten posters ca. 1991. For all intents and purposes, they'd be samizdat.
So three central questions, in other words:
1. Why do ratings boards, with the implicit cooperation of retailers, have the ability to effectively ban games by giving them AO ratings, and by what consistent criteria are those ratings assigned?
2. Does content have to be explicitly sexual/violent to be obscene or offensive?
3. What does this mean for interactive media in general?
Simultaneously, we're at a point where "violence in video games is thought more pernicious than comparable violence in more traditional media (Schiesel)," and yet the line between video games and non-linear media is starting to blur a little. (Admittedly this trudge toward singularity is currently at about the level of technical sophistication of the AT&T Videophone 2500, but it's happening.) So as we continue to grapple with the big "What is a game?" question, we've also got to consider whether there's going to be a place for mature content in the future of whatever video games become.
The ESRB has clearly been reluctant to assign AO ratings to games, and most of these ratings have applied to games that are pretty much straight-up softcore porn (titles like "All Nude Nikki" and "Playboy Screensaver: The Women of Playboy," the latter of which's online multiplayer mode is in all likelihood a little lacking). But suppose, for instance, that a major studio were to undertake a project along the lines of "Super Columbine Massacre RPG," a rudimentary RPG released in 2005 that depicts the 1999 school shootings in Littleton, Colorado. (NB: The creator of SCMRPG, Danny Ledonne, is a friend of mine from college.)
Were a game like this developed for a console platform, what rating would it receive? It's no more violent than an 8-bit "Final Fantasy" title, and nobody argues that the realism of the violence is the issue. The controversy derives from SCMRPG's context - what decisions it allows the gamer to make w/r/t sympathy with Harris and Klebold, and whether or not it endorses their actions. For obvious reasons, no studio would touch SCMRPG, but let's suppose Ledonne himself ports it over to the Wii Ware platform and submits it to the ESRB for review. What happens?
Video game companies and ratings boards aren't over-concerned with enforcing some sort of good/bad duality - take "Counter-Strike," for instance - but it seems to me that there's a difference between thinking about terrorism in the abstract and thinking about its practical implications. The ESRB can't really ban a game like SCMRPG (to the dismay of most of the message board haters on Danny's site), but they can make it disappear. But what reason would they give on the back of the box? What Nintendo's trying to do with Wii Ware and making dev kits cheaply available is admirable to an extent, but there's still one channel through which console games have to gain approval. And if a console-based SCMRPG got a hypothetical AO rating, it'd open all sorts of doors for the ratings board to effectively make political decisions for consumers - consider a theoretical 9/11 simulator where one plays as Mohamed Atta, or a Mahdi Army FPS using the Unreal engine, neither of which would, obviously, see the light of day. The sensitivity of the events depicted would implore the ESRB to make decisions irrelevant to the actual content of the games. ("Ghost Recon 2" was banned in South Korea in 2004 for exactly this reason.)
A pliers-to-the-scrote shot probably wouldn't have propelled "Saw IV" into the NC-17 domain of "Anal Butts VIII" and its ilk, yet apparently it was one of the main factors in the ESRB's decision to effectively ban "Manhunt 2." What the torture porn movies to which Schiesel compares "Manhunt" - the "Saw" series, "Hostel," "Captivity," etc. - resemble more than anything else, though, is the old Sega CD chestnut "Night Trap" - tasteless, sexist, and crudely made, yet freely available for any consenting adult (and quite a few of their kids) to watch at any multiplex. Watch what happens with "Resident Evil 5," which has already come under fire for scenes of Chris Redfield shooting the hell out of a village full of marauding Haitian zombies - that said, if the racial undertones of the trailer give you the heebie-jeebies, they should. Redfield could be killing white zombies instead of black zombies - but white zombies are, after all, more human than human. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2007|07:22 pm] |
I woke up this morning with a top-10 hangover - watched Game 6 with Nate and Bonnie last night and headed out to a couple of dance parties in JP. Hard to do the Soulja Boy dance with a bottle of Jager in one hand, but I managed admirably.
Anyway. Head pounding, I read on SoSH that the Fenway Park ticket office had seats available for tonight's game. Unbelievably, people were calling and getting in for the deciding game of the ALCS, one of the biggest games at Fenway in years. What are the odds? So I called.
40 minutes and $219 later, I had two tickets for Game 7. The first person I called was my dad.
"Do you feel like doing something unreasonable?" I asked him.
My dad and I have grown really close over the last year, owing mostly to baseball. He regales me with tales of working among trash-talking Yankee fans - he had a standing bet with his boss that whoever's team was eliminated first had to wear rival gear for a week on the job. My dad cashed in his winnings immediately; the guy who signs his checks spent the past five business days glumly sporting an old Red Sox hat.
