My first podcast guest spot!
On iTunes.
Direct link to mp3. (right click to save)
It's dark, it's stormy, it's dark.
9.20.2012
This Radio...It's Bookend Tiger
Confession: I have no clue what the title of the Bookend Tiger Radio podcast means.
Is it an anagram?*
Is it a radio made of bookends that look like tigers?
Is it merely an arrangement of words that sound pleasing together, like "cellar door"**?
I...do...not...know.
What I do know, is that, at around 1:30 this morning, my phone rang and I was then connected with one Mr. Dan "The Blade" Delgado and one Mr. Andy "Hot Snakes" Overton, the Mad Scientists behind Bookend Tiger Radio.
For the next hour and a half or so, we spoke.
We spoke of many things.
Many NSFW things.
Many completely fucking NSFW, are you out of your mind?? things.
The topics touched upon included: The Human Centipede 2 (I had nothing to do with it, even though I am more than familiar with the series, the 2:14 Downtown L.A. to Long Beach AIDS Bus, intentionally getting AIDS, intentionally getting AIDS from Magic Johnson, Mitt Romney in black face, the depth of my voice in correlation with the size of my penis, corporate handjobs and, oh does it really matter?
It's dark.
Dark dark dark.
And fun.
Fun and dark.
Or at least the three of us thought so.
It was a blast and an honor and I'd love to do it again if I haven't lost them too many listeners (although they're clocking in at about 2.5 billion downloads per episode).
Not sure when it'll be up, but, hey, I'll probably mention it once or twice in a couple places, you know?
Then, it was sleep, although not nearly enough, because, this evening I am meeting Jade and Allister for dinner downtown and therefore had to rise at 9:30 (remember, 9:30 am to me is like 3:30 am to you) in order to become ready for work.
I probably should have called in sleepy and just taken the day, but, well, I dumb.
And so, here I sit, sleepy and cranky; my normally expansive patience for and tolerance of morons is already dwindling, my iPad is at home, getting iOS 6-ed (can't wait to ask Siri my litany of stupid questions) and some third bad thing...oh yeah, the stupid, fat, loud mouthquake of a shitbox I hate is working three feet from me.
Yes, you, you blatting, nosy, swollen carbuncle.
You reek of regret and ignorance.
And yo' mama so fat that no one wants to look at or talk to you.
That one.
Hm.
It seems that, while typing this, I received a message from the good folks at TransPerfect. They'd like me to remotely supervise a recording tomorrow afternoon. Which means they put me on speakerphone while someone else records a voice over session and I correct them if they fuck something up, grammatically.
And then they pay me.
While I'd never give up voice acting for listening to someone voice act, I am flattered that they recognize me as good at talking English good and the concept of this is just twinkling.
I think I'm going to be naked for this phone call.
Mmmm...naked grammar....
Let's see those gerunds.
STOP!
* I found "Breeding Took" and "Rebooted King"...so, either they are fans of Tolkien or perhaps making a veiled political statement?
** Yes, I saw that in Donnie Darko and, no, I don't know what they were talking about.
Is it an anagram?*
Is it a radio made of bookends that look like tigers?
Is it merely an arrangement of words that sound pleasing together, like "cellar door"**?
I...do...not...know.
What I do know, is that, at around 1:30 this morning, my phone rang and I was then connected with one Mr. Dan "The Blade" Delgado and one Mr. Andy "Hot Snakes" Overton, the Mad Scientists behind Bookend Tiger Radio.
For the next hour and a half or so, we spoke.
We spoke of many things.
Many NSFW things.
Many completely fucking NSFW, are you out of your mind?? things.
The topics touched upon included: The Human Centipede 2 (I had nothing to do with it, even though I am more than familiar with the series, the 2:14 Downtown L.A. to Long Beach AIDS Bus, intentionally getting AIDS, intentionally getting AIDS from Magic Johnson, Mitt Romney in black face, the depth of my voice in correlation with the size of my penis, corporate handjobs and, oh does it really matter?
It's dark.
Dark dark dark.
And fun.
Fun and dark.
Or at least the three of us thought so.
It was a blast and an honor and I'd love to do it again if I haven't lost them too many listeners (although they're clocking in at about 2.5 billion downloads per episode).
Not sure when it'll be up, but, hey, I'll probably mention it once or twice in a couple places, you know?
Then, it was sleep, although not nearly enough, because, this evening I am meeting Jade and Allister for dinner downtown and therefore had to rise at 9:30 (remember, 9:30 am to me is like 3:30 am to you) in order to become ready for work.
I probably should have called in sleepy and just taken the day, but, well, I dumb.
And so, here I sit, sleepy and cranky; my normally expansive patience for and tolerance of morons is already dwindling, my iPad is at home, getting iOS 6-ed (can't wait to ask Siri my litany of stupid questions) and some third bad thing...oh yeah, the stupid, fat, loud mouthquake of a shitbox I hate is working three feet from me.
Yes, you, you blatting, nosy, swollen carbuncle.
You reek of regret and ignorance.
And yo' mama so fat that no one wants to look at or talk to you.
That one.
Hm.
It seems that, while typing this, I received a message from the good folks at TransPerfect. They'd like me to remotely supervise a recording tomorrow afternoon. Which means they put me on speakerphone while someone else records a voice over session and I correct them if they fuck something up, grammatically.
And then they pay me.
While I'd never give up voice acting for listening to someone voice act, I am flattered that they recognize me as good at talking English good and the concept of this is just twinkling.
I think I'm going to be naked for this phone call.
Mmmm...naked grammar....
Let's see those gerunds.
STOP!
* I found "Breeding Took" and "Rebooted King"...so, either they are fans of Tolkien or perhaps making a veiled political statement?
** Yes, I saw that in Donnie Darko and, no, I don't know what they were talking about.
9.19.2012
I HAVE CONSUMED ONE SIXTH OF THE RESIDENT EVIL 6 DEMO
Yes.
Specifically, playing as Leon in Leon's campaign (as opposed to Helana, whoever the fuck that is, these demos are a very vertical slice).
Very tense, very dark, very creepy.
I'm doing my best to stretch this out as long as I can because, man, I don't think I realized how much I have been looking forward to this game...
Luckily, I'm pretty tied up with stuff until it drops on October 2nd and I play it over that weekend with Jen as my co-op partner and Lisa as our the-person-who-sits-behind-us-and-screams-when-something-scary-happens.
But still...I yearn...
Anyway, tonight I make my very first appearance on a podcast EVER.
It's called Bookend Tiger Radio (a podcast about bookends which are shaped like tigers, but are actually radios...I assume) and you can check out their glory here...I think; they seem to have a several SoundCloud pages...
It's going to be excellent and I'm very excited for you not to hear it because you don't have enough time to listen to a podcast or you never listen to podcasts or what's a podcast?
Fucking Christ.
GOOGLE THE INTERNET, LUDDITES!
Earlier today, I had yet another Comcast VO session, but, BUT, rather than record with the same template we've used for a year and a half, we tried something different with my read...perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a voice actor...conversational.
*shudder*
Yes, up to this point, it has been sort of excited, slightly over-the-top...well, hear for yourself.
But, apparently, one of the Comcast Godlings thought that it sounded a bit too much like the Comcast sports guy, so they wanted it to be more...conversational.
And, of course, we've all had those conversations where someone just perks up and says, totally apropos of something, "hey guys, Xfinity gives you instant access to the most talked about movies and original programs On Demand- on TV and online" and everyone is, like, slowly backing away from that person...yeah, happens all the time.
Seriously, when have you ever called anything on television a program or used the phrase "most talked about"?
Ugh.
Advertising.
I'd be more upset if they loved/paid me less.
In the end, however, I gave them a different read which, while maybe not conversational, certainly sounds good. We'll see if they dissolve my contract or continue to give me hot towels, foot rubs and little, meaningful kisses.
The other night, I took Lady Jay Rock's advice and watched Death At A Funeral.
Rather than talk about it using words, I think I'm going to use an image:
Specifically, playing as Leon in Leon's campaign (as opposed to Helana, whoever the fuck that is, these demos are a very vertical slice).
Very tense, very dark, very creepy.
I'm doing my best to stretch this out as long as I can because, man, I don't think I realized how much I have been looking forward to this game...
Luckily, I'm pretty tied up with stuff until it drops on October 2nd and I play it over that weekend with Jen as my co-op partner and Lisa as our the-person-who-sits-behind-us-and-screams-when-something-scary-happens.
But still...I yearn...
Anyway, tonight I make my very first appearance on a podcast EVER.
It's called Bookend Tiger Radio (a podcast about bookends which are shaped like tigers, but are actually radios...I assume) and you can check out their glory here...I think; they seem to have a several SoundCloud pages...
It's going to be excellent and I'm very excited for you not to hear it because you don't have enough time to listen to a podcast or you never listen to podcasts or what's a podcast?
Fucking Christ.
GOOGLE THE INTERNET, LUDDITES!
Earlier today, I had yet another Comcast VO session, but, BUT, rather than record with the same template we've used for a year and a half, we tried something different with my read...perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a voice actor...conversational.
*shudder*
Yes, up to this point, it has been sort of excited, slightly over-the-top...well, hear for yourself.
But, apparently, one of the Comcast Godlings thought that it sounded a bit too much like the Comcast sports guy, so they wanted it to be more...conversational.
And, of course, we've all had those conversations where someone just perks up and says, totally apropos of something, "hey guys, Xfinity gives you instant access to the most talked about movies and original programs On Demand- on TV and online" and everyone is, like, slowly backing away from that person...yeah, happens all the time.
Seriously, when have you ever called anything on television a program or used the phrase "most talked about"?
Ugh.
Advertising.
I'd be more upset if they loved/paid me less.
In the end, however, I gave them a different read which, while maybe not conversational, certainly sounds good. We'll see if they dissolve my contract or continue to give me hot towels, foot rubs and little, meaningful kisses.
The other night, I took Lady Jay Rock's advice and watched Death At A Funeral.
Rather than talk about it using words, I think I'm going to use an image:
Formulaic? You bet, but the trick is to have some really great actors and writers to create that big chunk in the middle, and that is exactly what they did: Alan Tudyk, the guy who played Spud in Trainspotting and Peter Dinklage (one of the tallest actors in Hollywood*), doing an incredible job as a little person, so convincing. Truly a fun, filthy movie.
Totally unrelated: those subway ads for that show "Nashville" (which, based on the number of subway cars utterly plastered with said ads, is going to be a total hit) that just feature the word "Nashville" and a kind of slutty looking woman just make me think of Nashville Pussy.
The band, not...yeah, anyway.
I had about forty five minutes before I was planning to go to bed the other night, so I watched the forty four minute documentary Six Days To Air, which follows the conception, creation and airing of an entire episode of South Park. Somehow, I have more and less respect for those two, but continue to want to be their friend, the only actor they don't hate and disdain... Learned from said doc that Bill Hader is a cast member and writer for the show, but, oddly enough, you never see him pitch one idea in any of the writers' meetings, just laugh at other peoples' stuff and repeat it, so, not sure what the viewer is supposed to take from that; most likely that Matt and Trey had it edited that way to be dicks.
I'm sick of all these letters.
* Industry secret, shh.
9.18.2012
Monsters On The Subway
On the train yesterday, there was a man, huge, sitting, assembled from slabs of mud and clay and silt.
His arms were crossed because they couldn't be uncrossed.
Then there was a proud yet dour guardian, part robot; his mouth was a smell, disapproving line, but he was there to protect us all.
9.17.2012
Aeon Reflux
This title is so fucking clever and apt that...I...aw, FUCK, just you wait....
*breathe*
Let us begin...
Tried to go to bed early on Friday, failed.
Woke at 8:30 to shower and head to the most south and east corner of Manhattan for another day of shooting Unker & Physia with Jess and Phil and Kris and Chris and Andrea and Minna and Veronica and other people with names.
Despite a bunch of hitches, it went pretty well and we finished shooting an entire episode.
Anyone who happens to be Will Pomerantz will recognize my costume...much thanks for your gift of silk, Mr. Basa.
Tasty taste.
Then I got lost looking for a subway and accidentally wandered through some sort of Little Italy fair day or something. It was...brutish...
After some time I found myself next to the Noho Star and quickly boarded the 6.
Once I got home, I decided that I wanted to eat ribs and watch the rest of Aeon Flux (which I'd started the night before), which, if you are unfamiliar...just...don't, don't, okay?
Track down the episode called "Chronophasia" and, if you dig it, call me and, if not, just...just don't, okay? Just don't.
I can't really think of any voice actors utterly owning and defining their characters more than Denise Poirier as Aeon and John Lee as Trevor Goodchild, they really knock it out of the park.
It was especially challenging for them as these two characters had never spoken once (well, Aeon said "Plop." in the short "Leisure", but, since when does "plop" count? Stop thinking about it...) and yet already had such strong personalities thanks to Peter Chung's artistry.
And, speaking of Peter Chung (the creator of Aeon Flux), there was a little documentary about Aeon Flux in which he states that the idea for Aeon Flux, who and what she was, how she moved and all that, came from his frustration from working on Rugrats.
Yeah.
The guy who created Aeon Flux played a huge role on Rugrats.
He said he was getting tired of these clumsy characters that couldn't really do anything, and so he created this dominatrix assassin ninja badass...the complete opposite of a baby.
And then he decided that she would die at the end of every episode.
Way to fight the babies, Chung.
Anyway, ribs.
Thankfully, a new smokehouse just opened down the god damn street from me (John Brown's Smokehouse) and I was in luck.
I ordered $30 worth of ribs and put them all on, then in, my face, as is the proper fashion.
After finishing the ribs, the Aeon Flux series and all the Aeon Flux shorts (I'd forgotten how awesome, beautiful and hilariously over-the-top these things were when it came to the violence and sexual content, the completely random sexual content), I remembered that, on the Aeon Flux DVD, there was a little collection of bits from Liquid Television.
Liquid Television was...it was one of the reasons people used to love MTV; it was the stuff they did that wasn't music videos that actually worked on a channel called "Music Television".
Liquid TV and The State and The Maxx and The Head, all these things were so...fresh...and NEW, it's just crushing to see what's become of this once great experiment in culture.
I miss it so.
Anyway, after experiencing all that good, I decided to watch the Aeon Flux movie...which I remembered as being bad, but, hey, I AM AN IDIOT.
Some notes:
No, you know what?
One note: this was a movie about something else entirely, and MTV just used the names and locations from Aeon Flux.
Boom.
They also mispronounced Bregna (BREN-ya) as BREG-na, the awful fucks.
And they fucked up the character's backgrounds, motivations and fucking everything else.
Like I said: they must have had some shitty sci-fi script ready to go, then decided to cash in on all the good faith and credibility that Japhet Asher and Peter Chung had garnered from this amazing, singular creation and waste it on this piece of shit.
After about a half hour, I gave in to how exhausted I was and went to bed at 3-ish.
After four magic hours of sleep, I awoke to find the $30 worth of ribs trying to flee my body by any means necessary.
I'll be honest...I spent a tense twenty minutes or so wandering, naked, around my empty apartment (Chris had gone to New Paltz for the weekend, leaving me alone to DIE), murmuring to my stomach, slowly petting it downward in order to encourage peristalsis and discourage reverse peristalsis and convince the food to go in the direction that Jesus the Christ intended and not the other way, and, after setting my pillows at a 90 degree angle, I slept on, not dying.
Honestly, I'm not sure if it was the ribs that did this or something else, but, believe you me, I'm only going to try their food like four more times.
I'M A BLOCK AWAY FROM A POTENTIAL PULLED PORK SANDWICH PIPELINE, YOU'RE FUCKING-A I'M GOING TO TRY THEM AGAIN.
