Under 30

The Winner's History Of Rock 'n' Roll

2007-02-27T11:17:00.000-05:00

I wrote the sprawling essay below for this blog, but it ended up on The A.V. Club blog instead. Which is cool, because people actually read that blog. (Big ups to Paul, Mark, and Tom Roz for keeping it real with Under 30, though. Anyway, you should click the link and read it there. But if you're lazy, here it is.

Thanks to the archive plumbers at VH1 Classic, I recently rediscovered a 10-part documentary series produced by Time Life in 1995 called The History Of Rock 'n’ Roll. I was a big fan of the series back in high school, even if as a junior rock historian I was already well-versed in blues, Berry, Beatles, and Bowie anecdotes. Watching it now, I’m less interested in what it has to say about rock history than how it illustrates how history is written and re-written over time.

Seen now, The History Of Rock 'n' Roll is hopelessly rockist in the worst sense: The only decades covered with multiple episodes are the ’50s and ’60s, and about half deal with the ’60s alone; punk gets its own episode, but the rise of rap and MTV (the most important developments in music in the past 25 years, along with Napster) are shoehorned together into one show; disco is depicted as a grave threat to “real” music; electronic, heavy metal, and non-grunge indie music is ignored altogether; and white rockers almost always overshadow black ones. Oh, and richly mustachioed yacht-rock legend Jeff “Skunk” Baxter is quoted on nearly every subject.

Most of these oversights have been corrected since '95—metal and disco, in particular, have gotten their due thanks to revisionists. But music writers today continue to get some stuff wrong. Take MTV. The impression you get of the music channel from The History Of Rock 'n' Roll is that it ultimately hurt music because it made image more important than substance. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich (whose band otherwise isn’t mentioned in the series) is brought out to give the obligatory quote about how rock fans in the old days could make up their own imagery to rock songs, and MTV took that away. I never understood this argument, even though it’s still common enough to pass as conventional wisdom. First of all, image has always been important. Is it just a coincidence that Elvis Presley was a cool, sexy dude? Wasn’t “seeing” The Beatles on Ed Sullivan the pop culture tipping point, not just hearing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” on the radio? Did David Bowie dress like a transsexual alien because it made Mick Ronson play better? Yes, all these examples just happen to be much better musically than, say, Kajagoogoo, but as far as teenagers from any era are concerned it scarcely mattered. At any rate, MTV didn’t stop people from assigning their own visual memories to pop songs. Faith No More made a striking video for its ubiquitous hit single “Epic,” but I never think about it when I hear that song—I remember my disastrous first junior high school dance in 1990, where Mike Patton’s spastic vocals taunted me as a struck out with every single girl in my grade. Quite frankly, I’d rather remember a flopping fish.

Nevertheless, “the MTV took my imagination away” party line is still popular among critics and has become gospel among casual followers of pop music over time. What’s interesting is that most people probably liked MTV when it first came out. Certainly a lot of people watched it, and they likely didn’t fret about how the video for “Talk Dirty To Me” was preventing them from assigning their own mental pictures to C.C. DeVille’s righteously rockin’ guitar riffage. And yet, it’s equally likely that most people think the early days of MTV pale in comparison to what was going on in the ’80s punk underground, even if they never owned a Replacements album at the time. Why? Because that’s what rock history tells us. Rock history, unlike regular history, is written by the losers. I define losers as people who liked music that wasn’t popular in the mainstream, and had very little impact on pop culture at large. (Before anyone gets their undies in a bundle, let me just cop to being a “loser” myself. It’s not a value judgment, just a reflection of what was happening in the marketplace at the time.) Because rock writers tend to love “loser” music—punk, indie rock, alt-country, “conscious” hip-hop, dance music that goes on forever without a hook—“loser” music is what gets remembered as history. I’m not necessarily questioning it, just pointing out that it’s “a” history written with a certain agenda in mind. Think of it as revenge of the nerds—we make our music popular in the long term to correct the mainstream's short-term "oversight."

It is possible to look at all the music from the past 50 years of pop and come up with different conclusions, however. Consider how regular history is kept. Historians determine what movements affected society the most, and look for specific examples that tell that story. In the end, history writing ends up being a popularity contest—whichever side of the movement comes out ahead is what is depicted most favorably. Because society eventually came out against segregation, for example, Martin Luther King is seen as a hero. But if the segregationists had won out, MLK would have been a dangerous dissident threatening to tear apart a hallowed American institution. And as an event recedes into the past, it gets tougher to argue with history. (No matter how hard you look, you probably won’t find a Massachusetts resident who regrets the Declaration Of Independence.)

To give another, more musical example, the importance of punk music continues to be grossly overstated. Aesthetically, punk’s influence can’t be denied—it’s why there’s a Hot Topic in every mall and pop bands dressed like punk bands on the radio. But musically, punk hasn’t endured nearly as well as disco. Even if the word “disco” was outmoded by 1979, disco-influenced music has accounted for about three-fourths of the most successful pop for nearly three decades (including hip-hop, which is aesthetically punk but closer musically to disco). If this sounds like sacrilege to you, consider this: Did most singers on the radio in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s sound more like Joey Ramone, or Donna Summer?

What if someone wrote a version of rock history based on the winners instead of the losers? The amount of radio play and record sales an artist garnered would be equated with how good he or she was. Mainstream pop music would take up a proportionate amount of pages in the history books, keeping fringe music on the fringes. In short, music history would document what people actually listened to, not what they should have been listening to. It might not be a better account than what already exists (and would probably be much, much worse), but it would be more accurate in some ways.

Here’s a quick stab at a winner-friendly version of rock history:

Rock music was born in the mid 1950s thanks to artists like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Pat Boone, and Jerry Lee Lewis, who provided a silly-but-fun complement to serious and sophisticated music-makers like Mitch Miller and Dean Martin. As the decade rolled on, Ricky Nelson and Fabian picked up the torch and created brilliant hit singles for radio, as did Phil Spector, who helped to set the pop producer template with Berry Gordy. The most important music of the ’60s was made by Motown—its records formed the foundation of pop music for decades to come. Motown’s only rival was James Brown, an influence on pretty much every “important” artist in rock history afterward. White listeners followed British rock bands like the Beatles, whose Trans-Atlantic spin on American blues resulted in heavy metal, rock’s greatest subgenre.

Metal and stadium rock were among the most artistically important genres of the ’70s, as was disco, which revolutionized radio. A small minority embraced punk music, which was improved upon by the incendiary catchiness of new wave. In the ’80s, kids expresseed their rebellion against authority by listening to hair metal bands like Motley Crue and Poison and rap groups like Beastie Boys and Run DMC. But the decade’s most important artists were Michael Jackson, the best male R&B singer ever and creator of the greatest album ever made, Thriller; and Whitney Houston, whose wonderfully emotive style was adopted by most female singers in her wake.

In the ’90s, radio was ready for a revolution, and it was delivered by one of rock’s great artists: Garth Brooks. Gangsta rap and boy band pop, along with country music, completely changed how mainstream pop sounded. Alt-rock bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam also enjoyed popularity for a few years in the early ’90s, though the “grunge” fad failed to produce any lasting artists. Later in the decade, the two greatest genres of the past couple of decades—metal and rap—combined for a fresh sound epitomized by Limp Bizkit and Korn. Music in the ’00s was helped greatly by American Idol, which produced a series of brilliant artists. Eminem, Nickelback, and Rascal Flatts were among the brightest spots of the decade.

It’s not a perfect representation of a “winner’s” version of rock history, but you get the idea. There is no Velvet Underground, no Clash, no Husker Du, no Pavement. Is that a bad thing? Perhaps. But perhaps not. One thing is for sure: the losers better be grateful the winners don't care either way.

Records 1/30/07

2007-01-30T12:37:00.000-05:00

The following reviews can be founding in the current issue of Harp. Check it out.

The Shins, Wincing The Night Away
A funny thing happened to the Shins on the way to their third album: They became known. Yes, 2001’s Oh, Inverted World and 2003’s Chutes Too Narrow made the Albuquerque, N.M. natives stars of the underground, but when Natalie Portman slapped her earphones on Zach Braff and played “New Slang,” they became actual stars. For those of us who loved the Shins before Garden State, the “New Slang” scene played like a cruel joke: This was a really cool band we loved introducing to people, and here the Scrubs guy came along and ruined it. Unlike Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie—the other unholy corners in the great indie-yuppie triumvirate—the Shins could honestly claim they had nothing to do with their newfound success, unless signing a licensing deal makes you complicit. Nevertheless, it took the band four years to make another record, and there’s no way Zach and Natalie didn’t have something to do with that. Even the title of the new album is dripping with flop-sweat: Wincing the Night Away. You’d be wincing, too, if you knew every rock fan under the age of 35 kind of wants to hate you.

But here’s another funny thing now that the Shins’ third album is finally here: They delivered. Wincing the Night Away is not a major statement. It doesn’t deviate in any major way from the first two albums. And it doesn’t totally justify the long wait. But it is the best album the Shins have made so far and, really, that ought to be enough.

The stakes are so high for Wincing the Night Away that it takes a while for the Shins to calm down. Bands caught in a similarly impossible situation in the past have typically taken one of two paths:

1) Dabble in “experimental” sounds that dress up the same old songs in Kid A-style window dressing

2) Become arena rock.

On “Sleeping Lessons,” the first track off Wincing the Night Away, the Shins somehow take both paths simultaneously. It begins with gently rolling bloops straight out of Radiohead central casting, and then it explodes into beer-friendly power chords. It’s not a bad song, per se, but it’s exactly what you fear the rest of the record will sound like. But by the time a lovely guitar solo cuts through the middle of “Australia,” the album’s bouncy second track, all worry has dissipated.

From here, the Shins pretty much pick up where they left off. OK, so there’s an irregular beat to “Sea Legs” that might be called hip-hop, and “Pam Berry” will inspire some to make a Loveless reference, but don’t let anybody tell you the Shins have re-invented their music. They’ve refined it. That may disappoint people who want something “more,” but Shins singer/songwriter James Mercer has apparently decided that the best way for his band to evolve is, simply, to write better songs. With “Phantom Limb, he’s written one of his best; the band is so relaxed and assured in the song’s undeniable melodicism that it lets the woo-wah-woo chorus go on for almost a minute, turning it into an almost-anthem. The highest compliment you can give Wincing the Night Away is that it doesn’t sound like it took four years to make. Here’s hoping it won’t be another four years until the next Shins record.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Some Loud Thunder
The hipper-than-thous in Clap Your Hands Say Yeah famously cribbed from Talking Heads ’77 for their infectious 2005 debut; if only they had ripped off More Songs About Buildings And Food for the follow-up, Some Loud Thunder. While working with a producer known for aural eccentricity did wonders for the Heads on their sophomore release, Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) illuminates the chief weakness of Clap Your Hands: Singer Alec Ounsworth’s intolerable whine. Not that Ounsworth sounded any better on the first record, but at least the music was poppy, hooky, and likeably amateurish. Some Loud Thunder is an amateurish record pretending to be a professional record, with the seemingly directionless Claps listlessly affecting the belabored “weirdness” of Fridmann’s other famous clients. Time to call Brian Eno, fellas.

Records 1/29/07

2007-01-29T12:59:00.000-05:00

So, here’s how I plan to use this blog from here on out...

Basically, I want this to be an open notebook where I practice, hone, and explore my writing about pop culture. This is what I do for a living—I can’t believe it, either—and I want to get better at it. I don’t expect my writing on the blog to be great, and I’m not just saying that as a pre-emptive strike against any haters out there. (But I’m mostly saying it for that.) My recent off-the-cuff “tangents” about the Grateful Dead and Band Of Horses already are slightly embarrassing, and I don’t expect the slight part to stick around much longer. My hope is that if I spin enough shit out of my brain there is bound to be a few edible morsels in there for future consumption. (If that’s not the most disgusting metaphor I have ever come up with, doing this blog will never make a better writer.) At any rate, the crappiness of the writing will keep readers away, which will only make me feel comfortable trying new ideas on for size.

Every week or so, I pledge to write about some (maybe five to seven) albums I’m listening to at the moment. My model is Robert Christgau, whose Consumer Guide column is the epitome of shortform, pithy writing about music. I digress from Christgau where grades are concerned; I’m notorious about changing my mind, and a grade just seems so formal—mere statements of opinion, on the other hand, read like diary entries, and it’s assumed that perspective changes over time. (I also realize that it’s passé nowadays to write about albums, but if you know me, you know I’m passé.) Mainly I’m doing this as an exercise, to get better at analyzing music and expressing my thoughts on them. Otherwise I end up saying everything either is awesome or sucks.

Allen Toussaint, The Allen Toussaint Collection
I bought this 16-song “greatest hits” collection in preparation for an Onion interview with the legendary New Orleans-based writer-producer-musician. My favorite song so far is “Southern Nights”—yes, it’s the same “Southern Nights” country singer Glenn Campbell turned into a crossover hit in 1977. Toussaint’s version doesn’t have the jaunty gallop of Campbell’s better-known cover, sticking instead with a slow, swampy groove and psychedelicized vocal. Toussaint told me later that “Southern Nights” is the best song he has ever written. He also talked about how he decided to become a pianist at age 6 and a half after liking a Professor Longhair song on the radio, and about how he doesn’t mind singing but if Elvis Costello is in the building he will gladly hand over the microphone. Every now and then I could hear him play a little riff on the piano while he talked from his New York City apartment, where Toussaint has mostly lived since losing his house and studio in Hurricane Katrina. (The house is still being rebuilt almost 17 months later.) Toussaint was talking to me because he needed to promote his first solo concert tour after more than 50 years in the business. He was charming and a natural conversationalist, but standing in the spotlight does not come naturally to him. I asked whether the joyously gritty songs he wrote for Lee Dorsey (including “Working In A Goldmine” and “Yes We Can Can”) allowed him to explore the nether regions of his otherwise humble, dignified personality. I guess I hit on something, because he asked me if I was a musician. (This is the nicest thing an interview subject ever said to me.) After about 40 minutes, we were done and said our goodbyes. Allen said it was a very interesting conversation, though I’m sure he says that to all the reporters. I checked my tape after we hung up and all I could hear was me breathing. Because the phone recorder jack wasn’t hooked up properly, my interview with Allen Toussiant only existed in my imagination. He really did ask me if I was a musician, though. Honest.

Rob Crow, Living Well
Rob Crow is from Pinback, whom I have never heard. Living Well is Crow’s third solo album, but I get the impression it’s not all that different from his band. This record does what it does very well, and it does it repeatedly and without much variation. What “it” is I can’t say, but I doubt it started here. (If you want a generic description, I’d say adult contemporary indie rock with a Pixies fetish.) I have tried listening to Living Well twice, and it slipped past me both times. This is what you hear on public radio as transitional music between segments. You hear it but you can’t listen to it.

Ray LaMontagne, Till The Sun Turns Black
Like most American TV viewers, I heard about Ray LaMontagne from Taylor Hicks, who performed “Trouble” off LaMontagne’s first record during his victorious season of American Idol. For a long time after I bought a used copy of his 2006 sophomore effort Till The Sun Turns Black I couldn’t figure out if LaMontagne was worth following or merely John Mayer with facial hair, but this album is seeping under my skin. Ethan Johns produced it and played most of the instruments, which is a good sign—he’s the rich man’s Rick Rubin. The string parts are really breathtaking, darting in and out of LaMontagne’s bare-boned guitar-and-voice arrangements. This guy plays it cool and dreamy, but he can’t keep his melancholy contained. If you liked Sea Change but wished the singer sounded less like Gordon Lightfoot, you will love this—LaMontagne’s whispery lullabies are enough to soothe even the over-singing, bad-dancing, gray-haired beast.

Time Life Series, 1957: Still Rockin’
Early rock ‘n’ roll is like children’s music—you know it down to your bones, and yet you hardly think of it as music. It simply has always been there--how often do you ponder where trees come from? This compilation of hits from 1957 (one of two recent Time Life 1957 comps I picked up) is reminder that rock was never more raw, weird, stupid, or dangerous than it was early on. The heavy hitters, of course, are wonderful, and the greatness of their music is more apparent away from “good times, great oldies” radio: “That’ll Be The Day,” “Blue Monday,” “Lucille,” “Rock & Roll Music,” all unbeatable after so many listens. But I’m drawn to lesser-knowns, the one-hit wonders, the nobodies, who make music just as great—Paul Anka’s proto-Springsteen rocker “Diana,” Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones’ delightfully dumb “Black Slacks,” and perhaps best of all, Bill Justis’ filthy instrumental “Raunchy,” which already has a place in rock history for being George Harrison’s audition song for The Beatles.

Cracker, Cracker
Cracker is one of the early ’90s alt-rock bands that got played on MTV after Nirvana hit. I loved their first record, which I bought in ’92 after hearing the big single “Teen Angst” on either Alternative Nation or 120 Minutes. I loved Cracker’s second album, Kerosene Hat, even more, but soon after I learned it wasn’t cool to like post-grunge bands and I stopped. Years later, my friend Rebecca taught me that liking Counting Crows is nothing to be ashamed of, and I revived my interest in Cracker not long after. Cracker is a really fine country-rock record, with plenty of era-specific sarcasm and all-era Stonesy riffs. I played the album’s best track “I See The Light” for Rebecca last night. She said it sounded like a Chevy commercial. I’m going to ignore her this time.