He's never been to Fenway for a game, though. He drove out here in 2004 for the World Series parade (his first and only time visiting me since I moved away), and that alone was really special to share. I have no idea what to expect tonight, though. It's hard to analyze this before it's actually happened, but I feel incredibly fortunate just to be able to go with him. We don't have much of a history of big father/son bonding moments.
When I asked him if he felt like driving out here to go to the game, he was initially resistant (as well he should be when faced with an impromptu 300-mile drive). Within a few seconds, though, he cut himself short.
"I guess I have to drive to Boston," he said. How could he have stayed home? |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 19th, 2007|04:20 pm] |
We're having a party next Saturday. Halloween-themed, with special attention given to the birthday and housewarming of each of the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) runtothefloors. I won't tell what my costume entails, except to note that I haven't shaved in two weeks.
Today we spent a pretty substantial amount of money on "lighting and visual effects" for the basement. I underline this fact because if you're within a 50-mile radius of our house on October 27, you're going to be liable to have a seizure anyway. You might as well have it among friends.
We'd love to have you come by. Let me know if you're allergic to fog juice. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 25th, 2007|10:30 am] |
It's been a hectic couple of months and I should probably talk about that at some point.
In the meantime, though, if you need to get at me for whatever reason this week, I'm heading to Houston until Saturday for a conference; advice on what to do in Houston for five days by oneself (or surrounded by web developers, anyway) greatly appreciated. I won't have a car and I have no real sense of location in Houston. "Drink alone in your hotel room" is already in my planner.
I'm going to be out here; please tell me there'll be something to eat nearby besides the Cheesecake Factory. Come on, people. Houston. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 1st, 2007|06:26 pm] |
So I get home from work to find a giant "Midsummer Celebration" block party happening in the park next to my house, with like 800 little kids all totally dumbing out like crazy to "Same Girl" by R. Kelly and Usher (!).
Anyway, during the last 30 minutes the DJ has found room for the following, in roughly this order:
"Same Girl"
"Poppin'"
"Bartender"
"Party like a Rockstar"
The Hokey-Pokey
Say what you will, but that last transition was especially next-level. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 21st, 2007|12:13 pm] |
1. http://www.judithbarsi.com/
Incredibly unsettling fansite for Judith Barsi, 80's "child actress and victim." ("Jaws 4: The New Revenge" AND "The New Gidget!") Quote:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
My name's Judith, What was yours?
I don't know what I did wrong,
Now I've nothing but this song.
Never grew up, 'cause, you see,
Years back, Daddy murdered me.
!
2. Via Merlin, the YouTube motherlode: hundreds of totally insane karaoke videos set to stock footage of wakeboarders and Hawaiian parades. Most incongruous find so far: "My Humps." (This reminds me that we need to go that place in Hadley with the Hammerfall songs set to video of people's Korean vacations.)
No power-metal karaoke on YouTube - YET - but can you imagine the first time we put two and two together and decide to fire up the Internet Channel? Wii + YouTube + cheesy karaoke videos = pure gold. (Weirdly captivating: "Interstate Love Song!")
3. On that note, heading to New York this weekend. Saturday, I'll be destroying a bunch of nerds at Wii Tennis as part of Wiimbledon. It's at Barcade from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm. For the love of god, come hang out with me.
Sunday, Superchunk at McCarren Park Pool. Starts at 2:00. Totally free. Anybody in? |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 24th, 2007|02:19 pm] |
Turkey Time is the predictable culmination of djswifty and I having been roommates for a year and a half now: a self-imposed mutual challenge to watch and review the entirety of the IMDB Bottom 100 list in no particular order, with no exceptions.
Last night, under the guise of "easing ourselves into it," we kicked it off with "3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain," which just turned out to be unspeakably terrible. Admittedly the IMDB methodology is a little flawed (thanks to the miracle of democracy, many of the bottom 100 are clearly mediocre movies that happen to have Paris Hilton and/or black people in them), but should we maintain our current level of interest in this project, we'll almost certainly branch out into non-Bottom 100 schlock; how can a comprehensive summary of the worst of cinema be complete without "Slam Dunk Ernest," "Like Mike 2," or "I Accidentally Domed Your Son"?
(Also: add me on Netflix, if only to keep abreast of the status of our upcoming "Baby Geniuses"/"Baby Geniuses 2"/"Laserblast" triple feature; take my advice and ignore any invitations to future "movie nights," regardless of presence/promise of kiddie pool.) |
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| in lieu of work. |
[May. 21st, 2007|04:05 pm] |
Things Motörhead want you to do:
Be My Baby
Bite the Bullet
Dance
Die You Bastard!