I woke later that day and...hm...forgot what I did the rest of the day it seems...maybe played Samurai Shodown in the original Japanese...?...then Chris came home and we watched The Cabin In The Woods, which, somehow, I had not had spoiled for me.
And, you guys?
Holy shit.
I'm just going to leave it at that because there's nothing I can say about this movie that will make it any better.
Just go and watch it.
Watch and love it.
It really is like nothing you've seen before.
After all this madness was done, I finished the first season of Homeland and saw some of the best acting Claire Danes has ever done.
Her manic episodes are so beautifully and tragically acted...aw man.
Do Emmys still matter?
If they do, give one to her.
Then, there was sleep.
But not, it seems, enough.
Then, before work today, I made a little thank you for the Sex Geniuses that run Bookend Tiger Radio, as they are having ME as their guest on this week's episode!!!
I am ecstatic and nervous, not at the quality of my performance, I always deliver the goods, it's what I do, but more because I'm going to try recording the whole thing on ProTools from my end so Andy can just drop in my side of the conversation sourced from my sexy mouth talking stick.
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for Buttered Sex Honey.*
I'm confident that my appearance on this podcast will result in my instant and meteoric rise to stardom, nationally, internationally and, thanks to the satellite technology utilized by Dan and Andy, galactically.
So, be ready.
This sudden rush to film the majority of Unker & Physia has left me feeling a bit...frayed, but, whatever happens, it's done by November first, so it's my job as a professional actor to do what I can to make it the best goddamn web series you won't watch because, while it's so easy to click "like" on Facebook, how many of you have actually bought my fucking audio book?
Don't apologize to me, apologize to Phil!
I only read it, he created it!
Fuck.
Anyway, you can purchase Philip Tucker's The Grind Show audio book on Amazon right now!!!
It's eight hours of your superimportantbusy time spent listening to a silken-voiced god-king (me) telling you about love, loss and demons.
Also, the Speakaboos story, the Tortoise and the Hare has been uploaded! I'm the Fox (doing a passable Paul Lynde) and the Bear (just kind of sweet and dumb)!
Go to www.speakaboos.com, where you will be greeted by a friendly dragon (voiced by me) and then click on the story, then "Read It Myself".
Click on the Fox and Bear and BOOM, I'm in your ears!
I'm also Humpty Dumpty (the egg, not the leader of Digital Underground), the narrator of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and either Turkey Lurky or Cocky Locky in Chicken Little, I honestly cannot remember which.
There will be a lot more soon...
Hm...all right, it's 10:16. Now I'm going to sit and ponder nothingness in preparation for the coming void.
Nam myoho renge kyo.
Hai!
*BWOOOOONG*
* This is in reference to the quality of my voice and not the funk octet from the early 1970's. Again, the funk octet from the early 1970's, Buttered Sex Honey will NOT be performing on this week's Bookend Tiger Radio podcast.
*breathe*
Let us begin...
Tried to go to bed early on Friday, failed.
Woke at 8:30 to shower and head to the most south and east corner of Manhattan for another day of shooting Unker & Physia with Jess and Phil and Kris and Chris and Andrea and Minna and Veronica and other people with names.
Despite a bunch of hitches, it went pretty well and we finished shooting an entire episode.
Anyone who happens to be Will Pomerantz will recognize my costume...much thanks for your gift of silk, Mr. Basa.
Tasty taste.
Then I got lost looking for a subway and accidentally wandered through some sort of Little Italy fair day or something. It was...brutish...
After some time I found myself next to the Noho Star and quickly boarded the 6.
Once I got home, I decided that I wanted to eat ribs and watch the rest of Aeon Flux (which I'd started the night before), which, if you are unfamiliar...just...don't, don't, okay?
Track down the episode called "Chronophasia" and, if you dig it, call me and, if not, just...just don't, okay? Just don't.
I can't really think of any voice actors utterly owning and defining their characters more than Denise Poirier as Aeon and John Lee as Trevor Goodchild, they really knock it out of the park.
It was especially challenging for them as these two characters had never spoken once (well, Aeon said "Plop." in the short "Leisure", but, since when does "plop" count? Stop thinking about it...) and yet already had such strong personalities thanks to Peter Chung's artistry.
And, speaking of Peter Chung (the creator of Aeon Flux), there was a little documentary about Aeon Flux in which he states that the idea for Aeon Flux, who and what she was, how she moved and all that, came from his frustration from working on Rugrats.
Yeah.
The guy who created Aeon Flux played a huge role on Rugrats.
He said he was getting tired of these clumsy characters that couldn't really do anything, and so he created this dominatrix assassin ninja badass...the complete opposite of a baby.
And then he decided that she would die at the end of every episode.
Way to fight the babies, Chung.
Anyway, ribs.
Thankfully, a new smokehouse just opened down the god damn street from me (John Brown's Smokehouse) and I was in luck.
I ordered $30 worth of ribs and put them all on, then in, my face, as is the proper fashion.
After finishing the ribs, the Aeon Flux series and all the Aeon Flux shorts (I'd forgotten how awesome, beautiful and hilariously over-the-top these things were when it came to the violence and sexual content, the completely random sexual content), I remembered that, on the Aeon Flux DVD, there was a little collection of bits from Liquid Television.
Liquid Television was...it was one of the reasons people used to love MTV; it was the stuff they did that wasn't music videos that actually worked on a channel called "Music Television".
Liquid TV and The State and The Maxx and The Head, all these things were so...fresh...and NEW, it's just crushing to see what's become of this once great experiment in culture.
I miss it so.
Anyway, after experiencing all that good, I decided to watch the Aeon Flux movie...which I remembered as being bad, but, hey, I AM AN IDIOT.
Some notes:
No, you know what?
One note: this was a movie about something else entirely, and MTV just used the names and locations from Aeon Flux.
Boom.
They also mispronounced Bregna (BREN-ya) as BREG-na, the awful fucks.
And they fucked up the character's backgrounds, motivations and fucking everything else.
Like I said: they must have had some shitty sci-fi script ready to go, then decided to cash in on all the good faith and credibility that Japhet Asher and Peter Chung had garnered from this amazing, singular creation and waste it on this piece of shit.
After about a half hour, I gave in to how exhausted I was and went to bed at 3-ish.
After four magic hours of sleep, I awoke to find the $30 worth of ribs trying to flee my body by any means necessary.
I'll be honest...I spent a tense twenty minutes or so wandering, naked, around my empty apartment (Chris had gone to New Paltz for the weekend, leaving me alone to DIE), murmuring to my stomach, slowly petting it downward in order to encourage peristalsis and discourage reverse peristalsis and convince the food to go in the direction that Jesus the Christ intended and not the other way, and, after setting my pillows at a 90 degree angle, I slept on, not dying.
Honestly, I'm not sure if it was the ribs that did this or something else, but, believe you me, I'm only going to try their food like four more times.
I'M A BLOCK AWAY FROM A POTENTIAL PULLED PORK SANDWICH PIPELINE, YOU'RE FUCKING-A I'M GOING TO TRY THEM AGAIN.
I woke later that day and...hm...forgot what I did the rest of the day it seems...maybe played Samurai Shodown in the original Japanese...?...then Chris came home and we watched The Cabin In The Woods, which, somehow, I had not had spoiled for me.
And, you guys?
Holy shit.
I'm just going to leave it at that because there's nothing I can say about this movie that will make it any better.
Just go and watch it.
Watch and love it.
It really is like nothing you've seen before.
After all this madness was done, I finished the first season of Homeland and saw some of the best acting Claire Danes has ever done.
Her manic episodes are so beautifully and tragically acted...aw man.
Do Emmys still matter?
If they do, give one to her.
Then, there was sleep.
But not, it seems, enough.
Then, before work today, I made a little thank you for the Sex Geniuses that run Bookend Tiger Radio, as they are having ME as their guest on this week's episode!!!
I am ecstatic and nervous, not at the quality of my performance, I always deliver the goods, it's what I do, but more because I'm going to try recording the whole thing on ProTools from my end so Andy can just drop in my side of the conversation sourced from my sexy mouth talking stick.
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for Buttered Sex Honey.*
I'm confident that my appearance on this podcast will result in my instant and meteoric rise to stardom, nationally, internationally and, thanks to the satellite technology utilized by Dan and Andy, galactically.
So, be ready.
This sudden rush to film the majority of Unker & Physia has left me feeling a bit...frayed, but, whatever happens, it's done by November first, so it's my job as a professional actor to do what I can to make it the best goddamn web series you won't watch because, while it's so easy to click "like" on Facebook, how many of you have actually bought my fucking audio book?
Don't apologize to me, apologize to Phil!
I only read it, he created it!
Fuck.
Anyway, you can purchase Philip Tucker's The Grind Show audio book on Amazon right now!!!
It's eight hours of your superimportantbusy time spent listening to a silken-voiced god-king (me) telling you about love, loss and demons.
Also, the Speakaboos story, the Tortoise and the Hare has been uploaded! I'm the Fox (doing a passable Paul Lynde) and the Bear (just kind of sweet and dumb)!
Go to www.speakaboos.com, where you will be greeted by a friendly dragon (voiced by me) and then click on the story, then "Read It Myself".
Click on the Fox and Bear and BOOM, I'm in your ears!
I'm also Humpty Dumpty (the egg, not the leader of Digital Underground), the narrator of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and either Turkey Lurky or Cocky Locky in Chicken Little, I honestly cannot remember which.
There will be a lot more soon...
Hm...all right, it's 10:16. Now I'm going to sit and ponder nothingness in preparation for the coming void.
Nam myoho renge kyo.
Hai!
*BWOOOOONG*
* This is in reference to the quality of my voice and not the funk octet from the early 1970's. Again, the funk octet from the early 1970's, Buttered Sex Honey will NOT be performing on this week's Bookend Tiger Radio podcast.
A review of "Default" by Atoms For Peace
Sometimes, Thom Yorke's otherworldly keening can serve to perfectly convey human emotion and, sometimes, it can annoy the piss out of me; "Default" is 100% the former.
I haven't heard Yorke use his voice this effectively in years; so much regret...
The first words we hear him speak are "It slipped my mind/and for a time/I felt completely free", but you don't start a song like that unless things are about to go downhill, fast, and they do.
The overall tone of "Default" is regret, unfathomable regret, but a resigned regret ("guess that's it/I've made my bed/now I lie in it"), poor choices were made, but he's learning to deal with them and be at peace with his decisions and move on, and it's almost believable until, towards the end, the dam breaks and Yorke sings, almost under his breathe, as an afterthought, "and it's eating me up" over and over. There's more emotion and expression and feeling in that quiet aside than some artists could ever hope to muster with their most tortured, throat-rending scream.
At that point, one might begin to think that the ever-present rattling noises they've been hearing this whole time perhaps betray his true self, the one his detached, disconnected voice has been trying to cover up, the one who's being crushed and killed by this regret.
While still admitting that "it's eating me up", he begins to say, "if I get free of these snares..." and then trails off, leaving the listener to ask: then what? You get free of these snares (that you clearly set for yourself), then what? Will you change? Will you start over? Or will you do all this over again?
Is that last statement, "if I get free of these snares...", one of hope or of fear?
And all of the above happens amidst a warm yet somewhat uncomfortable sonic landscape, the highlight of which is the buzzy, unstable synth line that comes sweeping in with the chorus. There's not one sound on this entire track that sounds correct, clean; everything has something, some tiny detail wrong with it: a stutter, a hum, a warble, and it reflects the mood and lyrics perfectly.
There's something about the slightly menacing toneless electronic blips that pervade this track that make me want Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke to collaborate on something*, a triple-album resulting in a world tour preferably, but I'd settle for one song. These two have been innovators in their field** for, literally, decades and have yet to really cross paths. Now that Yorke is taking a break from Radiohead and Reznor is taking a break from Nine Inch Nails...well, one can yearn, can't one?
*sigh*
The full Atoms For Peace album is set for release in early 2013, and, if "Default" is to be any indication, it's probably going to be pretty amazing.
Go to http://atomsforpeace.info to hear "Default" now.
* That would be the field of amazing, progressive sonic creation.
I haven't heard Yorke use his voice this effectively in years; so much regret...
The first words we hear him speak are "It slipped my mind/and for a time/I felt completely free", but you don't start a song like that unless things are about to go downhill, fast, and they do.
The overall tone of "Default" is regret, unfathomable regret, but a resigned regret ("guess that's it/I've made my bed/now I lie in it"), poor choices were made, but he's learning to deal with them and be at peace with his decisions and move on, and it's almost believable until, towards the end, the dam breaks and Yorke sings, almost under his breathe, as an afterthought, "and it's eating me up" over and over. There's more emotion and expression and feeling in that quiet aside than some artists could ever hope to muster with their most tortured, throat-rending scream.
At that point, one might begin to think that the ever-present rattling noises they've been hearing this whole time perhaps betray his true self, the one his detached, disconnected voice has been trying to cover up, the one who's being crushed and killed by this regret.
While still admitting that "it's eating me up", he begins to say, "if I get free of these snares..." and then trails off, leaving the listener to ask: then what? You get free of these snares (that you clearly set for yourself), then what? Will you change? Will you start over? Or will you do all this over again?
Is that last statement, "if I get free of these snares...", one of hope or of fear?
And all of the above happens amidst a warm yet somewhat uncomfortable sonic landscape, the highlight of which is the buzzy, unstable synth line that comes sweeping in with the chorus. There's not one sound on this entire track that sounds correct, clean; everything has something, some tiny detail wrong with it: a stutter, a hum, a warble, and it reflects the mood and lyrics perfectly.
There's something about the slightly menacing toneless electronic blips that pervade this track that make me want Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke to collaborate on something*, a triple-album resulting in a world tour preferably, but I'd settle for one song. These two have been innovators in their field** for, literally, decades and have yet to really cross paths. Now that Yorke is taking a break from Radiohead and Reznor is taking a break from Nine Inch Nails...well, one can yearn, can't one?
*sigh*
The full Atoms For Peace album is set for release in early 2013, and, if "Default" is to be any indication, it's probably going to be pretty amazing.
Go to http://atomsforpeace.info to hear "Default" now.
* That would be the field of amazing, progressive sonic creation.
9.10.2012
A return to the banal
THIS IS NOT ABOUT BANE OR ANAL AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BANE OR ANAL, SO JUST STOP, OKAY?
Thank you...jeez!
Since returning from the Great White Whale, I've gotten back into my routine of watching...things...
Although I've seen it before once or twice, I had a hankering to watch The Departed again...and so I did.
Martin Scorsese can really only do one thing right, but, well, he does it right, so who cares? One thing I didn't remember from the last time I saw this was all the deus ex machina that happens.
Oh, Matt Damon left the ridiculously incriminating envelope on his desk for anyone to see.
Oh, the entire time Nicholson had some other mole buried way deep in the State Police.
Oh, some other.example that I'm too tired to remember.
Great movie though, it manages to keep that crazy ultra-violence without the silly accents of the Italians...although the Boston accents are pretty funny, I'm looking at you, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen (whose accent might be the funniest because it disappears from time to time...like a spring peeper!)
I also rewatched Hot Rod, which still holds up beautifully as one of the best comedies in the vein of Wet Hot American Summer since Wet Hot American Summer. Not quite surreal comedy...more like...hyper realistic? Absurd? Whatever. Hot Rod can suck its own dick...and does...a lot.
Chris and I have begun (and are almost done)* rewatching Firefly and remain utterly baffled as to why it was cancelled. Was it the excellent writing? The really solid acting? Maybe the well-rounded and multi-faceted characters, perhaps? Well, I'm sure you made the right choice Fox...you always do what's best for people.