Some Dylan lyrics take 40 years to make sense

2007-01-27T19:23:00.000-05:00

I was listening to Highway 61 Revisited--one of my five favorite albums ever and a record I know by heart--just now and a lyric from "Tombstone Blues" leapt out like one of them crazy-talking soothsayers:

Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, "Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saying, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"

When does mind-bending, surrealistic wordplay suddenly become journalism? When reality itself becomes surreal, I guess. Now I'm terrified to hear "Desolation Row."

Night Of The Living Dead

2007-01-21T14:19:00.000-05:00

On Friday I did something I never thought I was capable of. Did I kill a man in cold blood? Sadly, no. Did I perform fellatio on a golden retriever? Not exactly. Did I attend a concert by a Grateful Dead tribute band? You betcha!

In my defense, I didn’t pay for my ticket—I was put on a guest list as part of an Onion promotion. Also, I became a Dead fan in the past year, which I say not in my defense (because I’m not sure it can be defended) but because it’s probably pertinent to the case at hand. I have been analyzing my recent about-face on The Dead, a band I was taught (inexplicably, in retrospect) to hate from my earliest days as a music fan, and have come up with three reasons:

1) I like live albums, and nobody has more live albums than The Dead. Of the half-dozen or so Dead albums I currently own, only one is a studio record (Aoxomoxo) and I never listen to it. (I play it so infrequently that I’m sure I spelt it incorrectly just now.) The others are Dick’s Picks releases or boots downloaded off archive.org. The thing I like most about The Dead is that lazy Dead shuffle--not quite blues, country, or jazz but a stoned amalgamation of the three, it’s precisely the perfect rhythm for sitting and doing absolutely nothing. (Which is why I’m not listening to The Dead right now because I wouldn’t have the fortitude to type.) It’s hard to reproduce well-rehearsed laziness in the studio, so Dead albums (at least the ones I’ve heard) sound mealy. I used to think The Dead wasn’t a good rock band, and now that I like them my opinion hasn’t changed—they rock like a Jimmy Buffet tribute band whenever they cover Chuck Berry. But when they mosey into that do-nothing Dead groove for 10 minutes on “Row Jimmy,” it makes me lay on the couch and wish it was grass. The Dead non-rocks like a bastard.

2) Size matters. I like double albums, triple albums, the ever-elusive quadruple album. (Chicago At Carnegie Hall is the only one I know of.) I like discographies overflowing with LPs, EPs, 7-inches, singles, unreleased tracks. I’m a Guided By Voices fan, for crying out loud. (They call GBV the Grateful Dead of beer, so there you go.) You listen to enough music and you start digging in unexpected places for something new. It’s like the explorers with the Americas. I see undiscovered territory and I rush to conquer it. So here’s a band that releases four-disc live albums like Justin Timberlake puts out hit singles. Warn the natives, sharpen the spears, and burn me a copy of May 8, 1977 at Cornell University.

3) I like the music. There, I said it.

So this is how I ended up at Pabst Theater in Milwaukee for the Dark Star Orchestra, a Chicago-based tribute act providing a meticulously researched soundtrack for the undead fantasies of Deadheads. (Is that an anagram?) DSO has played 1,000-some shows in the past several years, and almost always re-creates an entire setlist from a past Dead show. (Sometimes it plays an “original” setlist composed of Dead covers chosen by the band.) DSO can do this because so many Dead shows have been taped; Dead fans, in turn, tape DSO shows and trade them, a copy of a copy. Sometimes DSO sounds better than The Dead.

Here’s the problem with seeing a Grateful Dead tribute band: The Dead didn’t move around much on stage, which means DSO doesn’t move much on stage, which means the only movement on stage is the hippie girl “singer” that keeps twirling in circles. And contrary to what you might assume, watching a hippie girl twirl in circles is actually really annoying.

Honestly, I wanted to bolt as soon as I walked in the door. Imagine every loud, dumb, drunken hippie that has bumped into you at every show you have ever been to—a faux-Dead show is like a convention for those people. They aren’t bad people. I’m just not one of them, which was more of a relief than a buzzkill, actually. Sure, I like the Dead, but I still find out white people with dreadlocks utterly revolting. I guess the next time I watch Gimme Shelter I’ll still be cheering for the Hell’s Angels.

The band, however, I thought was pretty good. But I think I like listening to Dead by myself.

Best Of 2006

2007-01-16T23:43:00.000-05:00

I am a little late on this, but I wanted to post my Best Of 2006 playlist, which I prefer to my Best Of 2006 album list. I had a hard time coming up with 10 albums I thought were great last year, but there were 90 songs I loved. I feel better about 2006 looking at this list than I do the album list.

1. Midlake, "Roscoe"
2. The Decemberists, "O Valencia"
3. Band Of Horses, "Wicked Gil"
4. Bruce Springsteen, O Mary Don't You Weep"
5. The Clipse, "Mr. Me Too"
6. Sonic Youth, "Reena"
7. Loose Fur, "The Ruling Class"
8. Blueheels, "Reason To Cry"
9. Ghostface Killah, "Jelllyfish"
10. Mew, "The Zookeeper's Boy"
11. Michael Runion, "Red Pony"
12. Camera Obscura, "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken"
13. Girl Talk, "Smash Your Head"
14. The Secret Machines, "Alone, Jealous, And Stoned"
15. Film School, "Deep Lake"
16. M. Ward, "Chinese Translation"
17. The Raconteurs, "Steady, As She Goes"
18. The Wandering Sons, "In The Spring"
19. Phoenix, "Consolation Prizes"
20. Arctic Monkeys, "Fake Tales Of San Francisco"
21. The Life And Times, "I Know You Are"
22. Ray LaMontagne, "Three More Days"
23. The Snowbirds, "Grips"
24. Cold War Kids, "We Used To Vacation"
25. Eagles Of Death Metal, "I Like To Move In The Night"
26. Van Hunt, "At The End Of The Slow Dance"
27. National Eye, "Silver Agers"
28. Cursive, "Big Bang"
29. The Robins, "Shake Shake"
30. Across Tundras, "Ramblin' In The Shadows"
31. Elf Power, "Come Lie Down With Me"
32. Sean Lennon, "Would I Be The One"
33. The Rapture, "Get Myself Into It"
34. Wilderness, "The Blood Is On The Wall"
35. Bob Dylan, "When The Deal Goes Down"
36. KT Tunstall, "Black Horse And The Cherry Tree"
37. Built To Spill, "Goin' Against Your Mind"
38. Los Lobos, "The Road To Gila Bend"
39. Justin Timberlake, "My Love"
40. Robert Pollard, "Serious Bird Woman (You Turn Me On)"
41. Neko Case, "Hold On, Hold On"
42. The Roots, "In The Music"
43. Goldfrapp, "Oh La La"
44. Herbert, "Someting Isn't Right"
45. Destroyer, "Your Blood"
46. Govt. Mule, "So Weak, So Strong"
47. Hellogoodbye, "Here (In Your Arms)"
48. Belle & Sebastian, "White Collar Boy"
49. White Whale, "Nine Good Fingers"
50. She Wants Revenge, "These Days"
51. 7L & Esoteric, "Everywhere"
52. Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint, "The Sharpest Thorn"
53. Tobias Froberg, "So I"
54. Jet, "Bring It On Back"
55. Great Lakes, "Precious And Reckless"
56. Muse, "Take A Bow"
57. Mylo, "In My Arms"
58. The Goodnight Loving, "Smoke And Mirrors"
59. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Gold Lions"
60. The Championship, "Hurricane"
61. The Mountain Goats, "In Corolla"
62. Sam Roberts, "With A Bullet"
63. The Battles, "Omega Man"
64. Todd Snider, "You Got Away With It"
65. Birdmonster, "Ice Age"
66. Asobi Seksu, "Thursday"
67. Tapes n' Tapes, "Just Drums"
68. Gnarls Barkley, "The Last Time"
69. The Hold Steady, "First Night"
70. The Sword, "Freya"
71. Hard-Fi, "Cash Machine"
72. The Dears, "Hate Then Love"
73. Willy Porter, "Set Yourself Free"
74. Slayer, "Flesh Storm"
75. Wolfmother, "Apple Tree"
76. The Coup, "Tiffany Hall"
77. Neil Young, "After The Garden"
78. Cat Power, "The Greatest"
79. The Black Keys, "Have Mercy On Me"
80. Oh No! Oh My!, "A Pirate's Anthem"
81. Thom Yorke, "Black Swan"
82. Cheap Trick, "If It Takes A Lifetime"
83. The Long Winters, "Clouds"
84. Jim Noir, "How To Be So Real"
85. Pete Yorn, "The Man"
86. Robert Pollard, "U.S. Mustard Company"
87. Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins, "Rise Up With Fists!!"
88. Chamillionaire, "Ridin'"
89. The Scarring Party, "Eye"

A tangent about Band Of Horses

2007-01-16T23:39:00.000-05:00

Describing a band by listing a bunch of other bands is about the laziest thing a music writer can do. It’s also one of the more helpful, because it’s how most regular people describe music. And it’s an underappreciated skill—being able to spot the right old band(s) a new band is ripping off requires a wide and deep knowledge of music. Otherwise you end up comparing everything to the Velvet Underground and Neil Young.

Band Of Horses is often compared to Neil Young. It also is compared to Built To Spill, Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, and The Shins. If you know any of these bands, you probably have an idea of what Band Of Horses sounds like. Unfortunately, it’s not the right idea. Because Band Of Horses sounds almost exactly like My Morning Jacket crossed with Supertramp and Jane’s Addiction. The first few times I heard the Band Of Horses record, Everything All The Time, I was convinced I was actually listening to Okonokos, the My Morning Jacket live album. Then I realized that, no, the singer sounds too much like the singer from Supertramp during the verses and Perry Farrell during the soaring choruses. And My Morning Jacket sounds more like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, and, um, Neil Young. Obviously, we are talking completely different influences here

This isn’t a matter of different people hearing different things on the same record. Critics who compare Band Of Horses to Neil Young or Flaming Lips are simply wrong, and obviously don’t have a suitably extensive classic rock record collection. This isn’t hard to prove. The Supertramp song “Dreamer” is in a new computer commercial. DVR it and play side by side with “Wicked Gil,” the best song off Everything All The Time, and tell me the Band Of Horses singer is more influenced by Wayne Coyne. (Who, let’s by frank, cannot sing a lick anymore.)

The drums and guitars on “Wicked Gil” are My Morning Jacketesque, the vocals are Supertrampesque, and the chorus is Perry Farrellesque. Since I like the bands that compose Band Of Horses, I like Band Of Horses, too. This is not a backhanded compliment. I can’t think of any artist that can’t be broken down into a handy formula comprised of other artists.

The Beatles=Motown+girl groups+Chuck Berry (Add Bob Dylan after Rubber Soul)

Bob Dylan=Woody Guthrie+Hank Williams+Robert Johnson+The Rolling Stones+Allen Ginsberg

The Velvet Underground=The Beatles+’60s Brill Building pop+Andy Warhol

Led Zeppelin=Muddy Waters+Howlin’ Wolf+Yardbirds+Cream

The Clash=Sex Pistols+Elvis Presley+Bob Marley

U2=The Clash+The Who+Preachy era John Lennon

The Replacements=The Beatles+The Rolling Stones+The Ramones+the Midwest

Nirvana=The Pixies+The Bealtes+Black Sabbath

Radiohead=Pink Floyd+The Smiths+Brian Eno+David Bowie

You get the idea. It’s not that some artists create something completely new and original while other, lesser artists merely reconfigure their influences and pass it off as their own. Every artist reconfigures, some are just less obvious about it. Being less obvious doesn’t make you better. Being better makes you better.

Milwaukee's Least Wanted CDs

2006-12-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted in a while. If anybody is still reading this blog, I apologize. But since I've been contributing regularly to The A.V. Club newswire, my blogging energies have been pretty much sapped. I was going to post my top 10 (actually 15) here, but The A.V. Club is taking that, too. They let all the city editors vote for The Onion's Top 25 (running in print next week and online by Monday or Tuesday, I would guess) and are posting individual lists online. As a reader of The AV Club's year-end best-of lists going back to college, this is obviously really cool for me to be involved with. Anyway, I shouldn't reveal my list until then, but I'll say this: My No. 1 made The Onion's top five (I got to write the entry, too.). The Onion's No. 1 won't come as any big surprise to loyal readers of rock crit (it made No. 8 on my list), but overall I think the list is pretty comprehensive.

Anyway ... I wanted to post a story here that ran in Milwaukee a week ago. It's an idea I stole from Tom Roz. Hope you like it, even if you don't live in Milwaukee. (I'm guessing these CDs are unwated in most places.)

Milwaukee’s Least Wanted CDs

Used CD stores are where unwanted albums go to die. Every passing trend in recent pop music history—heavy metal power balladry, ska, rap-rock, swing revival, mopey British pop-rock—is displayed on the overstuffed racks like a rock ‘n’ roll hall of shame. The A.V. Club recently scoured Milwaukee-area used CD stores in search of the city’s least wanted albums. You can find multiple copies of the following discs in almost every store, so don’t try selling your copy any time soon.

5. A Rush Of Blood To The Head and X&Y (tie) by Coldplay
Coldplay is a wimpy band, but it used to be wimpy band you could secretly enjoy. A Rush Of Blood To The Head didn’t claim to be anything more than a soundtrack for lovelorn lads mournfully staring out rain-streaked windows; it was a private pleasure you never spoke of. With X&Y, Coldplay became a household name, thus outing Coldplay fans from the crybaby closet. Not only did X&Y (which isn’t that great, anyway) have to go, so did A Rush Of Blood To The Head. Selling your Coldplay albums is like saying, “Hey, I’m just waiting for the right gal to show me how it’s done!” But make no mistake: The next time it rains, you will yearn for the rugged embrace of “The Scientist.”

4. Devil Without A Cause and The History Of Rock (tie) by Kid Rock
Kid Rock once boasted that all of his heroes were at the methadone clinic, but his career trajectory suggests his real addiction was sugary pop. A monumental jackass in a scene with more than its fair share, Kid Rock exploited the rap-rock trend with records like Devil Without A Cause and the best-of compilation The History Of Rock (featuring the truly assy previously unreleased song, “American Bad Ass”). When rap-rock finally fizzled, Rock revealed his mercenary pop instincts by refashioning himself as a country balladeer and classic rocker. But the damage was done; in 2006, Kid Rock is to fellow Detroit natives The White Stripes what Cherry Pie was to Nevermind.

3. Forever Your Girl by Paula Abdul
Before she was the batshit-crazy lady sitting between Randy and Simon on American Idol, Paula Abdul was a pop idol herself, romanced by a long line of celebrity suitors that included Arsenio Hall, Emilio Estevez, and, most infamously, MC Skat Kat. (They argued about money, smoking, and stealing the bed covers, among other subjects.) Abdul’s 1989 debut Forever Your Girl was by far her most popular album, spawning chirpy dance pop hits like “Straight Up,” “Opposites Attract,” and the title track. Since it’s the one Abdul CD everybody bought, it’s also the one Abdul CD everybody sold once high school rolled around.

2. The Bridge by Ace Of Base
Only the most uppity music snob could deny the cheesy pleasures of early ’90s Ace Of Base hits like “All That She Wants,” “Don’t Turn Around,” and “The Sign,” which are as catchy as anything by fellow Swedish popsters ABBA. (The catchiness of the songs comes from sharing the same discoified reggae beat, resulting in a you-know-one-you-know-’em-all quality that still comes in handy at wedding receptions.) Every noteworthy Ace Of Base hit is available on 1993’s The Sign (or separately on iTunes), rendering the relatively hit-free 1995 follow-up The Bridge as worthless as meaningful lyrics in a Euro-pop song.

1. Extreme II: Pornograffitti by Extreme
The second album by Boston-based second-tier metal band Extreme (led by future Van Halen singer/wrecker Gary Cherone) was a serious-minded concept piece about a young boy named Francis making his way through a decadent society. Songs dealt with issues such as materialism (“Decadence Dance”), political corruption (“When I’m President”), and promiscuity (“L’il Jack Horny”). But most people bought this record based on two huge hit singles from 1991, “More Than Words” and “Hole Hearted.” (Where these songs fit in the overall concept of Pornograffitti is unclear; perhaps Francis was in danger of becoming a big pussy.) These acoustic pop diddies were hardly representative of the album, causing 14-year-old girls from Cudahy to Whitefish Bay to dump their copies of Pornograffitti like radioactive waste. With any luck, the CDs will decay in 100 million years.

My A.V. Club interview with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys

2006-11-22T10:41:00.000-05:00

Once known as the bluesy indie-rock duo from the Midwest not called The White Stripes, The Black Keys finally made its name with 2004’s awesome Rubber Factory. That record wiped out any and all comparisons with arty faux-family bands—this is gutbucket rock ’n’ roll in the style of Faces and early ’70s Rolling Stones, and there is absolutely no color coordination. The Black Keys are back with their fourth album Magic Potion, another righteous blast of soulful vocals and filthy riffs. Drummer Patrick Carney recently spoke with The A.V. Club about his hometown, the 9/5 recording style, and why he hates Jim Belushi motherfuckers.

The A.V. Club: A lot of great rockers have come from Akron, including Devo, Pere Ubu and Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders. Why?

Patrick Carney: There isn’t much to do. One of the few things you can do is be in a band. I think the best bands come from the Midwest, Milwaukee included. You guys are home to The Frogs and many other bands, none of which I can think of right now.

AVC: Why have you guys stayed in Akron?