Eat the Rich
Eat the Sun
Fight
Go to Hell
Keep Us on the Road
Kill the World
Listen to Your Heart
Live to Win
Love Me Forever
Love Me Like a Reptile
Make 'Em Blind
Make My Day
March or Die
See Me Burning
Shake the World
Shake Your Blood
Shut Your Mouth
Stay Clean
Stay Out of Jail
Step Down
Take the Blame
Treat Me Nice
Wake the Dead
Walk a Crooked Mile
You Better Run
Things Motörhead do not want you to do:
Don't Let Daddy Kiss Me
(Don't Let 'Em) Grind You Down
Don't Lie to Me
(Don't Need) Religion
Don't Waste Your Time
Please Don't Touch
Ask not what Motörhead can do for you. Ask what you can do for Motörhead. |
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[May. 14th, 2007|01:58 pm] |
Saturday night, 4:30 am or so:
Christine and I, having decided that afternoon at the last minute to go see Sloan a second night in a row in Philly (sorry I bailed on the BBQ, Gill/Melanie!), are on our way back, walking down 7th Ave to get the train back to Brooklyn. The bars have just let out. In front of an upscale-looking club, one guy's got the other by the shoulders up against a car. He says, with intent conviction:
"Listen, man. You're disregarding everyone in your entourage."
That's all I heard, and I can't stop thinking about it. Sure, we've all been jerks to our friends. But who among us has disregarded everyone in their entourage? The potential implications are kind of staggering. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 9th, 2007|01:54 pm] |
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2865084
Henderson, who caught a foul ball on Monday at AT&T Park, where he was watching the Mets play the Giants, kept the ball instead of handing it to a young fan.
"Everybody was asking me for the ball," Henderson said Tuesday, according to the Star-Ledger of Newark. "I said, 'You're not getting this ball. I always wanted to get a foul ball. This one's going on a shelf at home."
Just keep right on being Rickey, Rickey. |
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[May. 1st, 2007|04:58 pm] |
1. Jay's "Tequila Day" story, specifically the "When I woke up..." disclaimer. When he finished, I paused, preparing to talk about DC. "I can't match that."
2. Linchpin's "Stand," which we listened to like a hundred times driving down to Washington, and the obligatory Dick Wolf 64 cover. It's burning me, it's burning me.
3. What I can say: 30-odd friends in town, old and new, expected the worst in terms of terrible end-of-month personal finances/recent lousy health/logistical impossibility of trying to hang out with 30-odd people in three days. Yet it went incredibly smoothly, logistical impossibilities and all: trying to figure out who's got who covered for tickets on the fly? Or figure out how to eat with a party of 14 in a hole-in-the-wall taqueria? Or get everybody to RFK for a matinee Nationals game after a tequila day (uncapitalized) of our own? And yet everything worked. Also, I'm such a sucker for DC - when you go there in the spring, even if you miss the cherry blossoms, it's hard to beat. (Ask me again when I go down in June to eat a bunch of crabs and see an Orioles game and it's like 140 degrees.)
4. The Dismemberment Plan ended up being much better than I expected, too. Not to get all I-was-there-when, but I worried about it being too nostalgic. It could have easily underwhelmed. But the band's still really great, the songs haven't aged badly at all, and it seemed like a great deal of the kids were there seeing the Plan for the first time. It feels like they've become a much bigger deal post-breakup than they were when they were around; Travis Morrison attested to this fact in an Onion interview I read in Washington, and the Saturday show sold out in four minutes when it went on sale in March. So instead of that feeling of jaded ambivalence you get from reunion shows sometimes, there was this palpable excitement in the room, and it was a pretty satisfying experience. It wasn't perfect - all the openers except for Beauty Pill were kinda bad, and they relearn 22 songs, and one of them has to be "Ellen and Ben"? - but it really made me realize how much I missed seeing that band. I didn't take many pictures, but my friends did: here, here, here, here, here. Best line of the weekend, courtesy one of Rachael's students: "That ain't Mr. Axelson!"