And, after considering her recommendation for about a year, I have finally taken Becca's advice and started watching Homeland, starring Claire Danes looking like smoothie made of cuteness, paranoia and screaming psychosis. I am enjoying it thus far and my only regret is that I will be finished with the first season weeks and maybe months before the second season is out and available for totally legal download.
I used to watch My So-Called Life** and seeing our little Angela screaming obscenities and doing other adult things that would have melted MTV in the 90's is...well...weird, it's fucking weird.
In news not relating to things that aren't real...does that scan...?...yes...anyway, Saturday, Jen and Lisa joined Chris and I to eat much meat at Alobar (bacon-wrapped meatloaf...all of it...in me...) and give the brand new Second Expansion of Cards Against Humanity a twirl.
Some very nice additions.
Sadly, I don't think I can play that game for a while...between the laughpocalypse with Chris, Jim and Phil a few weeks ago and this most recent foray, I don't want to overuse this gift, na'mean?
BUT that won't be a problem for long, as Resident Evil 6 comes out in a few short weeks and (maybe) I'm going to have a sleepover with Jen and Lisa and we're going to do my hair and talk about boys' butts and kill the living shit out of the victims of the most recent Umbrella Corporation abomination.
And make popped corn.
On Sunday, Chris and I met up with Hillary and Alex at Bare Burger and talked of things which aren't really public yet, I don't think.
She was in town to get shoes and do some ADR for the upcoming film The East which is going to be awesome for her.
Then Chris and I spent about forty five minutes with a ten-week old, black French bulldog and almost bought it...but, luckily, we thought it over and, after finding out that that particular pet store was investigated for buying puppies from a puppy mill, we decided against it.
And I'll say no more on the subject because it will break both our hearts.
And, finally, today, one Jen Rock began her internship at MY shitty Hospital. After her shift, we got lunch and macarons and then ate them loudly in front of the statue that I thought was Christopher Columbus, but which is not.
Bummer.
Now, I might write a song about having a Birthday party for a box of pancake mix.
I just don't know.
* Fuck you so hard, Fox.
** That's putting it mildly. My friends, Kirsten Snyder and Elizabeth Burden actually called each other characters from the show...I was Brian Krakow... * sigh *
Thank you...jeez!
Since returning from the Great White Whale, I've gotten back into my routine of watching...things...
Although I've seen it before once or twice, I had a hankering to watch The Departed again...and so I did.
Martin Scorsese can really only do one thing right, but, well, he does it right, so who cares? One thing I didn't remember from the last time I saw this was all the deus ex machina that happens.
Oh, Matt Damon left the ridiculously incriminating envelope on his desk for anyone to see.
Oh, the entire time Nicholson had some other mole buried way deep in the State Police.
Oh, some other.example that I'm too tired to remember.
Great movie though, it manages to keep that crazy ultra-violence without the silly accents of the Italians...although the Boston accents are pretty funny, I'm looking at you, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen (whose accent might be the funniest because it disappears from time to time...like a spring peeper!)
I also rewatched Hot Rod, which still holds up beautifully as one of the best comedies in the vein of Wet Hot American Summer since Wet Hot American Summer. Not quite surreal comedy...more like...hyper realistic? Absurd? Whatever. Hot Rod can suck its own dick...and does...a lot.
Chris and I have begun (and are almost done)* rewatching Firefly and remain utterly baffled as to why it was cancelled. Was it the excellent writing? The really solid acting? Maybe the well-rounded and multi-faceted characters, perhaps? Well, I'm sure you made the right choice Fox...you always do what's best for people.
And, after considering her recommendation for about a year, I have finally taken Becca's advice and started watching Homeland, starring Claire Danes looking like smoothie made of cuteness, paranoia and screaming psychosis. I am enjoying it thus far and my only regret is that I will be finished with the first season weeks and maybe months before the second season is out and available for totally legal download.
I used to watch My So-Called Life** and seeing our little Angela screaming obscenities and doing other adult things that would have melted MTV in the 90's is...well...weird, it's fucking weird.
In news not relating to things that aren't real...does that scan...?...yes...anyway, Saturday, Jen and Lisa joined Chris and I to eat much meat at Alobar (bacon-wrapped meatloaf...all of it...in me...) and give the brand new Second Expansion of Cards Against Humanity a twirl.
Some very nice additions.
Sadly, I don't think I can play that game for a while...between the laughpocalypse with Chris, Jim and Phil a few weeks ago and this most recent foray, I don't want to overuse this gift, na'mean?
BUT that won't be a problem for long, as Resident Evil 6 comes out in a few short weeks and (maybe) I'm going to have a sleepover with Jen and Lisa and we're going to do my hair and talk about boys' butts and kill the living shit out of the victims of the most recent Umbrella Corporation abomination.
And make popped corn.
On Sunday, Chris and I met up with Hillary and Alex at Bare Burger and talked of things which aren't really public yet, I don't think.
She was in town to get shoes and do some ADR for the upcoming film The East which is going to be awesome for her.
Then Chris and I spent about forty five minutes with a ten-week old, black French bulldog and almost bought it...but, luckily, we thought it over and, after finding out that that particular pet store was investigated for buying puppies from a puppy mill, we decided against it.
And I'll say no more on the subject because it will break both our hearts.
And, finally, today, one Jen Rock began her internship at MY shitty Hospital. After her shift, we got lunch and macarons and then ate them loudly in front of the statue that I thought was Christopher Columbus, but which is not.
Bummer.
Now, I might write a song about having a Birthday party for a box of pancake mix.
I just don't know.
* Fuck you so hard, Fox.
** That's putting it mildly. My friends, Kirsten Snyder and Elizabeth Burden actually called each other characters from the show...I was Brian Krakow... * sigh *
A review of David Byrne & St. Vincent's "Love This Giant"
Putting this right on front street: I only know a handful of Talking Heads songs (from the radio) and nothing of David Byrne's solo stuff except for one track off of the Future Soundtrack of America and his appearance on Space Ghost: Coast 2 Coast...which endeared me to him forever.
I am, however, a huge fan of St. Vincent, and I understand how singular and innovative and amazing Byrne is, and so I also understood how awesome it was that they were working on a project together.
And guess what? It turns out that project is pretty awesome.
The album started as bits and pieces sent back and forth between Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and Byrne; some music without vocals, some vocals without music. Over a period of about three years, they assembled Love This Giant, the instrumentation of which is built around an eight-piece brass band, with some drums, guitar and light programming thrown in to flesh out the mix. The album is split about fifty/fifty when it comes to St. Vincent and Byrne's contributions..
LTG opens strong and brash with "Who", an excellent way to usher in this experiment in horns and style and the collaboration of two amazing artists. The horns' interplay with the beat and vocalization is just perfect, and the accompanying music video is fantastic. One is required to boogie. After this, aside from the Clark helmed "Ice Age", the programming on which gets in the way and which never really goes anywhere but up in volume, the album stays well-crafted and vital, showing off the strong points of each artist beautifully.
The stand out tracks for me include "Weekend In The Dust" (which feels so sassy and snide and...I don't know...sunglasses in a dark room? Plus, the horns (as on the majority of the album) wind their way perfectly through the song), "Dinner For Two" (in which the overly paranoid lyrics are offset and made enjoyable by the horns' whimsy), "I Should Watch TV" (another Byrne-only contribution with some spectacular horn arrangement and his trademark rejection and ridicule of all things pop culture ("I used to think that I should watch TV/I used to think that it was good for me/wanted to know what folks were thinking/to understand the land I live in/and I would lose myself and it would set me free"). This one gets dark and epic right around the middle, then it's back to the jittering, driving electronics-laced horns), "Lazarus" (which starts off slow, but evolves into something grand thanks to some really excellent guitar, rife with Biblical language and references), "Lightning" (which has an almost dubby feel to it before it opens up into one of the best arrangements on this album), and "The One Who Broke Your Heart" (a manic, insane samba? Mambo? to which one must dance like a fiend so as to sweat so no one can see the tears rolling from one's eyes. Laughing and crying at the same time.).
This truly amazing album comes to a close with the soft and sweeping "Outside Of Space & Time", which, I think, could have used more St. Vincent, but, whatever, this whole project is about 93% solid gold and I have no right to complain.
Anyone remember Chris Cornell and Timbaland's bowle movement, Scream?
No?
Good.
Love This Giant is better.
Lots better.
Lots and lots and lots better.
In fact, this might just be my favorite album of 2012.
So buy it, listen to it, and then go see them in concert (details and dates and such at www.lovethisgiant.com), because, if it's half as good as the album, it's probably going to be something people talk about for years to come.
9.05.2012
The Rush...Is On
*sigh*
I suppose I should actually recount my time in Alaska, you know, for posterity and the future and the children and all that bullshit.
All right, so Chris has a step-brother named Tom.
Tom, being a massive asshole, lives in Alaska and being a massive sweetheart, invited Chris and I to his wedding in Cooper Landing, a tiny place north (I guess, outside of New York City I have less concept of direction than a turtle in a centrifuge) of Anchorage.
Everything started with me playing Johnny Horton's "North To Alaska" at about 3:30 in the morning, it became a go-to for most of the trip, something like a lifeline or a constant that we could return to when things got weird...like that spinning top in Inception.
The cheapest and fastest flight there left from La Guardia at 6:45 am on Thursday, August 23rd. Since this meant being at the airport at 4:30 am (better safe than sorry and all that) and I got home from work at 11:30 pm, five hours before we had to be at the airport, I decided (because I am the smartest man in the world) to forgo the measly hour or two of winks before this massive undertaking.
At 3:50 or so, we called the amazing cab service that we've been using since Jess Howell's birthday party a few months ago that will bring you anywhere at any time for hardly any money, and got to the airport early. Two hours early.
Eventually, we got on the three hour or so American Airlines flight from New York to Chicago.
A quick side note: I do not, cannot sleep on planes. I can not do it. I'm 6'8 and this is one of the times in my life that is blows to be so. I also can not reason spending upwards of a thousand fucking dollars in order to alleviate my discomfort.
I'M A PARADOX.
CONTINUE!
Anyway, things were overly bright until I put on my sunglasses, hat and particle mask, then, while I didn't feel more human, I certainly felt more armored against what was about to take place.
Chris and I tried to interact but that was flobbery.
Bottom line: me on planes is shit and me on planes without sleep for many, many hours is double dippy doo dog shit.
We arrived in Alaska in the early afternoon of Thursday the 23rd and decided that we should stay up until 9 pm, Alaska time, in order to better function properly. Were we stupid to decide this?
Yes.
But, thanks to one Jesi Mullins, whose father was a tour guide in Anchorage, we had a whole slew of stuff to keep us awake.
First, we visited the Ulu Factory.
At first mention, I thought an Ulu was some sort of thick, Alaskan parka, or part of Cthulhu,, but, upon hearing it was a curved blade, I got really excited, picturing a massive double-handed weapon that could be used to kill shotgun-toting polar bears; the reality, that it is a tiny (the largest blade we could find was 8 inches) kitchen tool used for cutting fish, was rather disappointing.
So we bought one and, on our way out, some friendly dude handed me a free ice cream cone containing birch syrup and pecan ice cream. At that point, my impression of Alaska shifted somewhat.
We then drove about the dingy city of Anchorage (can't spell "Anchorage" without "rage") for a bit before checking into our hotel which was functional as a hotel and nothing more, although the check-in chick was SO HOT, I'm surprised there were any glaciers left in the state.
I said GOD DAMN.
Ermagherd.
Ser buuafeh
Next, lunch with Chris' stepmom and her father, who is the coolest grandpa alive.
HE MELTED THE BARREL OF A .30 CALIBER MACHINE GUN KILLING FOOLS IN WORLD WAR TWO.
Your argument is invalid.
I ate sweet potato tater tots with prosciutto and then a hot dog made of reindeer.
REINDEER.
I ATE IT ALL UP.
At that point, it was only about...I don't know, fucking time got fucked, but we knew we couldn't sleep yet, so, also thanks to Jesi, we headed towards Wild Berry Park, where there was a chocolate waterfall (not as impressive as the one in Willy Wonka, but still a chocolate waterfall nonetheless), crazy good candies and jellies and sauces and whatnot I've never had before AND REINDEER YOU COULD PET.
So Chris and I pet the reindeer (and got Reindeer Married) and sang to them while they alternately looked at us and shat.
Then, finally, it was late enough to consider sleep.
And so we did.
I have to say that I was expecting 40 hours without sleep to be like choice moments from Fear & Loathing, but it wasn't, I was just cranky.
Boo.
The next day's highlight was going to the Alaska Zoo and meeting, feeding and petting a red fox named Chance. It turns out that if you give the zoo money (like a hundred dollars), they let you play with certain animals (birds, polar bears, tigers, wolves and foxes to name a few).
So we went and fed Trip and Mac, two red foxes who didn't really seem to like us, and then got to pet a fox.
We pet a fox.
Fuck everything else you did on Friday the 24th of August, because me and the love of my life got to pet a fucking fox.
And he liked us.
Then, after finally wearing Chris down, I got anal.
Just kidding.
I got her to pull into a Barnes & Noble so I could buy Johnny Horton's greatest hits in order to listen to "North To Alaska" on our SUV's bumping speaker system as opposed to my iPad.
You could really get the low end on those background singers...
Then, more food, possibly the best on the trip except for the at the wedding.
I had mini-Kobe burgers with bleu cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and pineapple and an orgasm.
Along with that, I tried the braised short rib toast, which featured crazy good short ribs on a tiny piece of toast with a dollop of goat cheese on the top.
Boom.
Morgasms.
Then we headed out to Girdwood for some family weddingy dinner.
The drive finally got us out of Anchorage, which, as it turns out, had been our problem with Alaska thus far: it was awful. Anchorage was awful.
Like a huge, gray strip mall.
The drive included a shit ton of mist-shrouded mountains, any one of which could have housed an ancient civilization of shoggoths.
We listened to a bit of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo score then got creeped out and turned it off.
Then there was very good steak...and stuff I'm not allowed to talk about, as per Christina's request.
You know I'm not one for censorship of any kind, especially when the thing being censored is the truth and, in my worthless opinion, should be addressed so the issue can be solved, but, whatever, I'm marrying her and I love her and respect her, so, yeah.
The next morning, our last in Anchorage, involved a diner in which I had dessert for breakfast.
Next, we enjoyed the three hour drive north (?) to Cooper Landing, where the actual wedding and stuff was to take place. This drive, folks...was epic.
I may post pictures later or make that video I threatened to make, but they won't do it justice.
Eventually, we arrived at the Alaska Heavenly Lodge (which was neither like Twin Peaks nor Silent Hill) where there were three cabins for those staying on site.
Then we sat around.
Suddenly, everyone ran to the "rehearsal dinner", which, after two wrong turns and a monkeybag of confusion, consisted of some pretty good BBQ.
Then sleep, for the humans anyway.
The next day (the day of the wedding), we sat around and did nothing (although I was making quite a bit of headway in The Simpsons iOS game, Tapped Out) until around 3:30 (the ceremony was to take place around 4), when people started getting dressed and showering and, you know, whatever.
Then, Tom and Natalie got married, you know, and stuff.
Then there was food and, you know, dancing.
The food was exceptional; skewers of shrimp bigger than two penises tied end to end, a Shepard's Pie type thing that made me black out and see shadows in the trees, fresh halibut chowder (amazing, and it was the least impressive thing there), some sort of sliced meat that, if someone had told me was baby, I would have still eaten three more pieces before getting upset...and then I would have sneaked some for later, and the most starling pasta salad ever...IT WAS A MEAL, NOT A SIDE DISH.
Then, dessert: a three-berry crumble that made me reconsider the existence of God, various succulent tasties and the wedding cake, which was the best carrot cake I'd ever eaten.
And everything was prepared by family and friends.
I think.
I don't really know or care, it was just one of the best meals I've ever eaten.