PC: There’s never been a reason to leave. I wouldn’t leave Akron in order to further my musical career or something, which is why most musicians leave their hometowns. That’s completely the wrong thought process. Moving to Chicago or New York or L.A. to start a band is what most people do, so you have all this competition. I like Akron. All my friends and family are there. We get to travel so much and I’ve seen enough cities that I don’t feel like I have to leave.

AVC: How did you meet fellow Black Key Dan Auerbach?

PC: I don’t actually remember how we met but we’ve known each other for a long time. My dad and mom got divorced, and my dad got a house in the neighborhood where Dan lived when I was 8 or 9. We didn’t really start playing music until high school. Dan and I both got into music on our own, and we realized we were the only two kids in the neighborhood who were into music.

AVC: Why have you stayed friends for so long?

PC: Most of my friends in Akron I’ve had since I was 6 or 7 years old. Akron is so small, even when you actually hate your friends because they’re assholes in high school you’ll still be friends with them after high school because there is no one else to make friends with. I actually have a couple friends like that, who I hated for 10 years because they were dicks but then we just became friends again because there aren’t enough people around.

AVC: Are they still assholes?

PC: Yeah, but not to me as much.

AVC: Magic Potion is the third Black Keys album recorded in your basement. Why do you like making records there?

PC: We started doing it this way because we didn’t have any money. When we made the first record, our recording budget was zero dollars. So I got a credit card and bought a digital recorder. I had interest in [recording] to begin with because I had a couple of four-tracks in high school. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Then we did the next record that way, too. Before we did thickfreakness, the guy that used to manage Green Day called us up and asked if we wanted to fly out to his studio and record demos. This was right after The Big Come Up came out so we were like, “All right, we’ll check it out.” So they flew us to Berkeley to record demos. They were super-nice guys and everything, but they kept talking about how the drum sound they get is like John Bonham. Who the fuck doesn’t say that? [Later] I find out that the drum sound is more like Cinderella or Warrant. We decided it was best to record ourselves, because there is no one else to blame.

AVC: Do you record quickly?

PC: Most of the songs on our records we have only played three or four times. Basically what most people would consider demos become our actual record. There’s a bunch of songs we’ve never even played other than the day we recorded them. Dan and I have short attention spans and are not perfectionists. You can definitely take something to the point where it sounds boring because it’s so perfect. We actively avoid that. Anybody that wants to start a band should go out and buy a four-track and record their practices and possibly consider that a record. A lot of bands used to do that, and not many do it anymore. Now you get bands that have a debut record and it sounds like a bad Ramones record.

AVC: Your Wikipedia entry says you are a pioneer of the 9/5 recording style. What is that?

PC: I don’t know. I’ve searched myself on there and wondered who put that. I’ve been trying to edit my thing for a while but every time I put something in there it doesn’t stick. I wrote, “He is a very attractive man. He has something like eight girlfriends.”

AVC: In interviews, you and Dan often say The Black Keys is not a blues band, and yet people continue to label you a blues band. Do you feel the label is inaccurate, or do you worry about “white boy blues” baggage?

PC: That fucking label sucks. There are a lot of people who like our records who consider it blues music and other people who consider it rock music. Dan and I consider it rock music, but it doesn’t really fucking matter. It just is what it is. There are just so many really bad Jim Belushi motherfuckers out there. I was watching some piece-of-shit talk show—the Carson Daly show, which is the worst show on television, by the way. I don’t understand how the fuck that dude is able to be on television. He’s a fucking idiot. David Cross was on the show and he was talking about how he went to see Jim Belushi play. And then he started making fun of white people playing the blues. It’s fucking gross. Chicago is to blame for that. That’s where all that crap music started.

RIP Robert Altman

2006-11-22T10:27:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late on this, but I have to pay my respects to one of the great American filmmakers (and one of my personal artists, period) Robert Altman, who passed away Tuesday at 81. His most recent film, A Prairie Home Companion, was released earlier this year, and it was among his most popular films at the box office. (Can't say I was a fan, mainly because I can't stand "Gary' Kellior.) If you don't know movies like McCabe & Mrs. Miller, MASH, The Long Goodbye, Nashville and Short Cuts, do yourself a favor and check them out. Few filmmakers were smarter, funnier, or more humane.

When Altman won an honorary Oscar earlier this year (no one was nominated for best director more times without winning), I wrote the following:

The fact that Altman doesn't already have an Oscar, despite being nominated for best director five times, speaks volumes about his mainstream appeal. He's too cynical, too subversive, too difficult, too rebellious, too artsy fartsy for the discerning tastes of Joe and Jane Sixpack.

Not that this has anything to do with what's really important, which is that Robert Altman is one of the best filmmakers this country has ever produced.

Altman's lack of box office success, even during his 1970s heyday, can be blamed almost entirely on Altman, who has exhibited a willful disregard for audience expectations throughout his career. His films almost never have plots or stars, and seem to ramble along with little in the way of conventional movie structure. Altman likes to replicate the messiness of real life on screen, so he often uses large ensemble casts and has his characters talk over instead of at each other.

Thanks, Bob.

P.S. Look for something else from me about this in the near future. I need time to write!

iPod Journal for October 2006

2006-11-17T16:51:00.000-05:00

A few years ago I started making mix CDs of songs I was listening to a lot during a particular month. It was an idea I stole from Cameron Crowe, who kept monthly mix tapes as a sort of musical journal. I like it because music is my best memory jogger, and I can listen to a disc I made in Sept. 2003 and remember exactly what I was doing that month.

Here is my iPod journal for October 2006:

1. Ray Price, "Night Life"
2. Sloan, "Pen Pals"
3. The Dears, "Hate Then Love"
4. Phish, "Fluffhead" (Live)
5. The Who, "Love Reign O'er Me"
6. Kings Of Leon, "Taper Jean Girl"
7. Ghostface Killah, "Jellyfish"
8. Justin Timberlake, "What Goes Around"
9. The Life And Times, "Ave Maria"
10. Hall And Oates, "Kiss On My List"
11. Midlake, "Roscoe"
12. Pete Yorn, "The Man"
13. Olivia Tremor Control, "No Growing (Exegesis)"
14. My Morning Jacket, "Run Thru" (Live)
15. Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Bad Moon Rising"
16. Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins, "You Are What You Love"
17. The Beatles, "If I Fell"
18. Kris Kristofferson, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"
19. Michael Runion, "Red Pony"
20. The Hollies, "My Back Pages"
21. Sean Lennon, "Would I Be The One"
22. Robert Pollard, "Serious Bird Woman (You Turn Me On)"
23. Caesars, "It's Not The Fall That Hurts"
24. The Rolling Stones, "Slave"
25. Slayer, "Angel of Death"
26. The Long Winters, "Clouds"
27. The Hold Steady, "First Day"
28. XTC, "Wrapped in Grey"
29. Phil Collins, "Take Me Home"
30. Cheap Trick, "Take Me To The Top" (Live)
31. The Allman Brothers Band, "Blue Sky"
32. Aretha Franklin with Ray Charles, "Spirit In The Dark (Reprise)" (Live)

Random thoughts about religious TV

2006-11-17T16:12:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of religious programming, and in Milwaukee there are two awesome Christian channels I check almost daily. One of my favorite shows is We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'n' Roll, which is about how Satan is at work in the music of AC/DC, Metallica, and, um, Sting. (Solo material, sure, but The Police?) It reminds me of when I was 14, and this youngish, mullet-haired preacher came to my church to talk about "backward masking," which is when rock bands put evil messages on their records that subconciously inspire teens to get stoned and blow their heads off.

I love religious programming because it's terrible at doing what it's supposed to do, which is convert people. In We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'n' Roll, rock lyrics are printed over flames and screaming devils, and a disembodied voice disputes the sickly Satanic messages coming from songs like "You Shook Me All Night Long." Anybody who has actually heard rock music doesn't take AC/DC lyrics seriously. When Gene Simmons spits blood, everybody knows it's a joke. So when We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'n' Roll warns listeners against the "danger" this music presents, it just makes the church seem out-of-touch. I feel dumb writing this because it seems so obvious, but the powers that be at the religious TV channels are totally oblivious to it. Case in point: The other night I was flipping through the on-screen guide when I noticed Kirk Cameron was hosting a show on how to talk to people about your faith on the religious channel. I'm not sure it's possible for a show synopsis to be more enticing than this.

Kirk (and a mustochioed British guy whose name escapes me) chatted for a half-hour about different scenarios that Christians find themselves in when trying to convert people. Talking about your faith is a natural impulse, Kirk explained, because anyone who doesn't accept Jeezus will perish. Anyway, the point of the show was this: Christians are being too nice when talking about God. In order to convert people, you have to explain in bloody detail the lifetime of damnation that awaits if you don't accept the Caucausian Jeezus Christ in your life.

Talking about burning in hell fire for waching Desperate Housewives is hilarious, not persuasive. What Christians need to do is talk about what awaits believers in heaven; namely, topless virgin angels and all the cheeseburgers you can eat. Pitch it as an invest in the future, like mutual funds. Death is the ultimate retirement, and should be sold as such. Of course, I endorse what Kirk is saying 1,000 percent. I like my religious programming crazy, after all.

My A.V. Club interview with My Morning Jacket drummer Patrick Hallahan

2006-11-17T12:01:00.000-05:00

Despite putting a relatively modern pop sheen on its dreamy guitar jams for 2005’s Z, My Morning Jacket has always been a classic rock band. Which is why it makes perfect sense that the Louisville, Ky.-based fivepiece recently released Okonokos, a double live album and concept DVD. Double live albums, even for the most galvanizing stage performers, often are too much of a good thing. But Okonokos is an exhilarating listen that never overstays its welcome over 21 tracks. In fact, the infusion of energy, clarity and volume into the band’s sometimes sleepy, always reverb-heavy songs make Okonokos the definitive My Morning Jacket album. The DVD is a treat, too, interspersing terrific footage from The Fillmore in San Francisco with a campy storyline involving a social outcast lost in the 19th century, a mystical llama and other Songs Remains The Same-style nonsense. Hard-hitting drummer Patrick Hallahan recently spoke with The A.V. Club about Okonokos, his favorite live albums of all-time, and whether he wishes he were dead.

The A.V. Club: What are some of your favorite live albums?

Patrick Hallahan: For my 4th birthday my parents bought me my first album ever, Simon & Garfunkel – The Concert In Central Park. That one has always been a love of mine. There’s always (The Who’s) Live At Leeds. KISS’ Alive!, I thought it was amazing that it was a live album and it outsold their other albums. I have a lot of great Neil Young bootlegs and some awesome live albums.

AVC: Why do a live My Morning Jacket CD/DVD now?

PH: It just felt right. We were in a really good headspace. The band has grown so close together. We started taking it more seriously, that we need to capture this moment, so when we’re older we can look back and show our kids.

AVC: There are fake obituaries for each band member in the liner notes. Any significance to that?

PH: You know, we all joked about dying at 27 and we made it happen. [Laughs.] It was just a joke.

AVC: I was going to ask a pretentious question about whether this album represents the end of a chapter for the band, and if the obituaries imply a rebirth.

PH: I think you’re reading way too much into it. We like to make ourselves laugh. [Laughs] That’s pretty much it.

AVC: There are a number of My Morning Jacket bootlegs floating around. How do you feel about concert tapers?

PH: There’s an open invitation for audio recording at our shows. It’s nice to keep a little slice of your night, something you can go back to and trade with your friends. I think it’s good karma to keep tapers in the mix because they keep this whole thing alive.

AVC: My Morning Jacket has played with jam bands and indie rock bands. Do you feel like you belong to either scene, or is the band separate from both?

PH: I don’t think we’re necessarily separate from what’s going on, but we’re not really lumped into one scene, which I think is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that it’s probably harder for journalists such as yourself to label us and convey to people who haven’t heard us what we sound like. But it’s a blessing in that we get to play with so many bands and we get to experience so many great festivals. We look out at the audience and have such as array of fans.

AVC: Is the band working on a new album?

PH: We’re going to tour for the rest of this year, and then we’re going to take an indefinite period of time off to write an album. We haven’t started anything yet.

AVC: From 1999’s The Tennessee Fire to 2005’s Z, there has been a clear evolution in My Morning Jacket’s sound. Where’s the band headed creatively after this?

PH: I have no idea. We keep that open and relative to what is going on around us. I think the band is always in a constant state of evolution, and where and when that evolution happens isn’t really up to us. I have no idea what it will sound like. I know the core of it will still be there and it will probably be drenched in reverb.

My big break

2006-11-09T10:56:00.000-05:00

My national exposure from The Onion thus far has been limited to penning News Item pieces, but today I finally landed my first big interview story. It's with Paul Stanley from Kiss, and it originally ran in the Milwaukee Onion last week. Hope ya like it!

Put This In A Time Capsule: Sorry About That Whole Banning Marriage For Gays Thing

2006-11-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

Dear People Of 2056:

By the time you read this, I will be dead. By dead, I mean in my late 70s with little or no bladder control. And I’ll probably be bald, too. Great. Anyway, by that time I won’t care what you think of me. But I care now. Desperately care. Because my state just passed a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage.

I find this embarrassing and ridiculous in 2006, so I imagine you must be having a real field day with it in 2056. Progress being, well, progress, gays surely can marry in your society. Overturning the amendment will have been tough, but you can’t stop history. Minority groups always attain more rights over time, not less. It’s what allows future generations to look back and feel superior to the yahoos who came before. Unfortunately, I am now one of those yahoos.

Except I’m not. I voted against that stupid amendment. So did about 860,000 other Wisconsin residents. That means we were part of the progress you currently enjoy the fruits of. So don’t judge us too harshly. Remember that some of us had a vision of a better, more enlightened society where religion isn’t used as an excuse to put part of the population on a lower plane. Trust me, we are nothing compared to those ding-dongs from 1996, or 1986. (You don’t even want to know about 1976.)

We weren’t all yahoos in 2006, people of 2056. Now please, change my diaper.

Your pal,

Steven Hyden

"Oh, you noble land of the rising sun/Where discipline and duty are still number one"

2006-11-06T10:23:00.000-05:00

I was going to post something about how annoying those new John Mellencamp car commercials are when the humor section of my newspaper beat me to the punch ...

Impressive New Honda Inspires John Mellencamp To Write Song About Japan

INDIANAPOLIS—The high quality and enduring value of the new 2007 Honda Accord has inspired roots-rock veteran John Mellencamp to write a stirring hymn about the working-class nation of Japan. "Oh, you noble land of the rising sun/Where discipline and duty are still number one," Mellencamp sings in the video for "Buddha On The Highway," in which he is seen playing his guitar on the hood of a bright orange Accord parked in a terraced rice paddy. "There's a place in Nihon for me and you/I was born in Hokkaido and I'll die there, too." Mellencamp has reportedly begun work on a follow-up song telling the story of Hideo and Mariko, two Okinawan kids doing the best they can, who lose their jobs when Honda closes down the local plant and moves operations to Marysville, OH.

Inventory: The most annoying fans in music

2006-11-02T10:47:00.000-05:00

Here is a Think Tank piece I wrote for Harp a while back that was never published. I think it's a'ight -- probably good that it wasn't published but certainly good enough for the blog. I thought of this story recently because in recent months I have started to not hate The Dead and Phish; I actually kinda enjoy them now. Does this mean I'm more open-minded or much lamer than I used to be? I'll let you know when I find out. Anyway, I still hate their fans, which kinda supports the point of this story: Stupid fans prevent a lot of great music from being heard.

"It not the band I hate/It’s their fans.” Sloan, a band I don’t hate, said that once in the song “Underwhelmed.” In two lines this criminally underrated Canadian power-pop band summed up a profound universal truth: Even a super group composed of John Lennon, John Bonham, John Entwistle and Jesus Christ will be unbearable if the fans make your skin crawl. It’s too bad, because fans can and do ruin a lot of great music. But annoying fans also can be a tip-off that your ears aren’t as sharp as you think. While annoying people can be found among any band’s legion of supporters, some bands seem to attract morons like emo kids to a trucker cap sale. Here are the top five most annoying fans in rock.

1. Deadheads/Phish phans
THE textbook case when it comes to annoying fans. The problem here is even if you can look past the patchouli, the stoned self-righteousness and the white guy dreadlocks, it's too late. Both bands are done. You will never see them 35 times in one summer or be able to claim you did on a fan message board. (Don’t lie, because there might be a setlist quiz.) Becoming a Deadhead and/or Phish phan at this point makes you low man on the Jerry/Trey totem pole, and the opportunity for advancement is zero. You will be stuck packing the bowl, taking the last toke and paying the pizza guy.

2. Dashboardheads
The single most disturbing event in popular music from the past 10 years is Woodstock ’99, which made you think nu-metal would burn down the world before something else came along. Coming in a close second is the Dashboard Confessional episode of “MTV Unplugged,” which made you wish nu-metal had burned down the world before this came along. Seeing throngs of red-cheeked teens belting out Dashboard’s sad bastard anthems is like watching a very special “Children of the Corn” inspired episode of “The O.C.,” only it is real and therefore 10 times creepier. I can’t name a single Dashboard Confessional song, and since I don’t want my head lopped up with a sickle, I don’t plan on learning.

3. Punks
Five reasons why punk rock fans are insufferable: (1) Punk is supposedly about being your own person, but if you go to a punk rock show everybody wears the same punk rock costume; (2) Moshing; (3) “Sell out!”; (4) Punk is supposedly about ignoring musical boundaries and being noncommercial, but any band that dares to expand its sound beyond three chords and “Rocket to Russia” is accused of not being punk, as if that means anything anymore, and ostracized; (5) I am no longer 16.