5. Chuck Brown, "We're About the Business." Go-go's primacy as a live experience is simultaneously the thing that defines it and dooms it a little - go-go studio CDs, infrequent as they are, never have the swagger and spontaneity of live PA tapes, and live PA tapes only give you a (usually badly-recorded) snapshot of what a go-go show actually feels like. Given logistical parameters like these and a whole host of complicated underlying issues, it isn't surprising that go-go thrives in DC and languishes in obscurity everywhere else. Where go-go has left its mark is mostly in hip-hop production, and the Chucky Thompson-produced "We're About the Business" is a little bit of a revelation - a go-go record that employs tons of overdubs and studio effects, a welcome recall of many of Thompson's best mid-90's productions. You're never going to hear the What? Band's cover of "The Whistle Song" on Hot 97, but there's a slim chance that you could hear "Chuck Baby," which is just horns, drums, and Chuck Brown and his daughter KK, insouciant and minimal. Crossing my fingers. Great fucking song.
6. Other current fixations: the Golden State Warriors, actively cheering against certain people on "College Jeopardy," "Legend of the Mystical Ninja" on Virtual Console and "Pokemon Diamond" on DS (really!), parkour blooper videos, gingerberry kombucha, eagerly anticipating some potentially awesome work news, summer. Summer, you guys. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 4th, 2007|09:25 pm] |
Wii-owning e-buddies! We're ready to infiltrate your homes with our scruffy digital selves. Our friend code is 7264 0458 8842 5850.
(Super excited about this, even though we held out way too long. Graphic rotator cuff injuries and smashed TVs ahoy!) |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 27th, 2007|02:19 am] |
I've been keeping a casual eye on the ABA for a couple years, inspired by the league's expansion philosophy ($50,000 a team, anyone can buy one, half the league will be defunct by the end of the season). Most of the real fun is in tracking the team names, which run the gamut from ridiculous to insane (with logos and Web sites to boot, naturally). It's fourth-tier semi-pro basketball. Nobody minds if the angry panther on your splash page only growls half the time.
Anyway. While researching the most recent failed ABA experiments (a dozen teams that started the season in November - a dozen! - have now bid the ABA farewell), I came across the greatest minor league basketball team name of all time.
The Atlanta Krunk Wolverines.
The Atlanta Krunk Wolverines started life as the Charlotte Krunk. The Charlotte Krunk once posted the following on its site:
How tall are you?
The Charlotte Krunk are still looking for players. Preferably 6'8" and up. Contact Coach Floyd via email.
The Charlotte Krunk, to no one's surprise, made it a month and a half in the ABA before folding. But the team's owner, Duane "Spyder" Hughes, was not to be deterred. Somehow he managed to get the CBA to accept the Krunk as expansion members in 2007. On top of that, their Wikipedia entry contains the greatest unsourced statement of all time: "One of the more recognizable faces on The Atlanta Krunk will be that of former Maryland player Nik Caner-Medley."
Fuckin' sign me up! Wildly unlikable, whiny, preppy, shoulda-gone-to-Duke ex-Terrapin Nik Caner-Medley, embodying the spirit of krunk and historically African-American education?
I got thinking tonight after the Syracuse game (about which I could write a novel, but I'll spare you). The vast majority of college players never make it to the NBA. They either move back home and sell cars or go bounce around the Midwest playing for 400 people in a high school gym or they go to Europe, like onetime Syracuse center Craig Forth, who's now tooling around Slovakia learning how to sing songs about a "horse doing unmentionables to the cart it was pulling" and blogging about it.
Or they join the Atlanta Krunk Wolverines. When you think about it, a mediocre D-I basketball career is like any other useless degree you earn in college (doubly so for the dreaded "Sports Management" or "Physical Education" majors). When graduation comes, you spend a bewildering amount of time thinking WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO NOW and generally being inconsolable and fatalistic. I doubt Terrence Roberts spent much time tonight in the Carrier Dome wondering whether cute girls would ever want to date him or how he was going to pay off all those student loans, but the insecurity has to be universal. There's a whole lot of uncertainty ahead for dozens of 22-year-old guys who are on national TV pretty much constantly right now; three months from now they'll be practically obscure, and a year from now you'll be hard-pressed to remember anybody on the Wisconsin Badgers besides Alando Tucker.
So I'm a little surprised that the ABA and its ilk haven't caught on. They're us. They're playing in our failed cities in front of disinterested families, the elderly, and the unemployable, in roughly the same set of circumstances in which "WCW Power Hour" used to tape, but there's something incredibly inspiring about all these guys with little or no hope of ever boxing out Amare Stoudemire, still plugging away at this thing. At some point, almost everybody realizes that they're not quite as good at the thing they thought they were good at, but minor-league basketball is the living embodiment of that gradual decline. It doesn't matter if the panther growls or not. It doesn't matter if Nik Caner-Medley doesn't know how to define "krunk." Nothing else really needs to be said. They're us. We're them. The Krunk shall rise again. |
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