I was sad to see it go.
Then...I danced.
So, up to that point, this wedding party consisted of the closest childhood friends of the groom and his brother.
Chris and I were, for lack of a better term, outsiders.
It was hard to relate to these guys, we were soft city folk who'd never punched a horse or eaten a tree or whatever people like this do when they've been drinking for most of a week.
...
Okay, for brevity's sake, I'll say this: the fourth song they played was "Kiss" by Prince.
I am now a legend in Alaska.
Everyone is my friend.
Problem = solved.
The next and last day at Heavenly Lodge went much the same as the first few, except we met some gay guys and some people who aren't made of nails and whiskers and axes and bourbon and actually had some cool conversation while eating some staggering burritos.
I had a bloody mary sans vodka and I think I've found a new friend...underneath myyyyy pillow...
That evening, with everyone gone but Tom, his brother, Steve, and his awesome wife, Lauren, Tom's cousin, Sean and their aforementioned childhood friend, Marlin, Chris and I were actually able to integrate and relate a bit. Much of the isolation and disregard we'd felt melted away and, as we sat around a roaring fire, we began to feel like we were a part of something, rather than bystanders.
It was pretty satisfying and went a long way.
Then, more sleeping and, when we woke up the next day, it was time to drive back to Anchorage.
Our time in Cooper Landing had been bitter sweet, and I'll leave it at that.
But we weren't through yet...
Our flight out of Anchorage was at 1:10 in the morning, over twelve hours away, so we had a full day to kill before we were free from this beautiful, pristine hell.
We drove to Hope, Alaska, where Chris' dad's ashes are scattered and took in some more astonishing beauty on the way there and back, then we pulled off the road so I could dunk my head under a waterfall made from glacial run off (it was cold), then we met some of the stragglers at Moose Tooth Pizza where I was to have a really amazing cheese pizza.
The pizza in Alaska had been talked up for a while and it didn't disappoint.
Was it the best I'd ever had? Hah, fuck you, but it was very, very good.
Eventually, we got on our first plane from Anchorage to Seattle (in at 5:30 am),and then our next plane from Seattle to New York (in at 3:30 pm), and then, finally, we were home.
This...was quite a trip...and we are still recovering.
I suppose I should actually recount my time in Alaska, you know, for posterity and the future and the children and all that bullshit.
All right, so Chris has a step-brother named Tom.
Tom, being a massive asshole, lives in Alaska and being a massive sweetheart, invited Chris and I to his wedding in Cooper Landing, a tiny place north (I guess, outside of New York City I have less concept of direction than a turtle in a centrifuge) of Anchorage.
Everything started with me playing Johnny Horton's "North To Alaska" at about 3:30 in the morning, it became a go-to for most of the trip, something like a lifeline or a constant that we could return to when things got weird...like that spinning top in Inception.
The cheapest and fastest flight there left from La Guardia at 6:45 am on Thursday, August 23rd. Since this meant being at the airport at 4:30 am (better safe than sorry and all that) and I got home from work at 11:30 pm, five hours before we had to be at the airport, I decided (because I am the smartest man in the world) to forgo the measly hour or two of winks before this massive undertaking.
At 3:50 or so, we called the amazing cab service that we've been using since Jess Howell's birthday party a few months ago that will bring you anywhere at any time for hardly any money, and got to the airport early. Two hours early.
Eventually, we got on the three hour or so American Airlines flight from New York to Chicago.
A quick side note: I do not, cannot sleep on planes. I can not do it. I'm 6'8 and this is one of the times in my life that is blows to be so. I also can not reason spending upwards of a thousand fucking dollars in order to alleviate my discomfort.
I'M A PARADOX.
CONTINUE!
Anyway, things were overly bright until I put on my sunglasses, hat and particle mask, then, while I didn't feel more human, I certainly felt more armored against what was about to take place.
Chris and I tried to interact but that was flobbery.
Bottom line: me on planes is shit and me on planes without sleep for many, many hours is double dippy doo dog shit.
We arrived in Alaska in the early afternoon of Thursday the 23rd and decided that we should stay up until 9 pm, Alaska time, in order to better function properly. Were we stupid to decide this?
Yes.
But, thanks to one Jesi Mullins, whose father was a tour guide in Anchorage, we had a whole slew of stuff to keep us awake.
First, we visited the Ulu Factory.
At first mention, I thought an Ulu was some sort of thick, Alaskan parka, or part of Cthulhu,, but, upon hearing it was a curved blade, I got really excited, picturing a massive double-handed weapon that could be used to kill shotgun-toting polar bears; the reality, that it is a tiny (the largest blade we could find was 8 inches) kitchen tool used for cutting fish, was rather disappointing.
So we bought one and, on our way out, some friendly dude handed me a free ice cream cone containing birch syrup and pecan ice cream. At that point, my impression of Alaska shifted somewhat.
We then drove about the dingy city of Anchorage (can't spell "Anchorage" without "rage") for a bit before checking into our hotel which was functional as a hotel and nothing more, although the check-in chick was SO HOT, I'm surprised there were any glaciers left in the state.
I said GOD DAMN.
Ermagherd.
Ser buuafeh
Next, lunch with Chris' stepmom and her father, who is the coolest grandpa alive.
HE MELTED THE BARREL OF A .30 CALIBER MACHINE GUN KILLING FOOLS IN WORLD WAR TWO.
Your argument is invalid.
I ate sweet potato tater tots with prosciutto and then a hot dog made of reindeer.
REINDEER.
I ATE IT ALL UP.
At that point, it was only about...I don't know, fucking time got fucked, but we knew we couldn't sleep yet, so, also thanks to Jesi, we headed towards Wild Berry Park, where there was a chocolate waterfall (not as impressive as the one in Willy Wonka, but still a chocolate waterfall nonetheless), crazy good candies and jellies and sauces and whatnot I've never had before AND REINDEER YOU COULD PET.
So Chris and I pet the reindeer (and got Reindeer Married) and sang to them while they alternately looked at us and shat.
Then, finally, it was late enough to consider sleep.
And so we did.
I have to say that I was expecting 40 hours without sleep to be like choice moments from Fear & Loathing, but it wasn't, I was just cranky.
Boo.
The next day's highlight was going to the Alaska Zoo and meeting, feeding and petting a red fox named Chance. It turns out that if you give the zoo money (like a hundred dollars), they let you play with certain animals (birds, polar bears, tigers, wolves and foxes to name a few).
So we went and fed Trip and Mac, two red foxes who didn't really seem to like us, and then got to pet a fox.
We pet a fox.
Fuck everything else you did on Friday the 24th of August, because me and the love of my life got to pet a fucking fox.
And he liked us.
Then, after finally wearing Chris down, I got anal.
Just kidding.
I got her to pull into a Barnes & Noble so I could buy Johnny Horton's greatest hits in order to listen to "North To Alaska" on our SUV's bumping speaker system as opposed to my iPad.
You could really get the low end on those background singers...
Then, more food, possibly the best on the trip except for the at the wedding.
I had mini-Kobe burgers with bleu cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and pineapple and an orgasm.
Along with that, I tried the braised short rib toast, which featured crazy good short ribs on a tiny piece of toast with a dollop of goat cheese on the top.
Boom.
Morgasms.
Then we headed out to Girdwood for some family weddingy dinner.
The drive finally got us out of Anchorage, which, as it turns out, had been our problem with Alaska thus far: it was awful. Anchorage was awful.
Like a huge, gray strip mall.
The drive included a shit ton of mist-shrouded mountains, any one of which could have housed an ancient civilization of shoggoths.
We listened to a bit of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo score then got creeped out and turned it off.
Then there was very good steak...and stuff I'm not allowed to talk about, as per Christina's request.
You know I'm not one for censorship of any kind, especially when the thing being censored is the truth and, in my worthless opinion, should be addressed so the issue can be solved, but, whatever, I'm marrying her and I love her and respect her, so, yeah.
The next morning, our last in Anchorage, involved a diner in which I had dessert for breakfast.
Next, we enjoyed the three hour drive north (?) to Cooper Landing, where the actual wedding and stuff was to take place. This drive, folks...was epic.
I may post pictures later or make that video I threatened to make, but they won't do it justice.
Eventually, we arrived at the Alaska Heavenly Lodge (which was neither like Twin Peaks nor Silent Hill) where there were three cabins for those staying on site.
Then we sat around.
Suddenly, everyone ran to the "rehearsal dinner", which, after two wrong turns and a monkeybag of confusion, consisted of some pretty good BBQ.
Then sleep, for the humans anyway.
The next day (the day of the wedding), we sat around and did nothing (although I was making quite a bit of headway in The Simpsons iOS game, Tapped Out) until around 3:30 (the ceremony was to take place around 4), when people started getting dressed and showering and, you know, whatever.
Then, Tom and Natalie got married, you know, and stuff.
Then there was food and, you know, dancing.
The food was exceptional; skewers of shrimp bigger than two penises tied end to end, a Shepard's Pie type thing that made me black out and see shadows in the trees, fresh halibut chowder (amazing, and it was the least impressive thing there), some sort of sliced meat that, if someone had told me was baby, I would have still eaten three more pieces before getting upset...and then I would have sneaked some for later, and the most starling pasta salad ever...IT WAS A MEAL, NOT A SIDE DISH.
Then, dessert: a three-berry crumble that made me reconsider the existence of God, various succulent tasties and the wedding cake, which was the best carrot cake I'd ever eaten.
And everything was prepared by family and friends.
I think.
I don't really know or care, it was just one of the best meals I've ever eaten.
I was sad to see it go.
Then...I danced.
So, up to that point, this wedding party consisted of the closest childhood friends of the groom and his brother.
Chris and I were, for lack of a better term, outsiders.
It was hard to relate to these guys, we were soft city folk who'd never punched a horse or eaten a tree or whatever people like this do when they've been drinking for most of a week.
...
Okay, for brevity's sake, I'll say this: the fourth song they played was "Kiss" by Prince.
I am now a legend in Alaska.
Everyone is my friend.
Problem = solved.
The next and last day at Heavenly Lodge went much the same as the first few, except we met some gay guys and some people who aren't made of nails and whiskers and axes and bourbon and actually had some cool conversation while eating some staggering burritos.
I had a bloody mary sans vodka and I think I've found a new friend...underneath myyyyy pillow...
That evening, with everyone gone but Tom, his brother, Steve, and his awesome wife, Lauren, Tom's cousin, Sean and their aforementioned childhood friend, Marlin, Chris and I were actually able to integrate and relate a bit. Much of the isolation and disregard we'd felt melted away and, as we sat around a roaring fire, we began to feel like we were a part of something, rather than bystanders.
It was pretty satisfying and went a long way.
Then, more sleeping and, when we woke up the next day, it was time to drive back to Anchorage.
Our time in Cooper Landing had been bitter sweet, and I'll leave it at that.
But we weren't through yet...
Our flight out of Anchorage was at 1:10 in the morning, over twelve hours away, so we had a full day to kill before we were free from this beautiful, pristine hell.
We drove to Hope, Alaska, where Chris' dad's ashes are scattered and took in some more astonishing beauty on the way there and back, then we pulled off the road so I could dunk my head under a waterfall made from glacial run off (it was cold), then we met some of the stragglers at Moose Tooth Pizza where I was to have a really amazing cheese pizza.
The pizza in Alaska had been talked up for a while and it didn't disappoint.
Was it the best I'd ever had? Hah, fuck you, but it was very, very good.
Eventually, we got on our first plane from Anchorage to Seattle (in at 5:30 am),and then our next plane from Seattle to New York (in at 3:30 pm), and then, finally, we were home.
This...was quite a trip...and we are still recovering.
9.04.2012
Cards Against Humanity/For Laughing So Hard You Cry And Are Unable To Speak For A Good, Solid Minute
I will never play Apples to Apples again.
Never.
I have no need, so why would I ever do so?
"Why (you don't ask aloud), why, Paul, do you have no need?"
Three words: Cards. Against. Humanity.
NUTSHELL: A group of long time friends played Apples to Apples and decided that it wasn't dark enough.
Yes, you could pair the adjective "effective" with the noun "Adolf Hitler", but, at its heart, the game wasn't about that.
It was great...but it wasn't that.
So these sick fucks made a Kickstarter page and the rest is black, black history.
And, after a struggle, I obtained the main game its the first expansion.
And, because I did, I laughed the longest, deepest and hardest that I have in years.
I'll stop the pitch and get to the funny:
On Saturday night, after a long and less than excellent shoot, I met Phil, Chris and Jim at Bare Burger in Queens to have some dinny poo and talk of things, then, we retired to my home where we broke out CAH.
Folks, we played through every card in both decks.
That's 600 cards.
Some highlights* (there were four white cards submitted to each black card, one from each of the three players and one from the Pile, a random card thrown in to make things more interesting. The Pile always has a spooky succinctness to its submissions, at the end of this game, the scores were Chris with 29, the Pile with 26, Phil with 22 and Jim and I tied at 17. I'm writing the answers I can remember.):
"Next from J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Chamber of __________"
Dead parents.
"What were Bane's final words to Batman?"**
Vigorous jazz hands.
Balls.
Gandalf.
Making the penises kiss. (the winner, obviously)
"Next on Lifetime:__________, the story of __________"
Golden Showers//The Make-A-Wish Foundation
Free Samples//Grave robbing
While the Bane one had us all paralyzed for some time, the below picture was my favorite and had me completely incapacitated for a solid two minutes or so.
Guys, I really don't know what to say: Cards Against Humanity is described as "a party game for horrible people", but, if being a horrible person feels this good?
Then we should all take a few steps in that direction.
Buy Cards Against Humanity.
Get horrible.
*And, when I say "highlights", I mean that the four of us were incapacitated with laughter, with tears streaming down our faces, unable to speak for a period of time. I am not exaggerating one bit.
**This was a blank card, written in during my first game with Chris, Lauren and Jen some weeks ago.
Never.
I have no need, so why would I ever do so?
"Why (you don't ask aloud), why, Paul, do you have no need?"
Three words: Cards. Against. Humanity.
NUTSHELL: A group of long time friends played Apples to Apples and decided that it wasn't dark enough.
Yes, you could pair the adjective "effective" with the noun "Adolf Hitler", but, at its heart, the game wasn't about that.
It was great...but it wasn't that.
So these sick fucks made a Kickstarter page and the rest is black, black history.
And, after a struggle, I obtained the main game its the first expansion.
And, because I did, I laughed the longest, deepest and hardest that I have in years.
I'll stop the pitch and get to the funny:
On Saturday night, after a long and less than excellent shoot, I met Phil, Chris and Jim at Bare Burger in Queens to have some dinny poo and talk of things, then, we retired to my home where we broke out CAH.
Folks, we played through every card in both decks.
That's 600 cards.
Some highlights* (there were four white cards submitted to each black card, one from each of the three players and one from the Pile, a random card thrown in to make things more interesting. The Pile always has a spooky succinctness to its submissions, at the end of this game, the scores were Chris with 29, the Pile with 26, Phil with 22 and Jim and I tied at 17. I'm writing the answers I can remember.):
"Next from J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Chamber of __________"
Dead parents.
"What were Bane's final words to Batman?"**
Vigorous jazz hands.
Balls.
Gandalf.
Making the penises kiss. (the winner, obviously)
"Next on Lifetime:__________, the story of __________"
Golden Showers//The Make-A-Wish Foundation
Free Samples//Grave robbing
While the Bane one had us all paralyzed for some time, the below picture was my favorite and had me completely incapacitated for a solid two minutes or so.
Guys, I really don't know what to say: Cards Against Humanity is described as "a party game for horrible people", but, if being a horrible person feels this good?
Then we should all take a few steps in that direction.
Buy Cards Against Humanity.
Get horrible.