4. Cure fans
When I was in high school, Cure fans were the most annoying music fans because they dressed strange, they always looked at the ground while talking and they appeared to perpetually be on the verge of tears. You know, kind of like the Cure themselves. Looking back, I don’t find these kids to be nearly as irritating. And I like the Cure a lot more than I used to. But for a long time I didn’t bother listening to them because Cure fans were on a lower social strata than I was. I’m not proud of subscribing to this blatant brand of high school classism, but anybody who wore R.E.M. T-shirts as often as I did had to be cooler than somebody.

5. Belle and Sebastian fans
I include this only because I loved a girl in college who loved Belle and Sebastian, and she didn’t love me. For years I couldn’t hear “If You’re Feeling Sinister” without thinking about all the times I tried to make out with her in her dorm room. So, please, feel free to substitute this selection with a band you hate because some girl/guy you once loved didn’t love you back. If that’s not a good reason to despise a band, I don’t know what is.

That's my take. What do you guys think?

Jesus, can we get rid of this guy already?

2006-10-30T10:33:00.000-05:00

From The Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday yelled himself hoarse in his first public political rally of the 2006 election campaign, whipping thousands of supporters into chants of "USA!" as he criticized Democrats for being weak on national security and anxious to increase taxes.

Swooping into a Republican stronghold that on Election Day will be an early harbinger of whether Republicans hold control of Congress, Mr. Bush led the crowd in a chant that gave new meaning to an old Reagan-era slogan.

"The Democrats in Washington follow a simple philosophy: Just say no," the president said.

"When it comes to listening in on the terrorists, what's the Democratic answer? Just say no. When it comes to detaining terrorists, what's the Democrat answer?" Mr. Bush asked.

"Just say no!" the crowd shouted.

"So when the Democrats ask for your vote on Nov. 7, what are you going to say?"

"Just say no!" the audience replied.

You know how country bands today are basically doing what arena rock bands did 20 years ago? Appparently the same is true for politicians who appeal to people who like today's country bands. In addition, when we throw the Republicans out of the power seat in Congress next week, can we make it a law that chanting "U! S! A!" is a a crime punishable by death? I'm the biggest America lover around, but people who chant "U! S! A!" unironically almost always are (1) retarded or (2) assholes. Am I wrong?

My A.V. Club interview with Kris Kristofferson that I'm probably not allowed to post

2006-10-25T12:31:00.000-04:00

Life at The Onion is pretty cool so far, just in case anyone was wondering. I'm busy but not too busy, and I am doing cool stuff on a regular basis. (I have a phone interview with Paul Stanley in 35 minutes. Should be interesting. My favorite people to chat with are metal and classic rock dudes from the 1970s and 80s. They are always really nice and surprisingly non-diluted about their place in the world.)

Anyway, a down side to the new gig is that my local Milwaukee stuff isn't posted online. So I'm posting the following interview here. It's the extended director's cut of my talk with Kris Kristofferson. The original ran here last week at about 750 words; this is close to 2,000. There was a chance that the national A.V. Club was gonna pick it up, and I'm told there still is a chance, but I'm not counting on it. To be honest, I'm not sure how interesting this is to anyone but me and Kris, the only guy who seems like a bigger fan of Bob Dylan and Sam Peckinpah than me. If national does pick it up, I'll delete this post and swear y'all to secrecy.

“He’s a walking contradiction/Partly truth and partly fiction.” Kris Kristofferson once claimed to have written those lines about Dennis Hopper, only to find they also applied to other famous friends like Johnny Cash, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bobby Neuwirth and Fred Neil. (Cybill Shepherd used the lyric to describe Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.) But Kristofferson himself has always seemed like a partially made-up character. A Rhodes scholar from Texas who dropped out of Oxford to join the Army in 1960, he held a series of odd jobs in his 20s as he struggled to make it as a songwriter. While working as a janitor at Columbia Records in Nashville he watched his idol Bob Dylan record Blonde on Blonde and eventually met future collaborator Cash, who helped to establish Kristofferson as a major country songwriter and performer by covering his “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and featuring him on Cash’s TV variety show. Janis Joplin’s hit cover of “Me and Bobby McGee” made Kristofferson a superstar songwriter outside of Nashville, prompting Hopper to cast him in his disastrous Easy Rider follow-up, The Last Movie. Kristofferson went on to work with many of Hollywood’s most celebrated independent directors – Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, John Sayles -- and star in its most celebrated bomb, Heaven’s Gate. Now 70, Kristofferson recently released This Old Road, his first album of original songs in 11 years. He also has a small role in Richard Linklater’s upcoming adaptation of Fast Food Nation. Kristofferson spoke with The A.V. Club about the new record, the impact of politics on record sales, working with Dylan and Peckinpah and how A Star Is Born convinced him to stop drinking.

The A.V. Club: What inspired you to finally put out a new album of original songs?

Kris Kristofferson: Well, Don (Was, the album’s producer) asked me to. I didn’t even know it had been that long since I done one. I think I got kind of hard to market in the country market for the past couple decades because of anti-war stuff.

AVC: Was it even tougher for a country performer to speak out during the Vietnam War than it is during the Iraq war?

KK: I started having most of my trouble in the ’80s when I was going down to Nicaragua. I guess it was when the Reagan administration came in. [Laughs.] I remember I did an album of songs that got me dropped off the label that was called Third World Warrior, and I just got sort of used to not being played on the radio. I think today it’s not a whole lot different.

AVC: This Old Road includes an explicitly anti-war song called “In The News.” When you write a song like that, does part of you hope it pisses people off?

KK: No. I don’t ever want to piss anybody off. [Laughs.] But I can’t help it. I am encouraged by the fact that so many people respond to it positively. I had more people objecting to what I was saying back in 1980, probably because they hadn’t been exposed to the same information that I had. Back in the ’80s we were terrorizing Nicaragua and El Salvador with the military, going in there and attacking civilians. And people didn’t know about it. But now, even at Willie (Nelson)’s Fourth of July thing – they’ve got a couple real conservatives there in Texas – maybe I’ll get a couple of boos but not like it used to be. I remember back in Atlanta one time when 300 people asked for their money back when I said something about Oliver North or something. [Laughs.]

AVC: If Don Was hadn’t approached you about making a record, would you not have made a record at all?

KK: I don’t know. I have plenty of songs. I just record when there’s a desire to have me record. Unfortunately it’s not up to me. But I like working with him.

AVC: What was he like in studio?
KK: Well, I had worked with him before on an album called Moment Of Forever, which is one of my favorites but was one of those that didn’t get marketed at all. He’s very positive. On the sessions before he had musicians that I really got along with. On this one, he’s got such a positive energy about the songs that he makes you feel like you ought to be doing them.

AVC: On the song “The Show Goes On,” you sing: “It was so easy then/We could do no wrong/We’ll never be the same again/But the show goes on.” What do you mean by that?

KK: When I’m singing it, I’m thinking back to when we were (in Nashville). The people who just believed in music so much it was our whole life. You’d go for three days at a time, night and day, trying to knock each other out with a song. Our big heroes, among the guys who hadn’t made it yet, were: Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson. John and Roger were famous; Willie wasn’t yet. It was the same kind of guys; they were going out there giving 150 percent of what they had.

AVC: Is that spirit still there?

KK: I really don’t know because I don’t hang out in Nashville. I hope there are people who are the same way we were, thinking the song and the message are the most important thing. We were really trying to tell a truth and hoping it was in the best tradition of country music. What was great at that time was that it wasn’t limited to just country music, or else I wouldn’t have made it. Thanks to Bob Dylan, it had a respect among musicians … I remember when I was still in the Army reading on the back of a Dylan album where he said something to the effect that Hank Williams was as important as Norman Mailer. And I said, “Right on.”

AVC: That was a revolutionary idea at the time.

KK: I loved Hank Williams from day one. But most people outside of country music thought he was a shitkicker.

AVC: You are classified as a country singer, but today’s country music audience likely wouldn’t appreciate an album like This Old Road.

KK: It’s always been that way for me because when I started out performing I was working in places where Bob Dylan did. The Troubadour and Greenwich Village, different clubs around there. I remember at the time club owners saying, “Can you get somebody like Willie or Waylon to come here?” And I tried to but their agents wouldn’t let them at the time. But I wasn’t working in country venues probably until Monument Records went under in about 1980, and that was just when I was doing my most annoying stuff to them. I always felt Bob Dylan blazed a trail for me.

AVC: You sometimes are called the Bob Dylan of country music.

KK: I wouldn’t mind being called the Bob Dylan of anything. He’s my hero … He’s on a roll now, isn’t he? With Chronicles and a No. 1 record. And also that great Scorsese documentary about him.

AVC: It’s nice to see him opening up. He’s so funny in the book.

KK: And so generous, too. There was always a part of Dylan that you were kind of scared of, you know? He had to fight his way free of so many things. But I really liked how he talked about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bobby Neuwirth.

AVC: You starred with Dylan in Sam Peckinpah’s ill-fated western Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. You played Billy, and it’s my favorite performance that you have done.

KK: Oh really? [Laughs.]

AVC: I love that movie.

KK: I love the movie just for being in it but it may be the only one that I wish I could go back and do it again when I knew a little more. That was only the third time I’d ever done a movie.

AVC: You don’t like your performance?

KK: I think I could have been better. I don’t think I was bad. And I love Bob Dylan in that movie … (Dylan) had just screened The Wild Bunch and he was eager to come down but he was kind of scared to. I was like, “Come on down, man. They’ll love you.” He brought his whole family down to Durango. Unfortunately Sam was in kind of rough shape at the time and he thought the producers had forced Bob on him to make the film commercial. So I don’t think he ever really appreciated what he had. But I can remember in the screenings every day of the dailies, you just couldn’t watch anything else when he was on the screen. He looked like Charlie Chaplin.

AVC: You also played a bit part in Peckinpah’s similarly troubled “Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia” as a raping thug.
KK: [Laughs.] He was trying so hard to make the scene that I did worth me coming all the way down there to do it that I felt it damaged the relationship between the lead and the girl. I remember Warren Oates and me – Warren was a great guy – we were watching the dailies of it and he said, “She liked it! What is this?” It was Sam trying to make me a sensitive rapist or something. [Laughs.]

AVC: Did you have any acting experience before you started appearing in movies in the ’70s?

KK: No. I never even thought of acting. I started acting about the same time I started performing my songs. What was working on the stage worked for me in films. I remember Gary Busey telling me that his kid figured out acting was just pretending that you’re not pretending. The intention of what you’re doing is to make people believe what you say, whether you’re standing up there singing a song or saying a line. I think I had enough experience in the world from construction jobs to the army that I had something to use.

AVC: How did you get involved with Richard Linklater’s upcoming film version of Fast Food Nation?

KK: Well, they asked me to do it, which doesn’t happen a whole lot these days. But I liked the script and the director.

AVC: How was it working with Linklater?

KK: It was great. It was brief. I was only there a day. I’m anxious to see the movie.

AVC: You have worked with a number of strong, independent directors, including Linklater, Scorsese, John Sayles and, of course, Peckinpah. What do you think draws these guys to you?

KK: I think you’re just available. I was surprised John Sayles hired me to do Lone Star because the character was unlike anybody I’d ever played. But I was really glad to get the opportunity. It was a great shot … I said I have to ask you why thought of me because he’s everything I told my kids not to be. [Laughs.]

AVC: You have also done your share of commercial films, including the blockbuster 1976 remake of A Star Is Born with Barbara Streisand, which comes out on DVD in November. Is it true that film inspired you to stop drinking?

KK: Yeah. I was drinking pretty heavily at the time. I didn’t know how else anybody could get on that stage. [Laughs.] I had a brand new little girl, and I remember at the end of the film I saw the sadness that it created. I didn’t want her to go through the same thing.

AVC: A Star Is Born made you a big star.

KK: Yeah. The next thing you know my band and I were playing in stadiums. It was a definite step up into a different class.
AVC: Do you miss playing stadiums, or do you prefer smaller venues?

KK: The best places are where it’s quiet, and stadiums are not that. But I just feel grateful that I get to play anywhere because so few people get to do what they want to do.

When rock stars attack

2006-10-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

Speaking of Jeff Tweedy, I'm pretty geeked about seeing the man play a solo show Oct. 30 at the beautiful Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. Hopefully fans will behave that night, but if they don't, the mild-mannered Tweedy is prepared to kick some ass.

From Pitchfork: According to an anonymous Pitchfork reader, Tweedy punched a rowdy fan in the face about 30 minutes into Wilco's set yesterday evening. "So some dude jumps on the stage," the reader claims. "After he gets on stage (who really does this at a Wilco show?), he runs up to Tweedy to give him a fat smooch on his cheek.

"Tweedy freaks out like the retard from [There's] Something About Mary who doesn't like having his ears touched and grabs the dude by his throat. While clinching to his throat, Jeff hauls off and decks him with a punch/open hand slap/shove to the face and [the] dude skirmishes away. Tweedy later apologizes (sort of) and hurries to the point of the set where they bow out before the encore."

Another show attendee e-mailed us, adding, "Tweedy had to comment. 'I mean, come on guys, we aren't used to that! You guys have to stay down there.
:
Judging by this YouTube clip, Tweedy was totally justified. Wait for about a minute in:

Here is Tweedy apologizing:

Again, Tweedy is justified in my opinion. Memo to drunken idiots: Get off the stage. Remember Dimebag Darrell? You will, and deserve to, be dropped if you step where you don't belong. Just look at how my man Keith Richards deals with intruders.

Is anyone looking into the construction of secret, underground lairs?

2006-10-19T12:40:00.000-04:00

There are now 300 million people in the United States. Three hundred million. Three. Hundred. Freaking. Million. Sorry, but it bears repeating. So does this: It took this country about 200 years to get 200 million people, and about 40 years to add another 100 million. That means we are producing Americans more than twice as efficiently as we used to. At this rate we will hit 400 million by 2020 or so.

i was just reading The Post-Crescent's editorial on this subject, and I find their position on this interesting. Basically, it's "we have to do something about this." Huh? Here's a quote: "These are issues such as Social Security, Medicare, health care, illegal immigration, government spending — to name just a few. Every major problem the nation faces is made more serious because it affects more people as the nation grows. We can try to deal with those issues now — or we can continue to put them off."

Here's my question (and since the person who wrote this is likely reading this blog, consider it a direct question to you, my man): What exactly are we supposed to do? The population is growing crazy fast. Young couples are having babies and dragging them around in those huge three-baby strollers. Old people aren't dying. Dudes are sneaking across the border to put up dry wall and pick berries and work as waiters in Mexican restaurants.

What are we supposed to do about that?

The P-C means government programs will become even more stressed as more people come into the country. But what's threatening these programs right now is the number of people we have right now. So how can we fix them if still more people are standing in line? "Dealing with these issues," then, is figuring out a way not to have so many damn people in this country. It's hard enough to find a decent-paying job or a good parking spot as it is. Besides, whenever we start adding people to the population, very rarely do we find a Jon Stewart, a Jeff Tweedy or a Scarlett Johansson in the mix. It's just more dumb, fat people who will drive the speed limit in the passing lane.

Is anyone looking into the construction of secret, underground lairs? I know underground lairs have a bad rep due to James Bond villians, but below Earth living is a viable option for maximizing our planetary real estate. After all, we have been throwing dead people down there for years. How about some living ones?

Crush

2006-10-16T12:28:00.000-04:00

Thank god

2006-10-13T11:44:00.000-04:00

That awful-looking Robin Williams movie where he plays a less funny and more hammy version of Jon Stewart opens today, which hopefully means they will stop running the freaking commercials morning, noon and night. OK, I now a lot of you out there like Robin Williams as evidenced by the "Does he suck?" vote that dare not speak its name. But even you people can't be excited about "Patch Adams Goes to Washington."

Most hated moment from the commercial: "I did not have sex with that woman. I wanted to!" Second most hated moment: That part when Robin says he wants Bruce Springsteen as secretary of state and the two fuddy duddies in the car sit there stone-faced while Robin and Lewis Black laugh hysterically. Lewis Black? Really? Why?

Hate mail from beyond the grave

2006-10-12T10:35:00.000-04:00

A Kimberly High School student didn't like the Under 30 column that I wrote about drug testing at her school, so she wrote a guest commentary about it. She did a good job with the letter, though if you read my original column I think you'll agree she missed the point of what I was trying to say. http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060921/APC/60921029/1029

The generalizations that Steven Hyden outlined in his Sept. 21 article "Kids, do as we say, not as we do when it comes to drinking," are untrue. Many references to my high school in this article are incorrect.

First, for Mr. Hyden to say that he's glad he isn't a student at Kimberly High School generally condemns the school as a worthless institution with no positive effect.

Yes, there is drinking and, no, it isn't the first time that young adults have chosen to abuse drugs and alcohol. But to write that Operation Clean and any attempt to fix the current situation are useless is ridiculous.

Operation Clean is an effort to do something about underage drinking and drug use. The Kimberly school district has boldly chosen to take action against what it believes is wrong.

This choice has not come without a price. Kimberly's decision to drug-test and now possibly administer breathalyzers has been tossed around in the media, twisted and contorted in print and on screen, so much that Operation Clean is viewed as nothing but punishment for those who choose to abuse illegal substances.

If a student at Kimberly High School tests positive for drugs or alcohol, the school district is committed to doing everything it can to help that individual understand how what he or she did was wrong and make the necessary changes for the future.