*And, when I say "highlights", I mean that the four of us were incapacitated with laughter, with tears streaming down our faces, unable to speak for a period of time. I am not exaggerating one bit.
**This was a blank card, written in during my first game with Chris, Lauren and Jen some weeks ago.
8.31.2012
End of the Month Music Bitchfest - August 2012
Nine Inch Nails
A photo of Mariqueen was posted on the HTDA tumblr page.
*slow, unimpressed jerking off motion*
And, as for Nine Inch Nails, I have decided to chart their upcoming releases.
The objective of this task is triune in nature; first, it is to mock the general malaise of unproductivity NIN fans have suffered this year (or, since there has been no "new Nine Inch Nails music" since 2008, these past four years), second, it is to make myself feel better when/if any of these releases actually come out before their absurd and fabricated release dates, and, third, it is to point out to Trent (who, as I have mentioned countless times before, is a ravid* follower of this blog) just how silly he is when it comes to releasing material.
Note: This list does not include the various remixes and guest appearances and production jobs Reznor will take on between now and July, 2030, the total of which will be six.
While in the midst of typing these absurd release dates, I realized that they aren't actually that absurd. Which is heart-dentingly sad and the reason that I have four other favorite bands...
Beck
FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU.
Less than one percent of me laughed my ass off at myself when I saw this.***
"Well, you wanted a new Beck album...BWA HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!".
When did wanting one of my favorite artists to create and release new, original music that I can listen to become like wishing for something on a goddamn monkey's paw? Do I really need to specify that I want my favorite bands to record albums that contain full length songs in a format that requires nothing but headphones and a small device on which to play them?!
Well, apparently I do.
I actually got rather hot debating this whole Song Reader bullshit with Chris a few weeks ago.
She thinks it's a great evolution for Beck as an artist and as a musician.
She thinks it's wonderful that he's just putting this out there for others to interpret and do with what they will, bringing their own special something to his music.
I...feel differently.
I don't want a bunch of Beck fans playing and recording this as some sort of cover/tribute album that fell out of the timestream because it won't be a Beck album. It will be Beck's music played by other people.
And, as much as I enjoy Charlotte Gainsbourgh singing songs written by Beck, I would gladly seal her in a barrel of formaldehyde and drop it out of a blimp if that meant him recording and releasing his own work.
Chris compared this shift to David Lynch not having written and directed a film in six years and to how he's been branching out and producing things, opening elite clubs in France, recording music and a bunch of other stuff that is decidedly not writing and/or directing films.
Guess what...I haven't really given a shit about anything Lynch has done in the past six years...because he hasn't been writing and/or directing films...which is what he excels at.
Have you heard his album? It's a bad joke told by a clown having a nightmare and a bowle movement at the same time.
Chris also compared this to Reznor releasing the multi-tracks for his music and, while I see her point, he didn't just hand you a bunch of paper with notes on it, he released the finished product then said, "Here's how I did it and what I used to do it, now it's your turn." With Reznor, there was always a point of reference, a "right way". With this? Well, what are the chances that your interpretation of "a funky keyboard solo" is going to be anything NEAR as funky as Beck's funky keyboard solo?
Zero.
The chances are zero.
Rage!
Bottom line, then I'll move on: as an artist, Beck wins. This is an ingenious idea that will be awesome for a very, very small percentage of his fans, but, as someone making music for people that like to listen to and enjoy his music, this is a pretty big fuck you. Jesus, it's almost like he's trolling his own fans!
"You want a new album? Make it yourself, I'm too busy being an artist rather than making art."
And, for that, Beck, I say fuck you and fuck you and fuck you.
The only way he can make this shitty dickslap better is if, after a few months of letting this sit there and piss me off, he fucking records it himself and releases it.
Hey, maybe he can put the CD in that wonderful fucking book of magical and useless sheet music.
Luckily, not every piece of Beck related news this month was as infuriating as having someone piss in my face while rubbing the diarrhea of a rapist in my hair.
On August 7th, the PS3 and PS Vita game Sound Shapes was released.
It contains three...I don't want to say songs by Beck...more like three sketches of songs.
I'm only saying this because there aren't verses and all that, more like...oh, just watch the videos.
The first song/level, "Cities" has a bass line reminiscent of "Cellphone's Dead", but manages to be its own awesome creation, the second "Touch The People" is less a b-side from Midnite Vultures, and more like a c-side, it is fucking weird, and, the third, "Spiral Staircase" is just pitch perfect Beck.
I've found myself playing his levels again and again, just to hear his music.
And, although this is a perfect vehicle for some experimental Beck tunes, I'd gladly buy a "Cities" EP to have these tracks with me wherever I go.
This was a great project for Beck to take part in.
*sigh*
You know, I might just stop checking in with Beck until he gets back to doing the things I give a shit about.
I told you that he was designing sunglasses there for a while, right?
Sunglasses.
Designing them.
Cake
Cake played a show in Brooklyn on the 10th (come on, guys, isn't that a bit on the nose...?).
It contained no new music and no news of upcoming new music.
Eels
It's now been over a year since anything relating to Eels was posted on their official web site.
So.
Yeah.
Nothing good about that.
But...
They Might Be Giants
Oh thank fucking Christ, some rock solid good news.
In the last ten days, I have received both my custom ringtone (custom...as in Flansburgh sings my name and tells me to answer my phone...) and my IFC Super President package including a huge IFC coin featuring a three-eyed FDR, some brand new and exclusive TMBG tracks on two 7" vinyls and a membership card. On said card, one can record their height, name...and nickname. I don't actually have a nickname, so I asked Flans to give me one.
My new nickname is Bunkie.
Thank you, Mr. Flansburgh.
And thank you, They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club for keeping my faith alive during this odd, simultaneous hiatus of my favorite bands.
AND in even more rock solid good news, on August 14th, Chris Vrenna finally dropped some Tweaker on us!
The next and final Tweaker album, call the time eternity, is set for release on October 23rd.
We have artwork, track list AND clips from each of its eleven songs.
This is going to be a lot darker than the previous two Tweaker albums.
Check it out here.
In less than two weeks, Love This Giant, the David Byrne/St. Vincent team up album will be out, and, well, it's going to be really good. I know that's presumptuous, but, come on, St. Vincent and David Byrne made an album...together...that's fucking awesome.
In more...I don't know...less interesting music news, both Garbage and Marilyn Manson released new music videos this month.
Garbage, for their excellent new single "Big Bright World" and Manson for one of the not-entirely-shitty tracks of his new "effort", "Slow-Mo-Tion".
The video for "Big Bright World" isn't as good as the song and should have starred the band flying around in the TARDIS with Matt Smith, and maybe some back and forth between Karen Gillan and Shirley Manson, as they are the two hottest and most talented Scottish redheads in show business right now.
The video for "Slow-Mo-Tion"...well, it has a lot of interesting uses of fluorescent paint, some weird non-narrative/narrative thread involving crazy light goggles and shooting people from a rooftop which Manson will probably forget about and abandon...now, naked boobs (wow, Marilyn, boobs. Haven't seen those since Jesus invented them...) and yet another bunch of scenes with Manson holding a guitar and looking like he's about to play it, but never actually playing it. Maybe he forgot what it does?
While I haven't been overlistening to anything, I did just get my new Audio Technica M50 headphones and I've been listening to old standards (read: Nine Inch Nails) with them.
Major drawback: they don't block out nearly as much sound as my beautiful Sennheiser HD 280's (I refuse to call them "Sennies" as I'm not a studio tech from the 90's), plus some vocals tend to get swallowed up by the surrounding music.
The bass is much better though and a lot of stuff sounds fuller and better spread out in the sound field.
At the moment, the Sennies**** are still God, but I will do my best to put more time in with the M50's.
Really bummed about the noise...
Okay.
Be free.
Make noise.
* Rabid + avid = ravid
** This is totally funny if you get the reference, and, if not, it'll make about as much sense as the rest of my gibbering
*** The rest of me boraded a school bus full of special needs children, screamed until I shit myself bloody, then dove out the window crying
**** I lied.
A photo of Mariqueen was posted on the HTDA tumblr page.
*slow, unimpressed jerking off motion*
And, as for Nine Inch Nails, I have decided to chart their upcoming releases.
The objective of this task is triune in nature; first, it is to mock the general malaise of unproductivity NIN fans have suffered this year (or, since there has been no "new Nine Inch Nails music" since 2008, these past four years), second, it is to make myself feel better when/if any of these releases actually come out before their absurd and fabricated release dates, and, third, it is to point out to Trent (who, as I have mentioned countless times before, is a ravid* follower of this blog) just how silly he is when it comes to releasing material.
Project Title
|
Release Date
|
Theme for “Black Ops II”
|
November 13th, 2012
|
How To Destroy Angels LP
|
December 31st, 2012
|
The Fragile: 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
|
September 22nd, 2015
|
Follow up to Year Zero, tentatively titled Year Zero II
|
November 28th, 2017
|
Follow up to Ghosts I-IV, tentatively titled Ghosts V-VIII
|
January 12th, 2021
|
Return to touring
|
February 20th, 2021
|
Second retirement from touring
|
January 6th, 2022
|
With Teeth: 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
|
May 13th, 2025
|
Tapeworm triple album**
|
July 2nd, 2030
|
While in the midst of typing these absurd release dates, I realized that they aren't actually that absurd. Which is heart-dentingly sad and the reason that I have four other favorite bands...
Beck
FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU.
Less than one percent of me laughed my ass off at myself when I saw this.***
"Well, you wanted a new Beck album...BWA HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!".
When did wanting one of my favorite artists to create and release new, original music that I can listen to become like wishing for something on a goddamn monkey's paw? Do I really need to specify that I want my favorite bands to record albums that contain full length songs in a format that requires nothing but headphones and a small device on which to play them?!
Well, apparently I do.
I actually got rather hot debating this whole Song Reader bullshit with Chris a few weeks ago.
She thinks it's a great evolution for Beck as an artist and as a musician.
She thinks it's wonderful that he's just putting this out there for others to interpret and do with what they will, bringing their own special something to his music.
I...feel differently.
I don't want a bunch of Beck fans playing and recording this as some sort of cover/tribute album that fell out of the timestream because it won't be a Beck album. It will be Beck's music played by other people.
And, as much as I enjoy Charlotte Gainsbourgh singing songs written by Beck, I would gladly seal her in a barrel of formaldehyde and drop it out of a blimp if that meant him recording and releasing his own work.
Chris compared this shift to David Lynch not having written and directed a film in six years and to how he's been branching out and producing things, opening elite clubs in France, recording music and a bunch of other stuff that is decidedly not writing and/or directing films.
Guess what...I haven't really given a shit about anything Lynch has done in the past six years...because he hasn't been writing and/or directing films...which is what he excels at.
Have you heard his album? It's a bad joke told by a clown having a nightmare and a bowle movement at the same time.
Chris also compared this to Reznor releasing the multi-tracks for his music and, while I see her point, he didn't just hand you a bunch of paper with notes on it, he released the finished product then said, "Here's how I did it and what I used to do it, now it's your turn." With Reznor, there was always a point of reference, a "right way". With this? Well, what are the chances that your interpretation of "a funky keyboard solo" is going to be anything NEAR as funky as Beck's funky keyboard solo?
Zero.
The chances are zero.
Rage!
Bottom line, then I'll move on: as an artist, Beck wins. This is an ingenious idea that will be awesome for a very, very small percentage of his fans, but, as someone making music for people that like to listen to and enjoy his music, this is a pretty big fuck you. Jesus, it's almost like he's trolling his own fans!
"You want a new album? Make it yourself, I'm too busy being an artist rather than making art."
And, for that, Beck, I say fuck you and fuck you and fuck you.
The only way he can make this shitty dickslap better is if, after a few months of letting this sit there and piss me off, he fucking records it himself and releases it.
Hey, maybe he can put the CD in that wonderful fucking book of magical and useless sheet music.
Luckily, not every piece of Beck related news this month was as infuriating as having someone piss in my face while rubbing the diarrhea of a rapist in my hair.
On August 7th, the PS3 and PS Vita game Sound Shapes was released.
It contains three...I don't want to say songs by Beck...more like three sketches of songs.
I'm only saying this because there aren't verses and all that, more like...oh, just watch the videos.
The first song/level, "Cities" has a bass line reminiscent of "Cellphone's Dead", but manages to be its own awesome creation, the second "Touch The People" is less a b-side from Midnite Vultures, and more like a c-side, it is fucking weird, and, the third, "Spiral Staircase" is just pitch perfect Beck.
I've found myself playing his levels again and again, just to hear his music.
And, although this is a perfect vehicle for some experimental Beck tunes, I'd gladly buy a "Cities" EP to have these tracks with me wherever I go.
This was a great project for Beck to take part in.
*sigh*
You know, I might just stop checking in with Beck until he gets back to doing the things I give a shit about.
I told you that he was designing sunglasses there for a while, right?
Sunglasses.
Designing them.
Cake
Cake played a show in Brooklyn on the 10th (come on, guys, isn't that a bit on the nose...?).
It contained no new music and no news of upcoming new music.
Eels
It's now been over a year since anything relating to Eels was posted on their official web site.
So.
Yeah.
Nothing good about that.
But...
They Might Be Giants
Oh thank fucking Christ, some rock solid good news.
In the last ten days, I have received both my custom ringtone (custom...as in Flansburgh sings my name and tells me to answer my phone...) and my IFC Super President package including a huge IFC coin featuring a three-eyed FDR, some brand new and exclusive TMBG tracks on two 7" vinyls and a membership card. On said card, one can record their height, name...and nickname. I don't actually have a nickname, so I asked Flans to give me one.
My new nickname is Bunkie.
Thank you, Mr. Flansburgh.
And thank you, They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club for keeping my faith alive during this odd, simultaneous hiatus of my favorite bands.
AND in even more rock solid good news, on August 14th, Chris Vrenna finally dropped some Tweaker on us!
The next and final Tweaker album, call the time eternity, is set for release on October 23rd.
We have artwork, track list AND clips from each of its eleven songs.
This is going to be a lot darker than the previous two Tweaker albums.
Check it out here.
In less than two weeks, Love This Giant, the David Byrne/St. Vincent team up album will be out, and, well, it's going to be really good. I know that's presumptuous, but, come on, St. Vincent and David Byrne made an album...together...that's fucking awesome.
In more...I don't know...less interesting music news, both Garbage and Marilyn Manson released new music videos this month.
Garbage, for their excellent new single "Big Bright World" and Manson for one of the not-entirely-shitty tracks of his new "effort", "Slow-Mo-Tion".
The video for "Big Bright World" isn't as good as the song and should have starred the band flying around in the TARDIS with Matt Smith, and maybe some back and forth between Karen Gillan and Shirley Manson, as they are the two hottest and most talented Scottish redheads in show business right now.
The video for "Slow-Mo-Tion"...well, it has a lot of interesting uses of fluorescent paint, some weird non-narrative/narrative thread involving crazy light goggles and shooting people from a rooftop which Manson will probably forget about and abandon...now, naked boobs (wow, Marilyn, boobs. Haven't seen those since Jesus invented them...) and yet another bunch of scenes with Manson holding a guitar and looking like he's about to play it, but never actually playing it. Maybe he forgot what it does?
While I haven't been overlistening to anything, I did just get my new Audio Technica M50 headphones and I've been listening to old standards (read: Nine Inch Nails) with them.
Major drawback: they don't block out nearly as much sound as my beautiful Sennheiser HD 280's (I refuse to call them "Sennies" as I'm not a studio tech from the 90's), plus some vocals tend to get swallowed up by the surrounding music.
The bass is much better though and a lot of stuff sounds fuller and better spread out in the sound field.
At the moment, the Sennies**** are still God, but I will do my best to put more time in with the M50's.