To judge the teachers who administer breathalyzers as "prosecutorial" is false and stereotypical.

When Mr. Hyden wrote that the Promise Maker program should be called "Your Promise Making, While Appreciated, Isn't Good Enough," I was outraged. Becoming a Promise Maker is a personal decision; it's an act of strength and integrity.

A Promise Maker's promise is good enough because that person is proving to himself or herself that he or she can resist the temptation to use drugs or alcohol, and that he or she isn't alone in that choice.

Dan Slowey, the coordinator of the Promise Maker program, cares more for the students at Kimberly High School than anyone can imagine. He and many other members of the faculty at Kimberly High School want to see us succeed.

That's what all the articles and stories about drug testing and breathalyzers have failed to recognize. Contrary to what Mr. Hyden speculated, the Kimberly school district doesn't seek to isolate students who choose to do drugs or drink. Instead, it wishes to stop the wrong behavior and find ways to change it.

I agree with Mr. Hyden's point about the influence of our elders. Drinking is everywhere. The problem is not that adults in our life drink, but that many don't teach the responsibility that must come with legally consuming alcohol.

Mr. Hyden's simplification of drinking as a "gateway to adulthood, the one thing every kid wants," is far too general.

Many students at Kimberly high school don't use and have just as much fun while they are completely sober. Grouping the entire Kimberly High School student body into one big drinking clan is not only offensive, it's wrong.

Operation Clean may not have all the answers, but saying that the program makes absolutely no difference in our community undermines the people who have worked hard to make it go and all of the students who have made the difficult choice to remain drug- and alcohol-free.

This commentary inspired another Valley resident to write me hate mail from beyond the grave. This woman DEFINITELY has a crush on me.

I enjoyed your well written article in response to Mr. Hyden's comments on Kimberly High School's Operation Clean. I think that Hyden has long been a sarcastic, jeering writer who has looked his nose down on the actions of this community. Now that he has headed for greener hills in Milwaukee, much to his obvious relief (and most of ours), I hope that we can get more writers in who will look at situations like this one with less jaded eyes. It is the hope that the students at KHS
will get help if they need it.

Kudos to you for sticking up for Dan Slowey, you obviously know about the situation and these people more than Mr. Hyden cared to find out about. I hope that the Fox Cities can retain that small city atmosphere, where people, and some reporters will try to find out about the other side. I don't think Hyden was that type of writer. Actually, I think he spent most of his time driving around the Valley seeing what he could mock. I am sure he will have his hands full in Milwaukee.

Again, completely misses the point of what I was trying to say. But hey, if these people think drug users and drinkers will knowingly walk into a stituation where they will be tested, then I wish them a nice stay in Delusionland.

iPod Journal for September 2006

2006-10-11T10:44:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I started making mix CDs of songs I was listening to a lot during a particular month. It was an idea I stole from Cameron Crowe, who kept monthly mix tapes as a sort of musical journal. I like it because music is my best memory jogger, and I can listen to a disc I made in Sept. 2003 and remember exactly what I was doing that month.

(Sorry this is so late, but I've been a crappy blogger lately, haven't I?)

1. Cursive, "Big Bang"
2. The Long Winters, "Fire Island, AK"
3. Felt, "Trails of Colour Dissolve"
4. Gov't Mule, "So Weak, So Strong"
5. R.E.M., "Welcome to the Occupation"
6. Arctic Monkeys, "Fake Tales of San Francisco"
7. Madonna, "Borderline"
8. Willy Porter, "Set Yourself Free"
9. Simon & Garfunkel, "I Am a Rock"
10. Tobias Froberg, "God's Highway"
11. Camera Obscura, "Razzle Dazzle Rose"
12. Bob Dylan, "Is Your Love in Vain?"
13. Shorty Long, "Function at the Junction"
14. The White Stripes, "The Denial Twist"
15. Across Tundras, "Ramblin' in the Shadows"
16. Deep Purple, "Maybe I'm a Leo"
17. James Brown, "Give It Up or Turnit Loose" (Live)
18. The Rapture, "Get Myself Into It"
19. The Roots, "In The Music"
20. Justin Timberlake, "My Love"
21. Pete Yorn, "Undercover"
22. Paul Burch, "Lovesick Blues Boy"
23. The Decemberists, "16 Military Wives"
24. The Hold Steady, "The Swish" (Live)
25. Neko Case, "Margaret vs. Pauline"
26. The Mountain Goats, "Half Dead"
27. Television, "Little Johnny Jewel" (Live)
28. Jim Noir, "How To Be So Real"
29. Sam Roberts, "A Stone Would Cry Out"

Hey, George Michel from "Arrested Development" is doing stand-up

2006-10-05T14:17:00.000-04:00

Fans of "Arrested Development" now Michael Cera, who played Jason Bateman's nebbish son George Michel, was one of the brightest spots in a virtual murderer's row of great actors. It looks like he doing stand-up now and he's not bad. Sort of an Andy Kaufman/Steve Martin awkward thing not unlike his character.

(I can't find the link do-hickey on Blogger, so here's the Web site: www.clarkandmichael.com.

Under 30 Blog's Totally Random Fall TV Season Review: "Friday Night Lights"

2006-10-04T21:18:00.000-04:00

" Lord, is “Friday Night Lights” good. In fact, if the season is anything like the pilot, this new drama about high school football could be great — and not just television great, but great in the way of a poem or painting, great in the way of art with a single obsessive creator who doesn’t have to consult with a committee and has months or years to go back and agonize over line breaks and the color red; it could belong in a league with art that doesn’t have to pause for commercials, or casually recap the post-commercial action, or sell viewers on the plot and characters in the first five minutes, or hew to a line-item budget, or answer to unions and studios, or avoid four-letter words and nudity."

Let's put aside the utterly ridiculous pretentiousness of this opening paragraph from The New York Times review of NBC's new high school football drama "Friday Night Lights." Admittedly, that's a lot to put aside. Poem great? Painting great? I bet this writer had to hold her nose when she turned on the idiot box. The irony is Times critic Virginia Heffernan might have better taste if she watched more television. As it is, "Friday Night Lights" fails to live up to the considerable hype created by hit-desperate NBC and TV writers who perhaps prematurely compared this pedestrian drama to Monet and Dickinson.

Even if you aren't familiar with the book or film "Friday Night Lights" is based on, I bet you can guess what happens in the pilot. Stop me if you have heard this one before: A young football coach is starting his first season as the head of a high school team in a small Texas town where players are treated like rock stars and the old fellers at the corner barbershop argue over whether the boys can beat the team two towns over on Friday. Pressure is mounting as the obsessed townsfolk fret over the upcoming season, which everybody expects to be championship-caliber. (Hmm.) Hopes are highest for star quarterback Jason Street, a good Christian kid expected to play in the NFL who appears to have everything going for him. (Hmmmm.) Oh, and there's also the sophomore quarterback they show at the beginning of the episode for no apparent reason. (Hmmmmmmmm.)

There' s also the town tramp, the troubled hothead kid, the rapping black kid, etc. etc., etc. I don't know what kind of poems The Times digs, but this is Jewel-level originality. Writer/executive producer/director Peter Berg does bring a certain slickness and visual flair ot the material, but "Friday Night Lights" essentially is "Varsity Blues" with shaky camerawork.

See, I can say ass now on this blog so I don't care

2006-10-04T11:19:00.000-04:00

A couple theaters in Iowa took exception to the new "Jackass" movie, replacing the word with "Jackbutt" on the marquee, which is actually far more disturbing.

Wow, I was even lamer than I remembered

2006-10-03T10:38:00.000-04:00

In the rush of nice notes I recieved in my final days at The P-C, my old faith connector sent me a personal survey I filled out when I was 12. What is a faith connector, you ask? Well, at my old Lutheran church, a faith connector was a godparent of sorts who would send you dc Talk and Michael W. Smith tapes on your baptismal anniversary. I mean, duh. (I recently explained the faith connector concept to my girlfriend and she looked slightly horrified.)

Anyway, the survey is absolutely hilarious. Here are some sample questions and my responses. Some answers are pretty telling, and others, fortunately, do not reflect any kind of current reality. At least none I will admit to.

Favorite musical group: Phil Collins, Janet Jackson

What do you like to do on a Friday night: Watch movies

Favorite TV show: "Saturday Night Live"

Favorite movie: "Back to the Future"

Biggest problem you think kids face today: Peer pressure

What's you wildest dream: To go into the future (sigh)

and here's the best one...

If you could meet any famous person, who would it be: Paula Abdul

Please, if you see my 13-year-old self, feel free to kick his ass.

Who wants to see David Cross bumrushing a Jim Belushi concert?

2006-10-03T10:37:00.000-04:00

Yes, sadly, there is such a thing as a Jim Belushi concert.

The Under 30 Final Episode Clip Show

2006-09-29T16:13:00.000-04:00

I don't want to write this column. Not because I'm sad that it's my last one. I have written more than 250 Under 30 columns in the past five years. It is time for me to shut up.

I hate farewell columns because, honestly, who cares? If you read the column even once since I started, thanks, I appreciate it. Really, I do. But it's not like I was an important part of your life. It's like reading the newspaper and finding out Charlotte Rae died. For a moment you think, "She played Mrs. Garrett on 'Facts of Life.' I used to watch that show every week when I was in elementary school. Bummer." Then it's on to Beetle Bailey. A fixture of your childhood disappears and the mourning period lasts approximately 1.4 seconds. For me it's measured in nanoseconds.

FYI: Charlotte Rae isn't really dead. But this really is my final Under 30 column.

In case you missed the announcement with last week's column, I'm leaving the paper to work for The Onion. I will be the Milwaukee city editor of The A.V. Club entertainment section. I was hired two weeks ago, and I still don't believe what I just typed. This isn't just a dream job. It's a dream job you never expect to actually get. The fact that I did must mean it's not really true. So if somebody could point out the hidden cameras and pull Ashton from around the corner before I move, that would be nice.

Assuming this isn't an elaborate "Punk'd" stunt, I start at The Onion on Monday. By the time you read this, my desk at The P-C will be cleaned out and ready to be occupied by the assistant features editor. Julie, you might want to run a dust rag through the place. It hasn't been cleaned since, well, never.

At least the desk I'm leaving looks better than the one I was given when I started here on Aug. 14, 2000. Fresh out of journalism school, I was assigned Tom Richards' old workspace. I grew up in Appleton, so I knew Richards arguably was The P-C's most popular columnist. You couldn't miss his mug in the paper. He looked like Charles Manson's friendly younger brother. When I came into work I could see a collection of hairs from his legendary beard lodged in my keyboard, along with assorted crumbs and coffee stains. Ah, the glamour of daily newspapers.

I was hired after being a summer intern the year before, but my history with The P-C goes back even farther than that. The week before I turned 16, I submitted a CD review of the U2 album "Zooropa" to the embarrassingly titled teen page, Get With It! The features editor, an incredibly nice guy named Ed, asked to meet with me because he suspected the review was plagiarized. It wasn't. How could I plagiarize the review? I was the only guy in the country who thought "Zooropa" was a decent album.

I ended up contributing an opinion column to the "Get With It!" page every other week for three years. It was a great read if you were looking for thoughts on the latest news by a dopey, know-it-all high school kid. I love that, unlike most people, all the idiotic stuff I said in high school was put on paper, read by 50,000 people and preserved on microfilm at the library for future generations.

Ed ended up being my boss when he gave me my second first big break in newspapers. What a guy. He let me write pretty much anything I wanted. I still can't believe he let me put the words "beer," "bong" and "boobs" in a single column. My only complaint about Ed is that he wasn't a bigger jerk. His genuine care, concern and love for his staff robbed me of entertaining "bad boss" stories for six years.

Before I shoot this dying horse in the head, I want to address you, the readers. My goal was to reach people who felt out of place in Appleton because, for as long as I can remember, I have, too. I remember covering Country USA one year and looking out over a crowd of 30,000 people eagerly waiting to see Brooks & Dunn. Make that 29,999 eager people. I felt like the loneliest guy in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I love this place. I have to. It's a part of me. But I never felt like I fit in here. I was a sarcastic liberal who loved indie rock and movies that never, ever played in local movie theaters. How many of those people do you see hanging out at Anduzzi's on a Friday night?

If you got me, good. If you didn't, that's OK, too. Thanks for reading.

Goodbye Post-Crescent, hello swearing on Under 30 Blog

2006-09-29T16:02:00.000-04:00

So I'm at home now putting off packing and other errands and not working at The Post-Crescent. I celebrated my one day of unemployment (I start at The Onion Monday) by eating at the Asian buffet next to Office Depot on West College.

What is it about Asian buffets that is simultaneously satisfying and degrading? The last time I ate at an Asian buffet was two years ago. I had just broken up with my fiance and was about to move in with my mother for what turned out to be a three-month stay. I thought stuffing my face with warmed-over General Tso would make me feel better. I was wrong. Like wearing sweatpants or growing a goatee, eating at an Asian buffet is inherently pathetic. If you don't believe me, look up from your plate for a sec and scan the other diners. The woman sitting behind me weighed about 250 pounds and wore a faded Miller Lite T-shirt. Her destined-to-be-250-pound baby stared on from a crooked-looking baby seat in silence, perhaps realizing for the first time what life has in store. But, hey, it's been three hours and no explosive diahrrea, so that counts for something.

Anyway, I just wanted to let y'all know (again) that I'm keeping the blog and the unfortunate blog name, though that may change soon. Also, I wanted to remind you folks that Holy shit! I can swear on this blog now! Not that I'm going to do it excessively or anything, but it's nice to know I no longer have to type "darn" when I mean "goddam motherfucker."

Feel free to swear in the comments if you wish.

Excerpt from a fan letter

2006-09-27T14:18:00.000-04:00

I always felt that Steve's column and articles (I could usually tell which ones he penned) pushed the envelope too much for a family newspaper like the Post-Crescent.
Ironically, I often thought to myself, "Who does he think he's writing for, The Onion?"

PS Now will you get rid of that stupid last page of mindless tidbits. What a waste of newsprint. I hope Steve's replacement is a little more mature.

Me, too.

I'm only posting this for T-Roz

2006-09-27T13:33:00.000-04:00

Dustin Diamond, star of TV and questionable house-saving schemes, is rumored to have a starring role in a new project: his very own sex tape.

The less said about this the better, especially since the Dirty Sanchez reportedly makes a cameo and the proposed title is "Saved by the Smell."

(Unfortunately I can't explain the Dirty Sanchez to the uninitated. However, look for plenty of uncensored action on this blog once I go independent on Friday!)

The Onion A.V. Club (cough, cough) has a funny deconstruction of the sex tape story on their (our?) Web site.

Sadly, I don't have any sex tape footage. But here is a truly offensive clip from "Saved by the Bell" featuring some dirty Dustin Diamond dance moves.

Now my fantasy team is really f%&^%ed

2006-09-27T10:27:00.000-04:00

Not to be callous, but autodraft totally screwed me this year.

Celebrity sighting

2006-09-25T15:44:00.000-04:00

This guy...

I saw him at The Wedge co-op in Uptown Minneapolis on Sunday. He looked confused and gray. He bought a Star-Tribune.

And, um, he was grabbing Paris Hilton's butt.*

*My feeble attempt to make the story more exciting.

In case you missed Bill Clinton getting P.O.'d on Fox News

2006-09-25T15:05:00.000-04:00

Everybody is talking about this today and each side of the political divide is spinning it as a win. Personally, I think Clinton comes off pretty badly. I mean, he's supposed to be Mr. Slick. He ain't very slick here. But, hey, who doesn't like to see presidents yelling at pencil-neck Fox News anchors?

"You may remember me from such cartoons as 'Christmas Ape' and 'Christmas Ape Goes to Summer Camp.'"

2006-09-25T14:04:00.000-04:00

Act now because there's no way this site is going to be up for very long. You can find any episode from all 18 seasons of "The Simpsons" and watch for free. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Matt Groening didn't sign off on that one.

I'm not as big of a "Simpsons" fan as I used to be (I like the older albums before they were popular), but the show obviously belongs on the short-list of all-time great TV comedies. Along with "Saturday Night Live" and "Late Night with David Letterman," "The Simpsons" pretty much defined comedy for me growing up, and played a big role in shaping my sense of humor. So, you know, thanks for that.

My favorite "Simpsons" episode ever is the one where Homer does the voice of Poochie the Dog, a crappy new character on "Itchy and Scratchy." (The ep is titled "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show," and it's from season eight.) The subject line is one of my favorite lines from the episode and it belongs to Troy McClure, perhaps the greatest second tier "Simpsons" character. (And reason No. 132 why Phil Hartman's murder is one of the worst celebrity tragedies ever.)

What's your favorite "Simpsons" episode?

Bringing you the finest hate mail since 2000!

2006-09-22T13:40:00.000-04:00

So The P-C announced in the paper today that I'm leaving and has asked readers to write their favorite memories concerning, um, me. And, well, the hosannas already are coming in.

It was with great joy that I read this morning that Steve Hyden is leaving. One less liberal at the Post~Crescent, but then again you will probably get another to replace him.

Man, I am going to miss Appleton!

In all seriousness, I have recieved a lot of nice notes and words in the past week, and for that I'm grateful, humbled, flattered and slightly embarassed. I'm also not going to post any of that here. The nice stuff is personal and nowhere near as funny. I'll post any good hate mail I get from here on out. Why? Because I am a writer, a journalist, a teacher, a member of this community and a politician.