Really bummed about the noise...
Okay.
Be free.
Make noise.
* Rabid + avid = ravid
** This is totally funny if you get the reference, and, if not, it'll make about as much sense as the rest of my gibbering
*** The rest of me boraded a school bus full of special needs children, screamed until I shit myself bloody, then dove out the window crying
**** I lied.
8.30.2012
Alaska: You Are My Heart
Ooooooh! That sounds po-etic!
I'm thinking of putting together a little video slideshow....whoa...just typing those words made me uninterested in this.
Okay, maybe I won't put together a little video slideshow.
I mean...if you went to Alaska and posted pictures, would I want to see them? Even if they were set to "North To Alaska" by Johnny Horton?
I'm going to be honest with you and say, "No. I would not."
Let me think for a moment (tough, as my sleep recently has been...scattered) if there are any pictures that aren't of me in front of some building you've never been to/won't ever be to or of just a mountain or river (both subjects which, to my limited knowledge in the field of photography, have been tackles at least a handful of times) or some other thing that you probably won't give a shit about as it does not contain naked boobs or butts...hm......not that I can think of...I mean, there is a picture of me dunking my head in a glacially cold waterfall and petting a fox named hance at the Alaska Zoo...but, other than those? Not really worth checking out. And a whole slideshow (ugh, it's that WORD) of just those pictures? Even set to "North To Alaska" by Johnny Horton? That no one is going to watch?
Well.
So, that won't happen.
In other, less Alaskan, more actory news, Jess, Phil and a bunch of other grapes shot another chunk of Unker & Psysia this morning, and plan to shoot more this Saturday.
Not sure when you'll see stuff from this, but things went pretty great and we got a lot of excellent stuff, including a gorgeous, shirtless man starring in one of the hottest awkward moments caught on film...or most awkward hot moments...no, the first one.
Totally hot. Totally awkward.
Plus, there's an excellent chalk drawing of a huge banana.
Oh the good times we have on the radio...
I'm tired.
Maybe more on this but probably not.
Chris and I are rewatching Firefly and getting angry about it's premature cancellation alllll over again.
Joss, now that you're recognized by the mainstream as a god, can you please do something to stick it up Fox's ass?
Thanks.
Your friend,
Tired
I'm thinking of putting together a little video slideshow....whoa...just typing those words made me uninterested in this.
Okay, maybe I won't put together a little video slideshow.
I mean...if you went to Alaska and posted pictures, would I want to see them? Even if they were set to "North To Alaska" by Johnny Horton?
I'm going to be honest with you and say, "No. I would not."
Let me think for a moment (tough, as my sleep recently has been...scattered) if there are any pictures that aren't of me in front of some building you've never been to/won't ever be to or of just a mountain or river (both subjects which, to my limited knowledge in the field of photography, have been tackles at least a handful of times) or some other thing that you probably won't give a shit about as it does not contain naked boobs or butts...hm......not that I can think of...I mean, there is a picture of me dunking my head in a glacially cold waterfall and petting a fox named hance at the Alaska Zoo...but, other than those? Not really worth checking out. And a whole slideshow (ugh, it's that WORD) of just those pictures? Even set to "North To Alaska" by Johnny Horton? That no one is going to watch?
Well.
So, that won't happen.
In other, less Alaskan, more actory news, Jess, Phil and a bunch of other grapes shot another chunk of Unker & Psysia this morning, and plan to shoot more this Saturday.
Not sure when you'll see stuff from this, but things went pretty great and we got a lot of excellent stuff, including a gorgeous, shirtless man starring in one of the hottest awkward moments caught on film...or most awkward hot moments...no, the first one.
Totally hot. Totally awkward.
Plus, there's an excellent chalk drawing of a huge banana.
Oh the good times we have on the radio...
I'm tired.
Maybe more on this but probably not.
Chris and I are rewatching Firefly and getting angry about it's premature cancellation alllll over again.
Joss, now that you're recognized by the mainstream as a god, can you please do something to stick it up Fox's ass?
Thanks.
Your friend,
Tired
8.22.2012
I WON WEDNESDAY.
FUCKING TOOTH AND NAIL BUT I WON.
Behold my fucking battle!
I slept little, yes, FAR less than a normal would!
And then I awoke far too early for a human to function, but once I had awoken.
You know, I'm too tired for this faux artistry bullshit.
I had a booking at 10, an audition at noon and then another booking at 1.
My milk was sour so I enjoyed a breakfast of dry Cheerios.
Hey, guess what...fuck dry Cheerios.
And yes there are people starving in blah blah blah, but dry Cheerios are still fucking awful.
The first booking was yet another Comcast...or so I thought...
It turns out that they gave me a completely new script ushering in their completely new advertising angel, namely: "This is awesome."
Yes, Comcast's new thing is: this is awesome.
I got to say: "This is HBO/Showtime on Xfinity. This is awesome" about forty different ways.
And, honestly, it was awesome.
Partly because that was actually pretty funny (certainly compared to "unlock the best entertainment with HBO/Showtime on Xfinity") and partly because this might mean another year and a half of working with Digitas and going in once a month or so in order to exchange some of the golden honey that is my voice for cold, hard cash-fucking-money.
Then across town to the Uncomfortable Place to audition for a web video for the CDC.
I had to sign an NDA, but I can say that it was not not about the coming zombie plague outbreak and what one should do if bitten (hint: panic).
Man would it be cool to have the CDC on my resume.
I'm a big fan of their work in The Stand and The Walking Dead and Contagion.
Too bad things don't always turn out well for them...
Then, as I had just enough time to eat, I ATE.
Specifically a Chickacavo sandwich from Lenny's.
Yes, it's chicken and avocado.
Not just chicken and avocado.
There was bread too.
BREAD.
Then, as I still had twenty minutes to kill, I walked, very, very slowly to the Best Buy about half a block away and then, very, very slowly to the Blu-Rays where I picked up Hunger Games.
Then, onto my second booking of the day, a quick half hour at Bang for some Speakaboos stuff. I did one line as the giant that got overlooked last time, some more narrator stuff and then three little boy voices.
Oh, and a police radio dispatcher.
Actually, this was just heartwarming...so, the guy who had written the police dispatcher didn't really have a voice in mind, so I did a really standard "voice". After we'd done those lines, they asked if I wanted to try anything and I did this gruff, put upon, Brooklyn accented guy and they seemed to dig it.
When I got out, the guy who had written this character said he'd had nothing in mind for the voice, but that he loved me choice, and then, the creative director guy who I've worked with since this project started said, "Yeah, why would we give some normal guy to you? You always do the cool stuff."
And that felt great.
(pet the pretty show horse, brush him and give him honeyed oats)
Then I got home and had twenty minutes to scream at how I had no time to shower or nap, then I went to work.
Thusly: I have won Wednesday.
But...what could be next for me?
Well, at four o'clock Thursday morning (in about seven hours) Chris and I have to go to the airport to fly to Chicago (2.5 hours) and then to Alaska (5.5 hours).
So.
Since I'm getting home no earlier than 11:30 and I have yet to pack ANYTHING for my five day trip, I am going to take it easy, maybe watch a little something, pack my bag, then around 2am or so, shower, dress and eat some food.
Then, off to the Great WhiteShark North.
That's right, I'm not sleeping.
Now, perhaps you're thinking, "Well, that shouldn't be too awful...you can always sleep on the plane..."
FUCK YOU, imaginary reader, I say, FUCK YOU.
I'm six feet eight inches tall and airplanes are made for people who are five feet one inches tall, so FUCK YOU, I say again, I will NOT be getting any sleep on the plane.
So HA!
HA!
Rather, I shall ascend to Alaska, like a drop of dew aloft a leaf, and there I shall bite the tits off God.
MMMMMAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSAAAAAAAGGGGGGEEEEEE MMMMMYYYYYYYY CCRRREEMMMMMAAAASSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!
Behold my fucking battle!
I slept little, yes, FAR less than a normal would!
And then I awoke far too early for a human to function, but once I had awoken.
You know, I'm too tired for this faux artistry bullshit.
I had a booking at 10, an audition at noon and then another booking at 1.
My milk was sour so I enjoyed a breakfast of dry Cheerios.
Hey, guess what...fuck dry Cheerios.
And yes there are people starving in blah blah blah, but dry Cheerios are still fucking awful.
The first booking was yet another Comcast...or so I thought...
It turns out that they gave me a completely new script ushering in their completely new advertising angel, namely: "This is awesome."
Yes, Comcast's new thing is: this is awesome.
I got to say: "This is HBO/Showtime on Xfinity. This is awesome" about forty different ways.
And, honestly, it was awesome.
Partly because that was actually pretty funny (certainly compared to "unlock the best entertainment with HBO/Showtime on Xfinity") and partly because this might mean another year and a half of working with Digitas and going in once a month or so in order to exchange some of the golden honey that is my voice for cold, hard cash-fucking-money.
Then across town to the Uncomfortable Place to audition for a web video for the CDC.
I had to sign an NDA, but I can say that it was not not about the coming zombie plague outbreak and what one should do if bitten (hint: panic).
Man would it be cool to have the CDC on my resume.
I'm a big fan of their work in The Stand and The Walking Dead and Contagion.
Too bad things don't always turn out well for them...
Then, as I had just enough time to eat, I ATE.
Specifically a Chickacavo sandwich from Lenny's.
Yes, it's chicken and avocado.
Not just chicken and avocado.
There was bread too.
BREAD.
Then, as I still had twenty minutes to kill, I walked, very, very slowly to the Best Buy about half a block away and then, very, very slowly to the Blu-Rays where I picked up Hunger Games.
Then, onto my second booking of the day, a quick half hour at Bang for some Speakaboos stuff. I did one line as the giant that got overlooked last time, some more narrator stuff and then three little boy voices.
Oh, and a police radio dispatcher.
Actually, this was just heartwarming...so, the guy who had written the police dispatcher didn't really have a voice in mind, so I did a really standard "voice". After we'd done those lines, they asked if I wanted to try anything and I did this gruff, put upon, Brooklyn accented guy and they seemed to dig it.
When I got out, the guy who had written this character said he'd had nothing in mind for the voice, but that he loved me choice, and then, the creative director guy who I've worked with since this project started said, "Yeah, why would we give some normal guy to you? You always do the cool stuff."
And that felt great.
(pet the pretty show horse, brush him and give him honeyed oats)
Then I got home and had twenty minutes to scream at how I had no time to shower or nap, then I went to work.
Thusly: I have won Wednesday.
But...what could be next for me?
Well, at four o'clock Thursday morning (in about seven hours) Chris and I have to go to the airport to fly to Chicago (2.5 hours) and then to Alaska (5.5 hours).
So.
Since I'm getting home no earlier than 11:30 and I have yet to pack ANYTHING for my five day trip, I am going to take it easy, maybe watch a little something, pack my bag, then around 2am or so, shower, dress and eat some food.
Then, off to the Great White
That's right, I'm not sleeping.
Now, perhaps you're thinking, "Well, that shouldn't be too awful...you can always sleep on the plane..."
FUCK YOU, imaginary reader, I say, FUCK YOU.
I'm six feet eight inches tall and airplanes are made for people who are five feet one inches tall, so FUCK YOU, I say again, I will NOT be getting any sleep on the plane.
So HA!
HA!
Rather, I shall ascend to Alaska, like a drop of dew aloft a leaf, and there I shall bite the tits off God.
MMMMMAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSAAAAAAAGGGGGGEEEEEE MMMMMYYYYYYYY CCRRREEMMMMMAAAASSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR!
8.17.2012
Crumb Bums
How was "crumb bums" ever an insult?
Does it imply that one is a bum who likes crumbs or perhaps that they are bums (hobos or tushies) ith crumbs on them?
Get me a literarian, statim!
Emotionally draining week. Rock and a hard place with my lovely lovely and it's neither of our faults. If only this magic bubble in which I exist made money and food and had just enough room for the two of us...
So that should be a massive pain in the soul to get figured out...
But, something that will prove a wonderful (if not permanent solution): I met with one Jess Howell this afternoon and, all you folks on spokes, Unker & Psyia is BACK! Or will be, over pretty much every weekend in September and October right up until Jess leaves for L.A. on November first.
I've just spent the past several hours writing and fleshing out scripts and sketches that we brainstormed this afternoon*, and, as always, the creation of original ideas felt glorious.
In recent years, I've realized that, while fun, references to other peoples' work can only be so enjoyable. The creation of ones' own, original thoughts, jokes, experiences etc. is beyond compare. And yes, I understand that nothing is truly original, but, fuck me for being immodest, I think I'm one of the most original people I know.
And I'll sing opera to a titmouse sleepy off cough syrup and lunch meat if you don't believe me.
Then there's this wedding which I'm not talking about.
Bottom line: by Thursday the 30th, I will no longer be complaining about it.
Bon?
Bon.
Next week looks to be a hairy one indeed...Monday should be just Monday, but Tuesday I'm meeting with Becca, Jesi and Jess to go over a script we're shooting in...a few weeks/a month/2012? that was conceptualized by Becca, written by Alan and their friend Mary Beth and starring me and the Ladies Three.
The writing is nice and snappy and it has massive comic/geek appeal so it should be pretty tasty...if we ever get to shoot it.
Then, Wednesday, I have two bookings in a matter of HOURS because I'm SO FUCKING TALENTED THAT MY SKILL IS JUST SEEPING OUT OF MY PORES LIKE BLOOD-- no, that's blood..
Hm.
Doctor's office!!!Yet another session for Comcast and a quick 15 minute pick-up session for Speakaboos.
The children are frightened of my Humpty Dumpty.
And then Thursday has me catching a 6:30 a.m. flight with Chris to Alaska...the Land of No Snow Even Though It's Fucking Alaska.
At least the polar bears should be easy to spot.
On my way to lunch, I passed the receiving entrance to the Hospital and saw the medical examiner rolling a body out into his truck.
Rattled me but good.
I need to sac up before this Zombie Apocalypse kicks into high gear or I'm corpse fodder.
Could there be anything else worth telling you about?
I'll let you know...
*I did so using Google Docs for the first time. And it sucked hard. Why is everyone jacking off over Google Docs? Yeesh.
Does it imply that one is a bum who likes crumbs or perhaps that they are bums (hobos or tushies) ith crumbs on them?
Get me a literarian, statim!
Emotionally draining week. Rock and a hard place with my lovely lovely and it's neither of our faults. If only this magic bubble in which I exist made money and food and had just enough room for the two of us...
So that should be a massive pain in the soul to get figured out...
But, something that will prove a wonderful (if not permanent solution): I met with one Jess Howell this afternoon and, all you folks on spokes, Unker & Psyia is BACK! Or will be, over pretty much every weekend in September and October right up until Jess leaves for L.A. on November first.
I've just spent the past several hours writing and fleshing out scripts and sketches that we brainstormed this afternoon*, and, as always, the creation of original ideas felt glorious.
In recent years, I've realized that, while fun, references to other peoples' work can only be so enjoyable. The creation of ones' own, original thoughts, jokes, experiences etc. is beyond compare. And yes, I understand that nothing is truly original, but, fuck me for being immodest, I think I'm one of the most original people I know.
And I'll sing opera to a titmouse sleepy off cough syrup and lunch meat if you don't believe me.
Then there's this wedding which I'm not talking about.
Bottom line: by Thursday the 30th, I will no longer be complaining about it.
Bon?
Bon.
Next week looks to be a hairy one indeed...Monday should be just Monday, but Tuesday I'm meeting with Becca, Jesi and Jess to go over a script we're shooting in...a few weeks/a month/2012? that was conceptualized by Becca, written by Alan and their friend Mary Beth and starring me and the Ladies Three.
The writing is nice and snappy and it has massive comic/geek appeal so it should be pretty tasty...if we ever get to shoot it.
Then, Wednesday, I have two bookings in a matter of HOURS because I'm SO FUCKING TALENTED THAT MY SKILL IS JUST SEEPING OUT OF MY PORES LIKE BLOOD-- no, that's blood..
Hm.
Doctor's office!!!Yet another session for Comcast and a quick 15 minute pick-up session for Speakaboos.
The children are frightened of my Humpty Dumpty.
And then Thursday has me catching a 6:30 a.m. flight with Chris to Alaska...the Land of No Snow Even Though It's Fucking Alaska.
At least the polar bears should be easy to spot.
On my way to lunch, I passed the receiving entrance to the Hospital and saw the medical examiner rolling a body out into his truck.
Rattled me but good.
I need to sac up before this Zombie Apocalypse kicks into high gear or I'm corpse fodder.
Could there be anything else worth telling you about?
I'll let you know...
*I did so using Google Docs for the first time. And it sucked hard. Why is everyone jacking off over Google Docs? Yeesh.
8.14.2012
That Ol' Mexicali Jambone
Some months ago, Christina and I were discussing movies we watched obsessively as children.
Eventually, the movie Cyborg (starring Jean Claude Van Damme, henceforth known as JCVD or Jesus Christ! Venereal Disease!) came up.
Apparently, her and her brothers would watch it over and over, and it was awesome.
I told her that, when I was younger, my best friend Simrall and I would constantly watch JCVD movies, specifically, Double Impact, the movie in which JCVD stars opposite JCVD (twins separated at birth) and they work together to kick some ass and talk funny.
So, we made a deal.
We watch Cyborg and then Double Impact.
But.
After watching Cyborg, life just..got in the way, and she never held up her end of the bargain to sit down and watch Double Impact.
A quick aside: neither of us was under the impression that these movies would hold up or even be watchable, understand? So there was an element of "why are we doing this to ourselves" to this whole thing.
Fast forward a few months to Chris waxing nostalgic about watching another movie endlessly with her brothers, namely, Best of the Best, starring Eric Roberts' hair and, for some odd reason, James Earl Jones (and Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs...what?).
I say that I'll gladly watch this but only if we watch BOTH Double Impact and Double Team, the movie in which JCVD teams up with, you guessed it,* Dennis Rodman, the gay basketball player who married Madonna thinking she was a rich man.
Why would I ever even know about this utter piece of shit, let alone want to watch it?
Because there is an element of punishment to this: we watched HER movie almost immediately after the deal was sealed and then didn't want mine until just last weekend.
Oh, and I know about this because my old friend, Angela, had a major boner for Dennis Rodman and wanted to see him with his shirt off so we saw it in theaters.
Anyway, all this to say that on Sunday, Chris and I watched Best of the Best and Double lmpact back to back.
Best of the Best had some amazing hair, surprisingly good dialogue, the worst music I've head in a movie in a while, and a bunch of unanswered questions such as: how is James Earl Jones (who didn't throw a punch once in the film) the coach of the United States Karate Team (which isn't a thing), why would one of the five "best of the best" be a forty something year old assembly line worker with an injured shoulder and another of the "best of the best" be a dirty fighting, overweight racist with, based on his performance, no formal training in anything more Eastern than eating Chinese food?
But, to think more on these questions and their unattainable answers would cause brain death, so let's move on to Double Impact.
You guys...this movie was a whole lot better than either Chris or I could have hoped for.
JCVD plays Chad AND! Alex, one was raised in L.A. and teaches yoga and likes pastels and is maybe six inches from being gay, while the other grew up in Hong Kong (another aside: "Hong" shows up in spell check, but not "Kong". Do we have a huge ape to thank for this?) and wears leather and smokes cigars and is mean. You actually get to see JCVD acting, and, like I said, it's actually pretty good.
That man is ripped in a way that makes men uncomfortable.
The bad guys die, the good guys don't, and, of course, JCVD fights JCVD.
JCVD wins...and so does the viewer.
Double Team arrives tonight from Netflix and everything will go downhill from there.
And before this magical day with my Beloved, I had a small group of REAL friends over to watch one of my favorite movies ever (Clue: The Movie, which, by the by, still, not only holds up, but standing highest among those in its genre) and (fucking finally) crack open my copy of Cards Against Humanity.
The wait was completely worth it.
I'm not going to try to explain its glory, I will just say this: if you love Apples to Apples and always give the green card to the person with the darkest, most fucked up noun/adjective combo, then this game was, literally, made with you in mind.
I will never play Apples to Apples in my home again unless it's with total strangers...and even then I may go with CAH, just to see what happens.
It's never felt so good to be horrible.
I believe this weekend is reserved for quiet reflection before Chris and I go to fucking Alaska for her fucking brother's beautiful fucking wedding.
It's going to be fucking magical, but, obviously, I'm complaining because I can't not.
I CAN'T NOT.
How can someone so miserable have snagged someone as glittering and sparkles and effervescent and just fucking unequalled in amazing awesomeness as Christina?
What's the gag?
Is she a man?
Am I in a coma?
Is it some mean prank?
Am I just a dolphin dreaming up this tall actor, shambling and sweating his way through this life he's constantly bitching about?
Hope I never find out, because this is awesome.
* You totally didn't guess it.
Eventually, the movie Cyborg (starring Jean Claude Van Damme, henceforth known as JCVD or Jesus Christ! Venereal Disease!) came up.
Apparently, her and her brothers would watch it over and over, and it was awesome.
I told her that, when I was younger, my best friend Simrall and I would constantly watch JCVD movies, specifically, Double Impact, the movie in which JCVD stars opposite JCVD (twins separated at birth) and they work together to kick some ass and talk funny.
So, we made a deal.
We watch Cyborg and then Double Impact.
But.
After watching Cyborg, life just..got in the way, and she never held up her end of the bargain to sit down and watch Double Impact.
A quick aside: neither of us was under the impression that these movies would hold up or even be watchable, understand? So there was an element of "why are we doing this to ourselves" to this whole thing.
Fast forward a few months to Chris waxing nostalgic about watching another movie endlessly with her brothers, namely, Best of the Best, starring Eric Roberts' hair and, for some odd reason, James Earl Jones (and Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs...what?).
I say that I'll gladly watch this but only if we watch BOTH Double Impact and Double Team, the movie in which JCVD teams up with, you guessed it,* Dennis Rodman, the gay basketball player who married Madonna thinking she was a rich man.
Why would I ever even know about this utter piece of shit, let alone want to watch it?
Because there is an element of punishment to this: we watched HER movie almost immediately after the deal was sealed and then didn't want mine until just last weekend.
Oh, and I know about this because my old friend, Angela, had a major boner for Dennis Rodman and wanted to see him with his shirt off so we saw it in theaters.
Anyway, all this to say that on Sunday, Chris and I watched Best of the Best and Double lmpact back to back.
Best of the Best had some amazing hair, surprisingly good dialogue, the worst music I've head in a movie in a while, and a bunch of unanswered questions such as: how is James Earl Jones (who didn't throw a punch once in the film) the coach of the United States Karate Team (which isn't a thing), why would one of the five "best of the best" be a forty something year old assembly line worker with an injured shoulder and another of the "best of the best" be a dirty fighting, overweight racist with, based on his performance, no formal training in anything more Eastern than eating Chinese food?
But, to think more on these questions and their unattainable answers would cause brain death, so let's move on to Double Impact.
You guys...this movie was a whole lot better than either Chris or I could have hoped for.
JCVD plays Chad AND! Alex, one was raised in L.A. and teaches yoga and likes pastels and is maybe six inches from being gay, while the other grew up in Hong Kong (another aside: "Hong" shows up in spell check, but not "Kong". Do we have a huge ape to thank for this?) and wears leather and smokes cigars and is mean. You actually get to see JCVD acting, and, like I said, it's actually pretty good.
That man is ripped in a way that makes men uncomfortable.
The bad guys die, the good guys don't, and, of course, JCVD fights JCVD.
JCVD wins...and so does the viewer.
Double Team arrives tonight from Netflix and everything will go downhill from there.
And before this magical day with my Beloved, I had a small group of REAL friends over to watch one of my favorite movies ever (Clue: The Movie, which, by the by, still, not only holds up, but standing highest among those in its genre) and (fucking finally) crack open my copy of Cards Against Humanity.
The wait was completely worth it.
I'm not going to try to explain its glory, I will just say this: if you love Apples to Apples and always give the green card to the person with the darkest, most fucked up noun/adjective combo, then this game was, literally, made with you in mind.
I will never play Apples to Apples in my home again unless it's with total strangers...and even then I may go with CAH, just to see what happens.
It's never felt so good to be horrible.
I believe this weekend is reserved for quiet reflection before Chris and I go to fucking Alaska for her fucking brother's beautiful fucking wedding.
It's going to be fucking magical, but, obviously, I'm complaining because I can't not.
I CAN'T NOT.
How can someone so miserable have snagged someone as glittering and sparkles and effervescent and just fucking unequalled in amazing awesomeness as Christina?
What's the gag?
Is she a man?
Am I in a coma?
Is it some mean prank?
Am I just a dolphin dreaming up this tall actor, shambling and sweating his way through this life he's constantly bitching about?
Hope I never find out, because this is awesome.
* You totally didn't guess it.
8.10.2012
This Shit Isn't Worth $382.50
Remember that scary audition I had on Wednesday? With the Screaming Guy?
Turns out I got a callback for it.
For a voice over...for some mobile app...that only pays $450...before my manager's commission.
A callback.
I got there, crammed myself into the tiny ass booth (think half a TARDIS if it weren't bigger on the inside) and then picked up the copy.
Now, for those that don't know, I have some pretty awful problems with my vision.
In a nutshell, I can't see anything, nothing at all, out of my right eye and have something like 40% visibility in my left, which huge swatches obscured by scar tissue on my retina and macula.
Imagine disco static right in the center of your field of vision and scattered clouds of it throughout.
The font on the script was this bolded, crowded type and the light was appalling, we're talking maybe 40 watts.
I've been doing this professionally for almost ten years and I've dealt with situations like this before, I tend to hold the copy up as opposed to using the stand and I'll turn towards the light, no muss, no fuss.
But, between the font and the light, my read was sounding like shit, I was pausing and hitching and it was just not sounding good at all.
So Screamy (who has been totally cool thus far, no screaming or anything) gets on my headphones and says that he wants me to have a fair shake at this and what I'm doing is sounding stilted, is there anything they can do, print it out bigger or bring the mic out into the room (because my head is, literally, pressed against the ceiling of the booth if I stand up straight) or whatever.
I say that making things brighter or printing it out bigger would be perfect.
Everything is still fine, no screaming or anything, although I'm walking on eggshells because I know this guy is a fucking volcano and I do NOT want lava on me this early in the morning, but then, after trying to print this thing out on three different machines without luck, he's getting a bit haggard.
He says he can't get it to print out and then he turns on a lamp in the room I'm now standing in (he took the mic and stand and everything out of the booth and placed it in the middle of the room) and we try it again.
And of course it sounds like shit because of all this and it's still not bright enough and the font is still fucked and this guy is totally pissed about the printer and it's getting projected onto me for making him go through all this and as soon as I leave he's going to explode and kill everything and etc.
So, that was great and totally made me feel excellent for the rest of the day at no point during which did I want to sit in a dark room and weep softly into a lavender scented body pillow.
At all.
And all this for a callback.
For a voice over...for some mobile app...that only pays $450...before my manager's commission.
Turns out I got a callback for it.
For a voice over...for some mobile app...that only pays $450...before my manager's commission.
A callback.
I got there, crammed myself into the tiny ass booth (think half a TARDIS if it weren't bigger on the inside) and then picked up the copy.
Now, for those that don't know, I have some pretty awful problems with my vision.
In a nutshell, I can't see anything, nothing at all, out of my right eye and have something like 40% visibility in my left, which huge swatches obscured by scar tissue on my retina and macula.
Imagine disco static right in the center of your field of vision and scattered clouds of it throughout.
The font on the script was this bolded, crowded type and the light was appalling, we're talking maybe 40 watts.
I've been doing this professionally for almost ten years and I've dealt with situations like this before, I tend to hold the copy up as opposed to using the stand and I'll turn towards the light, no muss, no fuss.
But, between the font and the light, my read was sounding like shit, I was pausing and hitching and it was just not sounding good at all.
So Screamy (who has been totally cool thus far, no screaming or anything) gets on my headphones and says that he wants me to have a fair shake at this and what I'm doing is sounding stilted, is there anything they can do, print it out bigger or bring the mic out into the room (because my head is, literally, pressed against the ceiling of the booth if I stand up straight) or whatever.
I say that making things brighter or printing it out bigger would be perfect.
Everything is still fine, no screaming or anything, although I'm walking on eggshells because I know this guy is a fucking volcano and I do NOT want lava on me this early in the morning, but then, after trying to print this thing out on three different machines without luck, he's getting a bit haggard.
He says he can't get it to print out and then he turns on a lamp in the room I'm now standing in (he took the mic and stand and everything out of the booth and placed it in the middle of the room) and we try it again.
And of course it sounds like shit because of all this and it's still not bright enough and the font is still fucked and this guy is totally pissed about the printer and it's getting projected onto me for making him go through all this and as soon as I leave he's going to explode and kill everything and etc.
So, that was great and totally made me feel excellent for the rest of the day at no point during which did I want to sit in a dark room and weep softly into a lavender scented body pillow.
At all.
And all this for a callback.
For a voice over...for some mobile app...that only pays $450...before my manager's commission.
8.08.2012
So. Much. Auditions. Part II
The week thus far:
ZEGNA, Rainbow Rewards, USAA Mobile App, Optimum
Sex mouth...with an Italian swoosh, huge super hero announcer voice, "that techy friend that we all have...but totally conversational", same as before but with less character.
Cutting right to the bullshit: while in the booth with the other guy in the spot, the client (guy representing Rainbow Rewards), who had shown up 20 minutes late to his OWN audition therefore delaying the room full of actors about 45 minutes, says, out loud with the studio mic open, "Uh, his read was too slow", in a dismissive tone that said, "Yeah, we're not going to cast him."
Dude.
DUDE.
A. I'm right here and completely heard you say that and B. have me read the 30 second spot again, you wang, don't toss my shit out because I didn't read it fast enough.
Fucking. Unprofessional. Xmax.
Then, this morning's USAA audition, which was that worst kind of pap, had me talking about a mobile app for USAA (no idea what that us) in detail...but as if I were just having a conversation.
Yeah, no prob.
Hi, Bus Friend, I know I'm just this guy sitting next to you on a bus, but I see you have a mobile device and I'm pretty sure you'd like...no...LOVE to hear about an app that allows you to make business investments! You can download it and store it right next to Angry Birds!!!
So.
Nailed that one.
Then off to do the same audition I did last week, but in a different place and with less character.
Those last two took place today, the first alllll the way over on 11th and 25th in one of those studios that was totally someone's apartment.
I walked in and some guy told me to take a seat and to give him a holler when I was ready. I did so, and was taking a look at this totally natural script when he proceeded to make a super condescending phone call before hanging up and then screaming, "Jesus fucking Christ! Get your fucking head out of your ASS!"
I was going to say something like, "Sorry..." in a really small voice to try and defuse the situation, but this guy was maybe a little too intense for, you know, humor.
Think John Malkovich when he plays really angry.
That audition...did not go well...
Then, as I had an unexpected gulf of time between my second audition (Optimum- **fart noise**) and my Five Star Employee luncheon with the executive VP and director of development here at the Hospital*, I stopped by Midtown Comics to catch up on Walking Dead (WOO!) and The Boys (please be done soon). You know, I only go there a few times a year, but every time I do, I feel so at home. In the ten minutes or so I spent wandering around, I heard three different nerdy conversations that I could have totally weighed in on, and, while I was in line, I saw an MC employee cultivating a huge stack of basics to get this young kid further into comics. He knew and liked Hellboy and some other lighthearted demon thing, but had yet to see Avengers.