Shameless self-promotion: Hey, I care about the kids, too!

2006-09-22T11:29:00.000-04:00

Boy, am I glad I'm not in high school anymore. And I'm really glad I'm not a student at Kimberly High School.

On Monday the Kimberly school board will decide whether to issue random breath tests for alcohol use at high school events. The proposal is part of the school district's Operation Clean program, which began in 2002 when a survey found a significant number of students were abusing drugs and alcohol. Which, if you have ever attended high school, is about as shocking as learning most kids don't like algebra.

If the policy is enacted, random Kimberly kids will have to suck on a Breathalyser before going to a high school dance. And I thought working up the courage to kiss a girl at 16 was nerve-wracking. Puckering up for a plastic tube in front of prosecutorial teachers and parents is a scholastic indignity that ranks with pep rallies, gravity checks and learning the Irish step dance in gym class.

Drug tests aren't new for Kimberly kids. The high school randomly tests students participating in extracurricular activities, applying for parking permits and joining the Promise Makers, a group of students that has vowed against drug and tobacco use.

Hold on, even the Promise Makers get tested? Maybe the club should be called Your Promise Making, While Appreciated, Isn't Good Enough.

I don't doubt the good intentions of the Kimberly School Board. But random drug tests are a stupid, stupid idea. (Feel free to add a few more stupids.) Not because it's illegal. It is well established that teenagers have as much privacy as Britney Spears inside a school. Random drug tests are dumb because they don't prevent kids from taking drugs. They prevent kids from going to school functions.

Do you remember what it's like to be a teenager? Resentment of authority is a religion to these people. When I was teenager the student body got worked up over not being able to wear hats in the classroom. Hats! I sound like I went to high school in the '20s. This goes well beyond restricting headgear. Drug tests send a clear message, and that message is: "Hey, drunk and stoned kids, we don't want you in a structured environment with adult supervision where young people can have fun without drugs and alcohol. Stay in your friend's basement listening to Pink Floyd. You are easier to ignore there."

Administrators will point toward supposed progress the Operation Clean program has made, but I don't buy it. Don't underestimate the sneakiness of teenagers and how they can manipulate adults into looking away from reality. If a grown-up asks about alcohol, drugs or sex, a kid knows what the right answer is: "No way, sir! Wouldn't do it! I would much rather drink this glass of milk and watch The Disney Channel." And adults are perfectly willing to smile, nod and talk about what little angels they have as Junior raids the liquor cabinet and cues up "Dark Side of the Moon."

Believe me, kids still are drinking and doing drugs in Kimberly, just as they are in every town in the area. I don't have any hard data proving this just as I don't have hard data proving kids are listening to rap music, eating hamburgers and using the word "like" three times in every sentence. But I feel confident taking a leap of faith.

Read the rest here.

Did you watch "The Office" last night?

2006-09-22T11:08:00.000-04:00

I did. I liked that they didn't dwell too much on the Jim/Pam thing, especially after the commercials really lathered on the gooey romantic bullcrap. Outing Oscar was a brilliant move, even if Michael continues to inch closer and closer to the line between realistic stupidity and unbelievable stupidity. Oscar already is one of the most fully realized gay characters ever to be on TV. He's one of the few characters I can think of whose gayness isn't used as (1) a cheap joke; (2) shorthand for being weird and interesting or (3) ticket to victimhood. He's as boring as the straight people on the show.

P.S. Does anybody else love that weird-looking redhead with the drinking problem? One of my favorite moments last night was when she put Angela's hand soap on her tongue. Very quick and subtle, but a funny joke, I thought.

What did you think?

Under 30 Blog's Totally Random Fall TV Season Review: Gearing up for "The Office"

2006-09-21T11:41:00.000-04:00

A football-friendly appendectomy tutorial

2006-09-21T02:07:00.000-04:00

Don't know if you watched the "Monday Night Football" game between the Steelers and Jags, a 9-0 borefest that was the lowest scoring game in "MNF" history. If you didn't, I'm posting the highlight of the game above. It is sideline reporter Michele Tafoya's brief tutorial on the particulars of Ben Roethlisberger's appendectomy. (Those last two words took me 15 minutes to type.)

When a tutorial on the particulars of Ben Roethlisberger's appendectomy is the highligt of a football game, you know NFL Films won't be digging up John Facenda to do the highlights.

Under 30 Blog's Totally Random Fall TV Season Review: "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"

2006-09-20T10:51:00.000-04:00

I like TV. I know it's cool to be one of those people who doesn't like TV, and maybe I should be climbing mountains and jumping out of airplanes instead of curling up in front of the tube with my "Deadwood" DVDs. Actually, no, there's no way I should be doing anything else.

Armed with only an overstocked DVR, I am trying to catch the best shows of the fall season. Obviously this is not a comprehensive method but I'm just one man, people.

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," 9 p.m. Monday, NBC

There is no mistaking an Aaron Sorkin show. How's that? It's the dialogue. What about the dialogue? It's rapid fire, witty, like the cast of "Friends" watched a Howard Hawks marathon. Sounds wonderful except it doesn't seem very realistic. People get enough realism. You want realism look out the window. Maybe people have had enough of Sorkin. "The West Wing" was nice and all, but didn't the over-caffeinated banter come off a wee bit smug and self-satisfied after the first couple of seasons?

Sorry, I need a breather from all the snappiness. Trying to make it in Sorkin's world of young urban professionals who are never at a loss for words is an exhausting enterprise. At least when Kevin Smith puts ridiculously overstuffed dialogue in your mouth you get to be stoned and covered in Chee-tos on Jason Lee's couch. Sorkin's characters never seem to sleep, and his relentless steadicam never stops moving.

At least with "The West Wing" the safety of the free world was at stake. His new show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," is about a long-running "Saturday Night Live" style sketch comedy show in desperate need of a makeover after the show's producer Wes Mandell (Judd Hirsch) goes on an on-air rant about the evilness of network television. (An obvious "Network" reference Sorkin underlines several times by explicitly referencing the film. Ripping something off is bad; admitting you ripped it off is good.) Foxy studio executive Amanda Peet decides "Studio 60" needs a jolt of creativity and veneer of credibility, so she hires hotshot director/writer team Matt and Danny, who were fired from the show four years prior and went on to acclaim in the movies.

Matt and Danny are played by Bradley Whitford, a Sorkin vet, and Matthew Perry, whose smirky portrayal of Chandler Bing on "Friends" is one of the most annoying things to come out of American pop culture in the past 20 years. Perry is a little less smirky here, and I was surprised that I didn't only not hate him but kinda liked him as the idealistic fudge-up writer. Whitford is perhaps the perfect Sorkin actor, the De Niro to his Scorsese. He's obviously smart, funny and incredibly deft at spitting out run-on sentences packed with Very Important Thoughts. He's also more than a little smarmy, and unabashed about showing how clever clever he is. Whitford is basically Sorkin's Roman a clef, and a channel for the writer's talent and limitations.

I gotta admit, the "Studio 60" pilot captivated me. It was fast-paced, entertaining and set up enough spinning plot plates to make me curious about next week. But I also loved "The West Wing" in the early going. The problem is Sorkin's talent can't outrun his limitations, chief among them being his massive self-regard. "Studio 60" has a similar vibe of "I'm out here creating quality TV, dammit, and aren't you lucky for it?" He puts his feelings about the rest of TV in the mouth of Hirsch in the pilot-opening scene when his character breaks down and tramps in front of the camera to cry about the battle between art and commerce on television, and how art is "getting its ass kicked." Does Sorkin actually watch TV? If any medium is suffering from an art/commerce imbalance, it's the movies. TV is more daring that ever. Hey Aaron, did you notice NBC let you make a show where you mock the network and satirize one of its biggest franchises? Art on TV is doing just fine, I think.

So, I'm going to keep watching "Studio 60" and hope the show doesn't eventually get on my nerves like "The West Wing." Fat chance. Don't bring that Oscar the Grouch attitude around here. Nice reference. Thanks. I was being sarcastic. I know. I chose to ignore your sarcasm and go along my merry way.

I think I have a sideache.

You thought Supernova was stupid? No, you really don't know stupid

2006-09-19T11:14:00.000-04:00

I was big fan of "Rock Star: Supernova," which recently wrapped up its summer run by picking a monkey-faced emo kid named Lukas Rossi to be the lead singer of a band that includes Tommy Lee, the Metallica bassist who is not Cliff Burton and the guy who replaced Izzy in Guns 'n Roses.

Sadly, there's already a really lame group named Supernova so this somewhat-supergroup had to change its name to ... Rock Star Supernova. That's right, the band from "Rock Star: Supernova" is going to be called Rock Star Supernova.

This might be the worst band name of all time. That's a bold statement, I know, since you could aruge it's not even the worst name in the history of supergroups (Audioslave, Asia, Blind Faith, etc.) But my gut tells me this is worse. Any opinions out there?

Who wants to see a middle-aged woman hit on Bob Barker?

2006-09-18T14:57:00.000-04:00

I don't get "The Price is Right." I mean, I get the concept of the show. Even for a game show, "The Price is Right" has a pretty basic premise. I just don't get why this show is so popular. It's decent enough, I guess. I just like my game shows to be a little trashier and ironcially funnier. "The Price is Right" is trashy right down to the set that hasn't been updated since 1979, but not quite trashy enough. Maybe when they had an announcer named Rod Roddy, but not now.

Still, new generations latch on to "The Price is Right" and make pilgrimmages to Studio City to congregate with other screaming lovers of competitive commerce. And the object of their affection is Bob Barker, a 2,000-year-old fanny-grabbing lecher whose life-long practice of the game show arts has left him looking like a tan saddle bag. Apparently some women find this attractive. The clip below features a woman hoping for some Viagra-poppin' action with really, really Ol' Bob.

Under 30 salutes pork rinds

2006-09-18T11:28:00.000-04:00

The other day I was staring at The Post-Crescent's break room vending machine when something happened that made me question the fabric of truth and logic that supposedly holds our society together.

I saw a bag of pork rinds.

I closed my eyes, shook my head and looked again. Nope, still there. Baken-Ets brand, "Hot 'N Spicy" flavor, net weight 1 ounce. There it was smack dab in the middle of the other selections, between Rold Gold pretzels and Cool Ranch Doritos, just daring you to punch C-5 and sell your soul for 70 cents.

I couldn't believe it. This was a vending machine located hundreds of miles from where you normally see pork rinds, i.e. places where folks have uncles named Cooter and gun racks are issued at birth by the local municipality.

This had to be a mistake. Otherwise, what's next? Mince meat pie squares? Grits-flavored crackers? Larry the Cable Guy's "Git-R-Done" brownies?

A break room vending machine essentially is a perfect democracy. People buy what they want, and at the end of the day the guy who stocks the machine knows he needs more tropical Skittles and fewer beef-n-cheese sticks. If elections were as fair as the average vending machine, everybody would vote.

But even vending machines fail from time to time. That is the only credible explanation for why a small plastic bag of pork rinds stuck out like an obscene gesture among The P-C's bountiful food options. Well, maybe not the only explanation. There is another, darker possibility I'm not quite comfortable considering.

Do my co-workers like pork rinds?

It's possible (heck, likely) there's an underground cult of pork rind-lovers gathered somewhere in this building. They sneak in the break room when nobody is looking, punch up C-5 on the vending machine and quickly scamper away with processed pig remains before being discovered. They might be ashamed of themselves, but like drug addicts, vampires and Flavor Flav, they cannot help themselves.

How do I know this? (Here comes the Keyser Soze moment): I AM ONE OF THEM!

Read the rest here.

Shameless self-promotion: Actual, live bone-crushing mayhem

2006-09-18T11:21:00.000-04:00

This is what it feels like to be hit in the face with a metal chair: It kills.

That's according to Jim Duda, 25, of Kaukauna, who wrestles under the name Assassin in an Appleton-based wrestling league called Packerland Pro Wrestling. Most assassins deal with guns, poisons and the occasional throwing star. Duda's method involves stripping down to tight red shorts and repeatedly kicking an adversary in the face and stomach.

Duda, who has a friendly face reminiscent of Green Bay Packers tackle Mark Tauscher, can't count how many chairs have been cracked against his forehead. Ten? Twenty? Your guess is as good as his. Duda's best chair story is the one where he took three smacks to the head in one match, a beat down that culminated with the chair being set on fire and drop-kicked into his face.

This is not wrestling as you know it from television. This is actual, live, bone-crushing mayhem, and it happens every Sunday afternoon in a large yellow ring erected behind Chris Bassett's house on Appleton's north side.

Bassett, a former World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestler and owner of Packerland Pro Wrestling, trains local wrestlers to be lean, mean, smack-n-smash machines. Then he puts on wrestling matches booked at local bars and surprises people expecting the glorified soap operas of televised wrestling shows.

"That's what sells tickets," Bassett said. "Because everyone goes, 'Oh, wrestling is fake. And then they come to our show and say, 'Holy cripes! Did you see that? He hit him for real!'"

If there were doubt over how real is real, Duda took a break from some serious assassination action during a recent training session on a sunny, late August Sunday afternoon to fetch a metal chair out of Bassett's garage. It was black and speckled with rust, and the backrest was half-smashed.

"That's the contour of my head," he said, pointing to a cranium-sized dent in the seat. So, yeah, Duda gets slightly peeved when people call him a faker.

"Yeah, it gets under your skin," Duda said, "because I've been doing this every Sunday for seven years."

If you play your cards right, your head could be denting metal chairs in no time. Bassett is looking for four to six wannabe wrestlers to train this winter and hopefully unleash at PPW shows throughout Wisconsin by spring. But finding the right guy is tough. Last summer a dozen prospective wrestlers came out for a try out, and they all "collapsed, puked or were carried out to the car by their loved ones," Bassett said.

"They're going to me, 'Mr. Bassett, this is not what we thought it was. When does the acting start?' I said, 'Son, you're not even close to the acting part yet. You haven't even gotten through the warm-up. This is what we do to warm up to start to wrestle and you're puking and passing out, and you're quitting already? Get back in the ring.'"

Read the rest of the story here.

OK, so here's the reason I haven't blogged much this week

2006-09-14T10:33:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday I was hired by The Onion to be the Milwaukee city editor for The A.V. Club, the humor mag's entertainment section and one of my favorite pop culture pubs ever. I start on Oct. 2. My last day at The P-C is Sept. 28.

What does this mean exactly? First off, I'm not writing funny stuff. At least not stuff that's supposed to be primarily funny. I will be covering the entertainment scene in Milwaukee, interviewing local artists and characters and telling people which band to see on Friday night. It's pretty much the perfect job for me.

I'm obviously thrilled to be working for The Onion, if only because it's so much fun to tell people you work for The Onion. And this works out great on a personal level, as I have family in Milwaukee and my girlfriend and I will finally be able to live in the same city.

But I'm also a little sad because The P-C has been a monumental presence in my professional career. My first paycheck in journalism came from The P-C, back when I was 16 and writing for the unfortunately named teen page "Get With It!" I wrote a review of the U2 album "Zooropa" and was paid 15 bucks. The rest is history.

Anyway, I haven't been blogging much this week because things have been pretty hectic. But I am planning to keep Under 30 blog alive for personal use. So, you know, hopefully that's good news.

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately

2006-09-13T10:37:00.000-04:00

But it's been a craaaazy week! In the meantime, I hope you accept my apology and enjoy this little slice of heaven.

Reader hate mail! Get yer reader hate mail!

2006-09-11T10:02:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna go out on a limb and call this one of the greatest bits of hate mail I have ever recieved. It's regarding my Under 30 Packers preview, but I think the reader is flirting with me a little. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I am disgusted.

I am a soon to be a graduate at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh with a degree in English, Secondary Education English 6- 12 and PK-12 Library Science. I am utterly turned off and disgusted by Steven Hyden and his “Under 30” column….by someone I presume is over 35 and who is in no way like me, my friends or my peers! I contribute to the opinion page in the weekly question column and enjoy being involved. I am a writer, a journalist, a teacher, a member of this community and a politician. Hyden is none of these. I find his articles fluff, ineffective and completely pessimistic. I have NEVER heard, read or been in contact with a more pessimist “20 something”. How sad for the generation he is writing to.

Did I miss something? I thought the Gannett press was publishing a special edition Green Bay Packer promotion edition in the next few weeks. Surely Steven Hyden will not be involved, or in support of such a move. Hyden’s article this last September 8th, 2006 went through each week (pathetic and fantasy driven) about how the Packer’s would lose and just how bad they were. He literally listed “Week 1… how they will lose and why they suck” and did so for the whole season. As someone who attends Packer games and this past game, I must say Packer dedication is widespread in the Fox Valley, Bay Area and state of Wisconsin. No matter what age, there was huge hope by the fans that Brett Favre would return. Why not write an article on the anticipation for this season? To highlight how they will be “Lindy Infante bad” or say Robert Ferguson is like “styrofoam… [because] he is weak and impossible to get rid of?” Hyden is terrible and dismal. The Packers are so popular around here, something your paper even promotes, so why let this guy rag on them in the newspaper? Tom Richards writes interesting and fantastic tidbits about the area while Maureen Wallenfang writes great things about the new development and changing of local businesses in the area. So why are you employing Steven Hyden and his poor journalism and letting him drag down your paper, turn off your readers and completely make fun of the local interests that so many of your other writers take pride in? Hmmmm… social security concerns, environmental issues, Doyle versus Green and the race to make Wisconsin even better in this 2006 election, college tuition, the bar scene and smoking ban, plus everything else a 20 something could be and IS into are all better to write about than what Steven Hyden picks. I am thoroughly disgusted you employ this person. Wow.

I would love to take over his job and write about real under 30 issues free of charge. Why would you employ a journalist who is pessimistic, dull and completely devoid of any community involvement or appreciation? Let us celebrate the great generation we are and the things we are interested in and strive to do. Steven Hyden, who at the age of “under 30,” is so pessimistic and miserable that he does not represent me or my friends, thankfully!

A writer AND a journalist AND a teacher AND a member of this community AND a politician? And she's available free of charge? I think I'm gonna start cleaning out my desk.

Stay classy, San Diego!

2006-09-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

From The Capital Times:

A former Madison alderman who is now an investigative reporter in San Diego was attacked by a woman and her husband, who punched and tackled him as a cameraman videotaped the incident.

Fox 6 News reporter John Mattes said he was treated for cracked ribs, bite wounds and cuts to his face after the confrontation Tuesday. He was investigating a suspected real-estate scam.

The couple, identified by authorities as Assad "Sam" Suleiman, 36, and his wife, Rosa Amelia Barraza, 33, were arrested. "He had his fingers in my eye socket, he was ripping my face apart, he was pulling my ears, he was biting," Mattes told NBC's "Today" show this morning. "It was horrifying and it felt pretty bad."

Mattes was a Madison political activist and downtown alderman in the mid-1970s when he was attending the University of Wisconsin.

The best song about science fiction and horses ever

2006-09-08T15:13:00.000-04:00

The knock on British space rock band Muse is that it sounds too much like Radiohead. This is an irrelevant criticism because (1) aside from the vocalist, who admittedly sounds exactly like Thom Yorke, it’s not true and (2) most of you have never heard of Muse.

Regarding the second point, Muse is an extremely dorky power trio from Teignmouth, England that has been making albums since 1999. Like most extremely dorky power trios from Teignmouth, Muse is, at best, a cult act in the United States. Judging from Muse’s latest album “Black Holes & Revelations,” the main thing preventing the band from selling more records here is (not to beat a dead horse) its extreme dorkiness.

Take “Knights of Cydonia,” perhaps the most noteworthy track from “Black Holes & Revelations.” This song perfectly sums up Muse’s aesthetic. Which is to say “Knights of Cydonia” sounds like it was written on a notebook cover by an over-anxious 13-year-old far more interested in Rush and the SciFi Channel than the opposite sex.

“Knights of Cydonia” includes, in no particular order: sounds of blasting lasers and galloping horses; a soaring choir borrowed from a spaghetti western soundtrack; an extended surf guitar solo; mariachi horns; and 1,200 aliens lathering up in green goo for an interstellar mating ritual. My ears could be fooling me on that last one, but give me a break, that’s a lot to absorb in just 120 seconds. Still, it sounds amazing.

“Take a Bow” nearly matches “Knights of Cydonia” for wedgie-worthy rockingness. Singer Matthew Bellamy does his best Yorke croon over a pulsating synth riff before the bombastic guitars and drums blow it away like Alderaan in the shadow of the Death Star. You can almost hearing Bellamy snorting through his bifocals when he multi-tracks his voice and bellows: “YOU WILL PAY FOR ALL YOUR CRIMES AGAINST THE EARTH!” Heh, heh, cool, heh, heh.

Which should be lost in all this is the Radiohead comparison. Radiohead is a dorky band, sure, but it’s a different brand of dorkiness. Radiohead is “2001” while Muse is Lorne Greene era “Battlestar Galactica” with a touch (very light) of self-awareness. “Black Holes & Revelations” is a crazy fun album. And I don’t care if I get stuffed in my locker for saying that.

More Pack: Where to dull the pain this year

2006-09-08T10:32:00.000-04:00

In Wisconsin, there is no such thing as a Packers bar. Every bar is a Packers bar. Finding a watering hole that is showing the game is like looking for a liquor store that sells Miller Lite. Take your pick.

In states where a brat and sauerkraut is considered an exotic delicacy, the concept of a Packers bar has real meaning. In the days before NFL cable packages, a green-and-gold friendly tavern was the only place to catch the Pack if you lived outside Wisconsin.

Now that Brett Favre and company can be beamed into the comfort of home no matter where home is, Wisconsin expatriates still seek out Packers bars to be part of the football-based community they had back home.

Aaron Olson is on the hunt for a good Packers bar in Columbia, S.C., where he recently moved with his girlfriend Lauren. Olson, a 28-year-old Appleton native, hasn’t lived in Wisconsin for 10 years. But he found bars that showed Packers games when he lived in Minnesota and Indiana.

As a student at the University of Minnesota, Olson frequented a Packer-friendly establishment just down the road from the Metrodome, home to the hated Vikings. “It was interesting sitting in the lion’s den,” Olson said. “You’re sitting in the shadow of the Metrodome, literally.”

Do a quick Google search and you will find hundreds of Packers bars located in practically every major city in America. On the Packers fan site www.southendzone.com, more than 60 bars are listed for California alone. Every state has at least one bar listed.

What exactly constitutes a Packers bar? Definitions vary, but it has to be a place that gives the Packers game precedence (that means putting the sucker on a big screen TV) and lures cheesehead-sporting fans with curds, sausage and Wisconsin beer.

Watching the game at a Packers bar outside of Wisconsin puts a different spin on the game day ritual. For one thing, “when you’re in Wisconsin, you’re not in a bar,” Olson said. “You’re at home with friends and family.” (Local bar owners would disagree.) The Packers cheering section also is more diverse than the crowd at a typical small-town Wisco bar.

“It’s not just fat guys in mustaches,” said Nick Prueher, a filmmaker from Stoughton living in New York City. “Occasionally you’ll get someone from Pakistan.”

Sounds cool. Here are four unlikely but fun places to see the Packers away from home.

Will’s Northwoods Inn, 3030 N. Racine, Chicago

Wrigley Field is only three blocks away, but Will’s Northwoods Inn is a refuge for Wisconsinites looking for a Packers fix. UW and Marquette fans are welcome, too. Just look for the bar with a Packers flag out front. It sticks out in the middle of Chicago like a loss to the Bears at Lambeau Field.

Owned by La Crosse native Jon Bunge, Will’s Northwoods Inn celebrates its 15th anniversary as “a little bit of God’s country” in the middle of Bearsville this season. Setting up a Packers embassy in the most hostile anti-Packers territory may seem like a risky proposition, but Will’s dairyland atmosphere makes it a favored hangout for Wisconsinites stranded in Illinois.

“Being from La Crosse, he saw an opportunity to hang some dead animals on the wall and he went from there,” said manager Julie Breen, who makes special weekly trips up to Kenosha to buy authentic Wisconsin cheese curds for game day.

Over the years “Packers fans have definitely run Bears fans out of the bar,” Breen said, though there’s still a group of 10 Bears backers who engage in good-natured ribbing with their rivals.

Along with free cheese curds, Will’s rolls out complimentary cheese and summer sausage platters as well as Wisconsin-style Bloody Marys “served with a pickle rather than celery or some other fou-fou concoction,” according to the bar’s Web site (www.willsnorthwoodsinn.com). Oh, and you can yell “The Bears still suck” and be cheered instead of beaten.

Read the rest here.

Shameless self-promotion: Under 30's Packers preview

2006-09-08T10:19:00.000-04:00

The Packers are going to be bad this year. So bad that I'm struggling to come up with an analogy to describe the impending debacle.

Does "Lindy Infante bad" appropriately conjure up the stench? How about "Randy Wright handing off to Brent Fullwood bad"? "Smells like Najeh Davenport's friend's closet bad"?

Yeah, that's it.

I was going to write a column where I picked the winners for each Packers game this season, but I don't want to put you or me through that. (For posterity's sake I'm saying 6-10. And that's assuming we can beat the Buffalo Bills on the road. I'm not ready to believe that we're "Beat by J.P. Losman bad" quite yet.)

However, I am going to write a column where I predict how the season will unfold and curl up like a Styrofoam plate tossed in the campfire. (Coincidentally, Styrofoam is my new nickname for Robert Ferguson. Because he's both weak and impossible to get rid of. I really, really hope that catches on, by the way.)

I barely consider these predictions. "I am going to die some day," for instance, is not a prediction. It is a statement of inevitable fact that just hasn't come true yet. Unfortunately, unlike death, you will be fully conscious when these predictions come true.

Week 1: The Packers play the Bears at home, and during the pre-game show Fox airs the same footage we've all seen a million times of Vince Lombardi hollering and breathing hard on the sidelines, followed by a clip of George Halas doing his hollering and breathing act. And there's a lot of talk of "tradition" and "storied rivalries" and other meaningless stuff in the age of free agency. Look, most of our team was born in the mid '80s. "The Super Bowl Shuffle" is like Mitch Miller to these kids. Lombardi and Halas might as well be Washington and Lincoln.

Week 3: After picking up the annual garbage win against the Saints, the Pack loses big to the Lions in Detroit.

Favre throws three picks and fumbles twice, and speculation over whether Mike McCarthy has the stones to end the consecutive start streak officially begins. I love Favre more than any other NFL player ever, but at this point I'm screaming for Aaron Rodgers. Did anybody else love the 'stache he had for "Monday Night Football"? He looked like a character from "Reno 911."

Read the rest here.

iPod Journal for August 2006

2006-09-06T19:26:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I started making mix CDs of songs I was listening to a lot during a particular month. It was an idea I stole from Cameron Crowe, who kept monthly mix tapes as a sort of musical journal. I like it because music is my best memory jogger, and I can listen to a disc I made in Sept. 2003 and remember exactly what I was doing that month.

Here is my iPod journal for August 2006

1. Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Someday Never Comes"
2. The Snowbirds, "Grips"
3. The Mountain Goats, "In Corolla"
4. The Raconteurs, "Together"
5. Pete Yorn, "For Us"
6. Billy Joel, "Only the Good Die Young"
7. Peter Gabriel, "Digging in the Dirt"
8. Howlin Wolf, "Littly Baby"
9. Muse, "Take a Bow"
10. The Sadies, "Lonely Guy"
11. Hellogoodbye, "Here (In Your Arms)"
12. Film School, "Deep Lake"
13. M. Ward, "Chinese Translation"
14. Sting, "If I Ever Lose My Faith"
15. The Dandy Warhols, "Faithless"
16. Todd Snider, "You Got Away With It"
17. Living Colour, "Desperate People"
18. The Bangles, "Eternal Flame"
19. Rick Springfield, "Love is Alright Tonite"
20. Neko Case and The Sadies, "Hold On, Hold On"
21. Cracker, "Take Me Down to the Infirmary"
22. Michael Jackson, "The Way You Make Me Feel"
23. Bob Dylan, "Someday Baby"
24. Kris Kristofferson, "The Pilgrim: Chapter 33"
25. Queen, "Sweet Lady"
26. Elliott Smith, "Kiwi Maddog 20/20"
27. Mew, "The Zookeeper's Boy"
28. The Championship, "Liar, Liar"
29. The Secret Machines, "The Road Leads Where Its Led"
30. John Prine, "Sam Stone"
31. Radiohead, "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Can"
32. The Faces, "Had Me a Real Good Time"
33. Apollo 100, "Joy"

Is the Croc Hunter's death funny?

2006-09-06T10:05:00.000-04:00

Shut up. I had to ask the question because there's a part of you wondering the same thing, right? I normally don't think the death of a father and husband is funny. But when I first heard news that Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray, I gotta say I found it just a teensy, weensy bit humorous. Actually, "humorous" is the wrong word. Or maybe it's not. I could say "ironic" or "inevitable," but I would really mean humorous.

Look, the guy acted like a moron around wild animals all the time. That was his claim to fame. And when a loudmouth Australian sneaks up on a wild creature, the wild creature is bound to get upset at least once. Then again, I guess stingrays aren't supposed to be that deadly. Which is strange because, you know, the name stingray sounds kind of badass.

Anyway, I thought for a minute about writing about the Croc Hunter thing before realizing my stones aren't big enough . This dude, however, doesn't have the same problem.

What do you guys think? Croc Hunter death a teensy, weensy bit funny or not?

Here come The Roots

2006-09-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

Philly hip-hop group The Roots have a new record out, "Game Theory," and after seeing them perform "Here I Come" on Letterman earlier this week I'm kicking myself for not owning it yet.

Listen to three tracks from "Game Theory" here.

Shameless self-promotion: Under 30 column presents The Sweatys

2006-09-01T10:11:00.000-04:00

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first-ever Sweatys, an awards show that honors dubious achievements by celebrities and newsmakers during the summer of 2006!

I'm your host Steven Hyden. You may know me from such Post-Crescent columns as "Boy, politicians are crooked!" and "What's the deal with airplane food?" It's great to see so many famous people in the audience tonight. Looking lovely as usual, Scarlett. Sorry about getting fired by Paramount, Tom. Please stop humping your chair, Paris.

The Sweatys are the place to be tonight as we head into Labor Day weekend and look back on one crrrazy summer. Speculation over this year's winners has been running rampant in Hollywood for months, which is amazing considering I didn't invent the prize until this week.

Without further ado, let's get Sweaty!

The "Where is Zack Morris When You Need Him?" Award: Dustin Diamond, a.k.a. Screech from the craptastic early '90s sitcom "Saved by the Bell," was back in the news for all the wrong reasons this summer. In June he tried to save his Milwaukee-area home from foreclosure by selling T-shirts, a scheme apparently cooked up by Zack and A.C. Slater to the comical chagrin of Mr. Belding. In August Diamond was mugged by a 28-year-old woman in an Omaha hotel room. As if things couldn't get any worse, Lisa Turtle still thinks he's a total dweeb.

The "If You Need a Babysitter, Don't Call This Guy" Award: Appleton man Ryan Van Hammond is on a rocky road after stealing a bucket of ice cream from a 14-year-old boy in July. (Get it? Rocky road? Never mind.) Van Hammond faces a felony theft charge as well as two counts of bail jumping in connection with a complaint that he struck and pointed a gun at a teenage boy during a family party in April. He is now available for all birthdays, graduations and baptisms.

Read the rest here.

Special guest metal columnist Serpico: "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Monsters of Rock Tour…"

2006-08-31T14:31:00.000-04:00

My good friend Serpico is a metal god. He owns hundreds of vintage metal CDs, he can drop knowledge on the most obscure metal bands known to man, he even drives around in a car with "MTLHEAD" plates. He makes Rikki Rachtman look like Kenny G.

I have long thought it a crime that Serp's incredible metal knowledge wasn't being shared with the world. So I've invited him to write an occasional column for my blog. Read on if you dare. But don't stand too close to the computer screen, ladies. His writing is so potent, it could get you pregnant.

WASP!! I LOVE WASP!! If you ever want to scare the living crap out of me, yell that phrase.

As the summer tours are winding down, I can’t help but think about one of the dandies I got the privilege to attend in the summer of 1988, on Friday, May 27. I, like many others, made the trip to Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin to witness the miraculous lineup of Kingdom Come, Dokken, Metallica, Scorpions and Van Hagar – Halen – sorry. It was billed as the Monsters of Rock Tour and all other tours that summer would be paltry in comparison because metal ruled the world.

8:30 am: It was a hot, sunny day where you just knew the beer was gonna taste great and hijinx would definitely be on the menu. Prior to boarding the van, I carefully sifted through the proper metal gear and donned my WASP t-shirt, MTLHED Wisconsin license plate and multi-colored palm tree jams – I was stylin’.

10 am: Anyway, we arrive at Alpine Valley, park the van and commence pre-concert festivities – drinking heavily. One thing that everyone should know, is that when I have a few bowls of loudmouth soup, I tend to get VERY social – “Not a boast but a curse,” as Sir Lancelot once said. While shaking hands and saying “hi” and taking pictures with complete strangers is all fine and well, but you always have to remember to keep that guard up. Everyone slips on occasion.

11 am: So concert time is 1pm and Social Drinking Hour #1 has gone very well. A few pictures with strangers, have talked with anyone wearing any kind of metal t-shirt, had to dumb down my vocabulary for some conversations, but all is well…and getting tipsy.

Sometime am/pm don’t know: Me and Bob go for a stroll to see the sights and to jabber with fellow metal maniacs about what the day at the Monsters of Rock could have in store for us. Little did I know that in about 40 yards my MoR day was going to take a turn – all because of WASP.

So on this adventure, I was completely taking in the Alpine Valley experience: Admiring those summertime girls and their big hair, observing various tailgating parties, listening to the different musical tastes every 25 feet – Iron Maiden here, Van Halen there, Metallica, KISS even Krokus – Ahh…this IS a little slice of heaven, truly things that – “WASP!! I LOVE WASP!!” Then it happened…

I now know how a deer in headlights actually feels before the moment of impact. But then again, they probably never drank Busch Light, so their reaction time would basically be nonexistent like mine was. I know him today only as The Beast in the Red Tank. He was a man of great stature and drunkeness who knew he liked WASP.