I don't know, the whole thing just warmed my heart and excited me: the stuff this kid has to look forward to...
I may have just witnessed the birth of a geek.
I also bought a Deadpool t-shirt that I'd been eyeing for a while on Think Geek.
Then, to my luncheon, which was just as awkward as you might imagine, although I did my best to stand out from the usual folks here as intelligent, well spoken, witty and devastatingly handsome.
Mission: accomplished.
Where are my pants?
**GRIN**
And now?
Well, I'm struggling to stay awake of course, what else?
Just received an e-mail that Comcast want me back in a few weeks from now, so that's shiny...
Hopefully one of these other auditions will pay off...but not the scary one...I did not like that, no sir.
All right.
I'm through.
*You never believe me when I say I'm good at my job when I do it...Will.
ZEGNA, Rainbow Rewards, USAA Mobile App, Optimum
Sex mouth...with an Italian swoosh, huge super hero announcer voice, "that techy friend that we all have...but totally conversational", same as before but with less character.
Cutting right to the bullshit: while in the booth with the other guy in the spot, the client (guy representing Rainbow Rewards), who had shown up 20 minutes late to his OWN audition therefore delaying the room full of actors about 45 minutes, says, out loud with the studio mic open, "Uh, his read was too slow", in a dismissive tone that said, "Yeah, we're not going to cast him."
Dude.
DUDE.
A. I'm right here and completely heard you say that and B. have me read the 30 second spot again, you wang, don't toss my shit out because I didn't read it fast enough.
Fucking. Unprofessional. Xmax.
Then, this morning's USAA audition, which was that worst kind of pap, had me talking about a mobile app for USAA (no idea what that us) in detail...but as if I were just having a conversation.
Yeah, no prob.
Hi, Bus Friend, I know I'm just this guy sitting next to you on a bus, but I see you have a mobile device and I'm pretty sure you'd like...no...LOVE to hear about an app that allows you to make business investments! You can download it and store it right next to Angry Birds!!!
So.
Nailed that one.
Then off to do the same audition I did last week, but in a different place and with less character.
Those last two took place today, the first alllll the way over on 11th and 25th in one of those studios that was totally someone's apartment.
I walked in and some guy told me to take a seat and to give him a holler when I was ready. I did so, and was taking a look at this totally natural script when he proceeded to make a super condescending phone call before hanging up and then screaming, "Jesus fucking Christ! Get your fucking head out of your ASS!"
I was going to say something like, "Sorry..." in a really small voice to try and defuse the situation, but this guy was maybe a little too intense for, you know, humor.
Think John Malkovich when he plays really angry.
That audition...did not go well...
Then, as I had an unexpected gulf of time between my second audition (Optimum- **fart noise**) and my Five Star Employee luncheon with the executive VP and director of development here at the Hospital*, I stopped by Midtown Comics to catch up on Walking Dead (WOO!) and The Boys (please be done soon). You know, I only go there a few times a year, but every time I do, I feel so at home. In the ten minutes or so I spent wandering around, I heard three different nerdy conversations that I could have totally weighed in on, and, while I was in line, I saw an MC employee cultivating a huge stack of basics to get this young kid further into comics. He knew and liked Hellboy and some other lighthearted demon thing, but had yet to see Avengers.
I don't know, the whole thing just warmed my heart and excited me: the stuff this kid has to look forward to...
I may have just witnessed the birth of a geek.
I also bought a Deadpool t-shirt that I'd been eyeing for a while on Think Geek.
Then, to my luncheon, which was just as awkward as you might imagine, although I did my best to stand out from the usual folks here as intelligent, well spoken, witty and devastatingly handsome.
Mission: accomplished.
Where are my pants?
**GRIN**
And now?
Well, I'm struggling to stay awake of course, what else?
Just received an e-mail that Comcast want me back in a few weeks from now, so that's shiny...
Hopefully one of these other auditions will pay off...but not the scary one...I did not like that, no sir.
All right.
I'm through.
*You never believe me when I say I'm good at my job when I do it...Will.
8.07.2012
A review of Daniel Licht's "Silent Hill: Downpour" score
I have played every Silent Hill game in the series except for the latest, "Silent Hill: Downpour".
I have, however, listened to the score from the aforementioned "Silent Hill: Downpour".
And it's not a very good score for a Silent Hill game.
Up to this point in the series, every game has been scored by insane, Japanese soundtorturer, Akira Yamaoka. He has expressed fear, menace, decay, sickness, sadness, insanity and a whole bunch of other uncomfortable emotional states better than any other artist I have heard.
And he's done his best work without words.
So, when it was announced that he would not be involved with the latest Silent Hill game, I became understandably pensive.
The game was released on March 13th, 2012 and garnered unimpressed reviews, none of which really went into the music beyond commenting that it wasn't as good as Yamaoka's previous work, so I decided to check out the soundtrack.
The first thing that goes wrong happens about thirty seconds into the opening track, and that thing is Korn.
It was announced that they were to collaborate with Daniel Licht (Downpour's composer, who you may know from his work on other nightmarish survival-horror games such as...Showtime's Dexter) on the game's theme, titled, simply, "Silent Hill".
Kudos, Licht, way to make fans of the series hate you more than poison before having even heard a note of your work.
Korn, whose lead singer sounds like an asthmatic, twitchy teen on helium.
Korn, who covered Cameo's "Word Up".
Korn, who Silent Hill fans started a petition to get removed from this project.
They lend their "talents" to the first and only vocal track.
After that act of aggressive mediocrity, the rest of the album just kind of blurs together into a hazy sludge of mandolins (both tuned and detuned, played properly and improperly), vague attempts at unsettling choirs (which end up sounding like Danny Elfman's b-sides) and some chanting and droning which wasn't bad but that had been done better when Yamaoka was in charge.
There is some strong piano that hearkens back to the solid soundtracks of the earlier games and there are glimpses of some interesting programming, but they're covered up so quickly by the boring, typical orchestral tropes you've heard again and again in similar situations that they're almost not worth mentioning. That was one of the worst aspects of the score: you heard some good, faceted stuff, but then it was gone, which is almost worse than it not being there at all, because you know the potential is there, but they're just not exploring it.
Very frustrating.
A few tracks almost make an impression; namely, "Monastic Tendencies", in which the chanting and droning mentioned above work very well to create a dissonance which does a great job of rubbing your mind the wrong way, "Clowning Around With Monsters" (maybe one of the worst titles a song has ever been saddled with) has some chilling laughing/moaning that weaves in and out of itself, developing quite a disturbing atmosphere, and both "Welcome To Devil's Pit" and "Basement Fight"* start off with some really interesting sonic set-ups, only to be ruined by the well-tuned, well-played and completely banal orchestral elements that populate any and every bland horror experience you've ever had.
Aside from that block of four songs towards the back of the album (which only stand out because they're slightly less lackluster than the rest), this thing is a wash. Maybe I'll feel differently hearing it once some nightmare is chasing me down and trying to eat/rape my body and soul, but, who knows?
It's just too...whimsical. At times, it sounds like it's music from some kids' mystery movie, maybe with a haunted house that turns out to be Eddie Murphy in a fat suit who, as we learn in the third act, is just lonely...not scary.
Yamaoka created sounds that were not of this world while Licht is just trying to make mundane instrumentation sound less mundane.
AND HE IS OVERUSING THE MANDOLIN TO THE POINT OF PARODY.
It doesn't matter how much you try to shove it down our ears, Daniel, the mandolin is not as versatile as you think or want it to be.
Look, it isn't bad, but it certainly isn't Silent Hill. This music would fit nicely in a horror movie...maybe the new Silent Hill movie, but it just doesn't capture the darkness and despair and delirium of playing Silent Hill. Music for the game needs to be more engrossing and terrifying. It needs to be the aural counterpart to what we're seeing and experiencing. I know this is a cop out for me, but, after their work on the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo score, I'd love to see Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross take a crack at Silent Hill**.
In the end, Licht removed the signature from the degenerate, mad art that is Silent Hill, and that is unforgivable.
*So I guess there's going to be a fight in a basement. Hellooo? Spoilers?
** Listen to "Perihelion" or "With The Flies" and then type up the petition...
I have, however, listened to the score from the aforementioned "Silent Hill: Downpour".
And it's not a very good score for a Silent Hill game.
Up to this point in the series, every game has been scored by insane, Japanese soundtorturer, Akira Yamaoka. He has expressed fear, menace, decay, sickness, sadness, insanity and a whole bunch of other uncomfortable emotional states better than any other artist I have heard.
And he's done his best work without words.
So, when it was announced that he would not be involved with the latest Silent Hill game, I became understandably pensive.
The game was released on March 13th, 2012 and garnered unimpressed reviews, none of which really went into the music beyond commenting that it wasn't as good as Yamaoka's previous work, so I decided to check out the soundtrack.
The first thing that goes wrong happens about thirty seconds into the opening track, and that thing is Korn.
It was announced that they were to collaborate with Daniel Licht (Downpour's composer, who you may know from his work on other nightmarish survival-horror games such as...Showtime's Dexter) on the game's theme, titled, simply, "Silent Hill".
Kudos, Licht, way to make fans of the series hate you more than poison before having even heard a note of your work.
Korn, whose lead singer sounds like an asthmatic, twitchy teen on helium.
Korn, who covered Cameo's "Word Up".
Korn, who Silent Hill fans started a petition to get removed from this project.
They lend their "talents" to the first and only vocal track.
After that act of aggressive mediocrity, the rest of the album just kind of blurs together into a hazy sludge of mandolins (both tuned and detuned, played properly and improperly), vague attempts at unsettling choirs (which end up sounding like Danny Elfman's b-sides) and some chanting and droning which wasn't bad but that had been done better when Yamaoka was in charge.
There is some strong piano that hearkens back to the solid soundtracks of the earlier games and there are glimpses of some interesting programming, but they're covered up so quickly by the boring, typical orchestral tropes you've heard again and again in similar situations that they're almost not worth mentioning. That was one of the worst aspects of the score: you heard some good, faceted stuff, but then it was gone, which is almost worse than it not being there at all, because you know the potential is there, but they're just not exploring it.
Very frustrating.
A few tracks almost make an impression; namely, "Monastic Tendencies", in which the chanting and droning mentioned above work very well to create a dissonance which does a great job of rubbing your mind the wrong way, "Clowning Around With Monsters" (maybe one of the worst titles a song has ever been saddled with) has some chilling laughing/moaning that weaves in and out of itself, developing quite a disturbing atmosphere, and both "Welcome To Devil's Pit" and "Basement Fight"* start off with some really interesting sonic set-ups, only to be ruined by the well-tuned, well-played and completely banal orchestral elements that populate any and every bland horror experience you've ever had.
Aside from that block of four songs towards the back of the album (which only stand out because they're slightly less lackluster than the rest), this thing is a wash. Maybe I'll feel differently hearing it once some nightmare is chasing me down and trying to eat/rape my body and soul, but, who knows?
It's just too...whimsical. At times, it sounds like it's music from some kids' mystery movie, maybe with a haunted house that turns out to be Eddie Murphy in a fat suit who, as we learn in the third act, is just lonely...not scary.
Yamaoka created sounds that were not of this world while Licht is just trying to make mundane instrumentation sound less mundane.
AND HE IS OVERUSING THE MANDOLIN TO THE POINT OF PARODY.
It doesn't matter how much you try to shove it down our ears, Daniel, the mandolin is not as versatile as you think or want it to be.
Look, it isn't bad, but it certainly isn't Silent Hill. This music would fit nicely in a horror movie...maybe the new Silent Hill movie, but it just doesn't capture the darkness and despair and delirium of playing Silent Hill. Music for the game needs to be more engrossing and terrifying. It needs to be the aural counterpart to what we're seeing and experiencing. I know this is a cop out for me, but, after their work on the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo score, I'd love to see Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross take a crack at Silent Hill**.
In the end, Licht removed the signature from the degenerate, mad art that is Silent Hill, and that is unforgivable.
*So I guess there's going to be a fight in a basement. Hellooo? Spoilers?
** Listen to "Perihelion" or "With The Flies" and then type up the petition...
8.06.2012
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover and Pyramid Head
Jen Rock showed up Saturday after noon to finish Silent Hill 2 and attend a rooftop film festival themed around experimental films concerning agriculture with Chris.
I stayed at home and laughed about that idea for a few hours.
When they returned, we all watched the Neil Gaiman episode of Doctor Who, became angry that he's never going to write for Doctor Who again and then continued our playthrough.
That game has so much more backtracking and trial and error than I remember...which is why we used a walkthrough.
Time is money, folks.
After we finished the game (with the "Leave" ending...look it up if you really want to), Jen got back at me for making her play Silent Hill 2 by putting on one of her favorite movies, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, starring Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. Also Tim Roth getting food poisoning and vomiting.
This is one of the darker movies I've seen in recent memory and I'll never be able to see Gambon as Dumbledore again.
Wow.
If you have Netflix, it's on streaming.
Add it, watch it and get ready to be bummed out by the dark things humans do.
I've also just started watching the Sarah Silverman Program and Super Hero Squad.
There are very few similarities.
Except for the AIDS jokes.
SHS is so...endearing...but so...stupid...I will either never watch it again or finish both seasons in a matter of days.
Stay tuned.
As for the SSP, once she stops relying on her, "Aren't I adorable?! Look, I just said something horrendous and offensive! Aren't I funny because I'm adorable and said something both horrendous and offensive???" and actually starts being funny, I can enjoy the show.
So far, my favorite line (from a cop who's seen it all) is: "I've seen things that'd make you crap a book on how to puke."
Nicely done.
This Saturday, I may have some people over to watch Clue (which comes out tomorrow on Blu Ray...with fucking NO special features whatsoever. Guys, LOOK at that fucking cast! You've got nothing?!) and play Cards Against Humanity, something I've been looking forward to for about a month.
Now, I am finished.
BEANCROCK.
I stayed at home and laughed about that idea for a few hours.
When they returned, we all watched the Neil Gaiman episode of Doctor Who, became angry that he's never going to write for Doctor Who again and then continued our playthrough.
That game has so much more backtracking and trial and error than I remember...which is why we used a walkthrough.
Time is money, folks.
After we finished the game (with the "Leave" ending...look it up if you really want to), Jen got back at me for making her play Silent Hill 2 by putting on one of her favorite movies, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, starring Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. Also Tim Roth getting food poisoning and vomiting.
This is one of the darker movies I've seen in recent memory and I'll never be able to see Gambon as Dumbledore again.
Wow.
If you have Netflix, it's on streaming.
Add it, watch it and get ready to be bummed out by the dark things humans do.
I've also just started watching the Sarah Silverman Program and Super Hero Squad.
There are very few similarities.
Except for the AIDS jokes.
SHS is so...endearing...but so...stupid...I will either never watch it again or finish both seasons in a matter of days.
Stay tuned.
As for the SSP, once she stops relying on her, "Aren't I adorable?! Look, I just said something horrendous and offensive! Aren't I funny because I'm adorable and said something both horrendous and offensive???" and actually starts being funny, I can enjoy the show.
So far, my favorite line (from a cop who's seen it all) is: "I've seen things that'd make you crap a book on how to puke."
Nicely done.
This Saturday, I may have some people over to watch Clue (which comes out tomorrow on Blu Ray...with fucking NO special features whatsoever. Guys, LOOK at that fucking cast! You've got nothing?!) and play Cards Against Humanity, something I've been looking forward to for about a month.
Now, I am finished.
BEANCROCK.
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