Following his war cry, he charged. I could not move, I was frozen in terror. If I was Ted Nugent, I would have drawn the bow back and dropped him in his tracks like Fred Bear, but I wasn’t Ted Nugent, I was Jim, the Two-Fisted Slobber who was clearly no match for The Beast. I juked left, then right, or I thought I did, to no avail. The Beast was upon me, he hit me with a force of 1,000,000 watts of a Motorhead concert and hoisted me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes…

“So this is how it’s going to end, “ was all I could think as The Beast twirled around effortlessly yelling “WASP!! WASP!!” with me over his shoulder. He was surprisingly graceful and gentle for a big intoxicated man. After what seemed an eternity of the WASP war dance, my fellow WASP fan, The Beast, decided to set me down. Whether he was dizzy from the war dance or he just ran out of gentleness, I’ll never know…

The nearest place to set me down would have been the grass. But The Beast must’ve liked bright colors and the nearest bright color was a nice juicy 1984 red Trans Am. The Beast turned to meet the Trans Am head on, “Yeeeaaaaahhh!” he bellowed. I figured this was the end. I braced for what would be the body slam of all body slams. Killed by some Manowar outcast just didn’t seem fair. The Beast ran to the Trans Am with me over his shoulder “WAAAAAAAASP!!!” he proclaimed. “Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!” I proclaimed. – THUNK!!

It was done. The Beast had won. Only the corpse remained. But wait! What’s this??!! I’m alive! There’s no pain! I can feel!! Once I had realized that I was okay, my wits came back to me and I surveyed my surroundings. The Beast reared up for what I thought was a congratulatory handshake and to help me up. Instead, a look of befuddlement, then fear. He spoke. “Uh-oh.” He turned and he ran. Yep, The Beast ran.

At this point I had no idea of the damage that The Beast and I inflicted on this now less-than-mint Trans Am. Until I got up off the car, I was just happy to be alive and still have full use of all my facilities. Then I saw it. The hood of the Trans Am folded like a napkin under me and The Beast, forming a hammock-like indentation. Oh, this is was not good. Especially with me standing in front of said Trans Am. So I looked left, then right and then behind me. I saw Bob with mouth agape and we did what most drunk people would do…we ran…really fast.

I think about 15 cars down we hid behind a Suburban and regrouped. Okay, no one saw us – that we know of. No one appears to be pissed off and looking for someone. Alright, it looks to be clear. Dodged a major bullet. Okay, let’s get back to the van and keep drinking. Bob informed me on the way back, “Dude, I’m glad you’re okay and all, but that was great!” Yeah, I can laugh about it now.

I never saw The Beast again and I never met the owner of the Trans Am. However, I do apologize for the dent but I had no control over The Beast. He acted on his own love for WASP.

Well, the rest of the day is kinda blurry. Didn’t see Kingdom Come, all I remember is saying, “Let’s go see Metallica!” Everything after that is in and out. Remember looking up and seeing James Hetfield then black. Remember looking up and seeing Don Dokken then black. Finally came back to the land of the living after a while and saw the Scorpions and Van Halen to close out the Monsters of Rock day. Apparently, I made quite a few new friends along the way to the gates. Bob told me I was shaking hands, high fivein’ people and telling everyone that I loved whatever band t-shirt they had on. He said I could’ve been mayor in East Troy.

Dean Wormer said it best when he claimed that fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. He’s right, to a point. I mean heart disease can kill you and you can’t put a price on education and while alcohol may be the devil’s mouthwash, it does tend to make things interesting. But for one day, when metal ruled the world, it was okay…and yeah, I still love WASP.

I so like this

2006-08-31T13:38:00.000-04:00

A music video for one of my favorite songs off the new Dylan record AND it stars Scarlett Johansson? Of course I'm posting this.

The song is called "When the Deal Goes Down."

The songs of summer 2006

2006-08-31T10:14:00.000-04:00

There is no greater honor for a music artist than to have your song remembered as a summer anthem.

Forget the Grammys. Flush your platinum records down the toilet. Take the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame and stick it where Ryan Seacrest smooched to get his first job.

It’s all about achieving summer song perfection.

What is a summer song? It is a one-way ticket to pop immortality, that one tune that will take you back to a particular summer every time you hear it, conjuring up memories of late-night kisses, lazy afternoons and leather car seats hot enough to burn the skin off a thousand thighs.

A summer song doesn’t have to be good in an I’m-gonna-like-this-in-three-months sense. In fact, the best part of a summer song is hating it by the end of August. A summer song just needs to be catchy, fun and, yes, dumb enough to provide an appropriate soundtrack for the days of sun and sweat. This summer had several strong candidates. The nominees are …

Chamillionaire, “Ridin’”

Every summer needs a good driving song that’s also a little dangerous. Forty summers ago Jan & Dean sang about speeding down “Dead Man’s Curve.” This summer Chamillionaire rapped about “ridin’ dirty” with a “pistola” next to his “PlayStation controlla.” So, who is the bigger badass? Well, Jan was in a car crash shortly after “Dead Man’s Curve” was released. Meanwhile, Chamillionaire presumably plays video games in real life. In an upset, we have to go with the surf rock kings.

Nelly Furtado, “Promiscuous”

What has gotten into Nelly Furtado? After likening herself to a delicate winged creature on her first hit, she released a single, “Promiscuous,” and new album, “Loose,” this summer. Furtado is like that girl back in middle school who wore panda bear sweatshirts in seventh grade, and then came back in eighth grade donning a halter-top and thong. Whatever happened to that girl, anyway?

Rihanna, “Unfaithful”

We could also mention Rihanna’s other monster summer hit, “S.O.S.,” but this hysterical ballad dug a little deeper into our craniums because the 18-year-old diva sounds completely out of her’s. “I don’t wanna hurt him anymore/I don’t wanna take away his life/I don’t wanna be ... a murderer.” Not since “Romeo and Juliet” and possibly “Degrassi: The Next Generation” has teenage romance seemed so freaking scary.

Read the rest and find out the winner here. Or you can just watch this YouTube clip.

This is today's final urine-related post, I swear

2006-08-30T11:08:00.000-04:00

Rapper/producer/actor P. Diddy really likes to go to the bathroom. I mean, really. What, you don't believe me? You want actual video evidence of P. love of pee? OK, you asked for it.

This is P.'s best release in years, if you ask me.

Bathroom tip No. 37: No microphones

2006-08-30T10:42:00.000-04:00

Local TV watchers may remember Kyra Phillips from her brief stint on WLUK-TV Channel 11 from 1992-94. Phillips is a big time CNN anchor these days, but unfortunately she's in the news today for, um, a very loud bathroom break.

"Live From" anchor Kyra Phillips had apparently left the set around 12:48 p.m. EDT Tuesday for a bathroom break while the news channel carried Bush's speech marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Phillips' wireless microphone was turned on and picked up about a minute and a half of a muffled conversation she had with an unidentified woman where she apparently talked about her husband, laughed and talked about her brother.

"I've got to be protective of him," she said without being aware that the mic was on. "He's married, three kids, and his wife is just a control freak." CNN anchor Daryn Kagan broke into the telecast immediately afterward updating viewers on what Bush had been saying.

"CNN experienced audio difficulties during the president's speech today in New Orleans," the CNN statement read. "We apologize to our viewers and the president for the disruption."

CNN apologized to the White House on Tuesday afternoon. It wasn't clear whether it was a technical or human malfunction, and CNN, citing corporate policy, said it wouldn't comment on whether anyone would be disciplined. It seemed unlikely that anyone would.

Check out the YouTube clip.

Hopefully this won't hurt the grosses for "13th Grade"

2006-08-29T16:41:00.000-04:00

You know that little voice inside your head that tells you to feel sorry for Dustin Diamond? Yeah, you can tell him to shut up now.

There is talk that Dustin's recent money troubles might have been exaggerated. I quote from Tom Roz, Wisconsin's most dedicated reporter on the Screech beat, who refers to a story on Denver's Westword.com:

"There are A-list celebrities and Z-list celebrities -- but the alphabet would have to be expanded to properly categorize Dustin Diamond, who made his name in the late '80s and early '90s playing Samuel "Screech" Powers on the time-capsule-ready teen series Saved by the Bell, then pretty much disappeared. But Diamond won't be saved by ManiaTV!

The has-been star was scheduled to personally helm a five-hour telethon from the two-year-old online network's Denver headquarters, with proceeds earmarked for his "Save My House" campaign; on his website, www.getdshirts.com, Diamond (who couldn't be reached for comment) says that his home in Wisconsin is facing foreclosure. Then, just ninety minutes before the telethon was scheduled to begin, Richard Ayoub, ManiaTV!'s vice president of programming, pulled the plug.

"We didn't want to take the risk," explains ManiaTV! spokesman Jason Damata. "We couldn't verify that his house is in foreclosure, and even if there are facts to substantiate that it is and he's really, honestly trying to save his house, he exhibited some really strange and obnoxious behavior."

As Damata tells it, in the week or two before the big day, Diamond seemed legitimately excited about the telethon, and eagerly accepted ManiaTV!'s offer to fly him to Denver along with a companion, Jennifer, whom he introduced as his manager and fiancée (in at least one article, she's referred to as his wife). But Diamond's tone was much more negative after he arrived in town, even though he was generating headlines for the first time in recent memory.

And afterward, Damata says, Diamond "acted like a complete jerk," which prompted Ayoub to pull Jennifer aside for a conversation -- and her comments made him wonder if the main thing in danger of foreclosure was ManiaTV!'s reputation. "We're really trying to develop trust," Damata notes, "and if we're perceived by our audience as being involved in something that was just a publicity stunt, it might be more hurtful than helpful."

If this turns out to be true, Diamond can pretty much kiss a guest slot on "Saved by the Bell: The Mid-Life Crisis Years" goodbye. He may not even get cast in craphole movies like "13th Grade," a low-budget flick he made in 2005 with Gervase from "Survivor." Which is saying a lot, because "13th Grade" makes "Saved by the Bell" look like "The Simpsons."

"If life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?"

2006-08-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

Last month I joined a club called Mixaholics that is centered on an intriguing premise: Every month I get mix CDs from two club members, and every month I share a homemade mix with two other club members. It's a cool way to discover new music.

One song that jumped out at me on the first CD I recieved was "Requiem," a joyously angry eulogy for a fallen soldier by singer/songwriter M. Ward. I recently picked up Ward's latest album, "Post-War," which includes "Requiem" and about a dozen other songs of forward-thinking retro folk songs.

I realize that description doesn't make much since, but it's the only way I can sum up Ward's music. Like late period Dylan, Ward is infatuated with "post-war" blues and folk music from the 1940s and '50s. But he's not a revivalist. Rather he uses the old music as a haunting, timeless cloak for his gently wistful songs, which mourn the past and celebrate the future in equal doses.

The above YouTube clip is of Ward's performance last week on Letterman. He performs "Chinese Translation," an outstanding track off "Post-War." Ward will be at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee on Sept. 7, my birthday, and I'll likely be there because I just won free tickets. This clip has me excited, and not just because I have a thing for female drummers.

Bring me the 'stache of Aaron Rodgers

2006-08-29T13:24:00.001-04:00

The lone bright spot of last night's nationally-televised humiliation of the Green Bay Lackers at the hands of the Bengals and their not-really-crippled QB was Aaron Rodgers' mustache, which strode the sidelines with a pride not seen since the great Lombardi. (By the way, sportswriters and radio talk show hosts are free to use my clever "Lackers" nickname. Just give me some credit, please.)

I haven't watched much of the Packers' pre-season until now, so perhaps Rodgers 'stache has made other appearances. But last night was the first time I ever saw it, and boy, the man is handsome in a don't-want-to-leave-the-kids-alone-with-that-guy kind of way. I say McCarthy should give him the starting job RIGHT NOW based on solely on facial hair. (The fact that Favre is looking like late period Dickey cinches the change.)

I've been searching high and low for a pic of the 'stache all morning without any luck. So I'm placing a bounty on the prize: I will pay 10 bucks to the first person who brings me a pic of the 'stache of Aaron Rodgers.

I am not kidding. I do not kid about bounties. I promise 10 bucks, plus bragging rights, to the first person who brings me a pic of the 'stache of Aaron Rodgers.

Shameless self-promotion: Seven lessons about schoool you can take from school movies

2006-08-28T12:28:00.000-04:00

School movies are never praised for their realism. In fact, most people think school movies are downright fakey. But those people are wrong. School movies speak the truth.

Popular kids worry about having to act cool all the time. Nerdy kids are one makeover away from being sexy. Every college is evenly split between rich snobs and crazy party animals. All true, all situations regularly featured in movies.

With the school year looming, we went back to some of our favorite school movies to find valuable lessons for surviving the next nine months of full-time learning. Here are seven of the most important school movie truisms.

Keep extracurriculars to a minimum

There is more to school than going to class. There also are extracurricular activities like sports, plays and hanging out at the mall. But don’t let the extras get in the way of your studies. Consider Max Fischer, the protagonist in “Rushmore.” A partial list of Max’s extracurriculars include: French Club, Model United Nations, Stamp and Coin Club, Fencing Club, the Yankee Racers go-kart club, Trap and Skeet Club and his theater group, the Max Fischer Players. Max also spends a lot of time with Bill Murray. The packed schedule causes him to flunk out of school. The lesson? Go with one or two extracurriculars, particularly the Trap and Skeet Club and Bill Murray.

“My” time vs. “our” time

Since the dawn of school, teachers have admonished chatting and spit-balling students for wasting “my” time in the classroom. Students, in turn, say classroom time is really “our” time. So, who is right? The answer can be found in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” when Jeff Spicoli tries to order a pizza during Mr. Hand’s history class. (Watch above YouTube clip.) Not only does Spicoli lose his pizza, but Mr. Hand shows up later in Spicoli’s bedroom to make up for “my” time being wasted in class. There is no way around it: The “my” timers win, kids.

How to win a school election

Every year the popular kids pretend to be politicians in the school’s student government election. It’s a dreary exercise few non-popular kids enjoy, so a budding JFK is well advised to liven things up by cribbing from perhaps the best school election speech ever given by angsty teen Tammy Metzler (played by Jessica Campbell) in “Election.”

“Who cares about this election?” Metzler asks, recalling the righteous power of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. “The same pathetic charade happens every year and everyone makes the same pathetic promises just so they can put it on their college transcripts. As president, I won’t do anything. The only promise I will make is if elected, I will immediately dismantle student government so that none of us will have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again.” Promise that and you are a shoo-in to be the next class prez.

Read the rest here.

Digging on Dylan before "Modern Times"

2006-08-28T11:37:00.000-04:00

Right now I'm listening to "Modern Times," the new Bob Dylan album, at my desk with the volume turned down as low as possible. The record comes out Tuesday, but AOL is streaming it right now. How does it sound? I don't know. I can barely hear the thing. The LA Times was kind in its review by Ann Powers, who called it sexy and funny. Dave Tianen of The Milwaukee Journal also liked it, saying it "merits an honorable place in the second tier of Dylan's resumé."

Me, I'm not expecting anything too dramatic with this record. It looks like it will have the same bluesy, old-time feel of "Time Out of Mind" and "Love and Theft," two records I really, really love.

I'm almost as pumped about seeing Dylan live again. He is doing an arena tour this fall with a bunch of young pups, including Kings of Leon and The Raconteurs. His Oct. 31 show at the Kohl Center in Madison will feature the Foo Fighters in acoustic mode.

How about a good hurricane joke instead?

2006-08-28T10:59:00.000-04:00

I didn't watch the Emmys last night, but apparently there was a memorable "Lost" parody starring host Conan O'Brien involving a hilarious plane crash. Unfortunately, there was an actual plane crash in Lexington, Kentucky, early Sunday morning that killed 49 people.

Yikes!

(Watch part of the skit here.)

I'm not one to be easily offended, but I'm a little shocked the pre-taped skit wasn't pulled as soon as the news broke. Networks normally are hyper-sensitive about controversies like this, so somebody obviously was asleep at the wheel. I think Hot Air blog makes an interesting point: If the plane crash had happened on the west coast, more care would have been paid. Plane crashes in fly-over country (no pun intended) are just funnier, I guess.

What do you guys think? Was the skit offensive?

Who're you calling a cantaloupe, you melon head?

2006-08-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

It's Friday and I'm feeling distracted, so what better way to waste time than to post about "Saved by the Bell," a show that has stolen countless hours of my life?

The above YouTube clip is from the "Zack Attack" episode, which might be my favorite "SBTB" ever. If you haven't seen it, this is the one where Zack dreams that his garage band Zack Attack becomes the biggest group in the world and subsequently endures "Behind the Music" style drama. The episode is memorably narrated by Casey Kasem, who seems to be under the impression that Zack Attack is a real band. There's also a killer cameo by Casey Kasem's sweater.

The clip is of the climactic "Friends Forever" reunion performance. Those looking for stupidity won't be disappointed. (Has "SBTB" EVER let you down?) My only gripe is that AC Slater isn't shown pounding the skins until the 1:36 mark, though he makes the most of his screen time with a killer drum fill.

I've got "SBTB" on the brain because I was recently discussing the show with a friend who admitted that he found it legitimately funny at times. That makes two friends who claim non-ironic laughs for "SBTB." (Cough, Tom, cough.)

Here are some examples of "SBTB" style comedy courtesy of IMDB.com.

Screech: Once, my dad let me back his car out of the garage. Then he got mad at me.
Mr. Tuttle: Well Screech, your father was probably just nervous.
Screech: Well, he had a right to be - I forgot to open the garage door.
Lisa: I hope your dad had "dork" insurance.

Mr. Belding: Screech, you can't elope.
Screech: Who're you calling a cantaloupe, you melon head?

Jessie: Slater, haven't you heard of the Women's Movement?
Slater: Sure..."Put on something cute and MOVE it into the kitchen."

Screech: Zack, something terrible has just happened.
Zack: You found out "Alf" was a puppet?
Screech: He is?

Slater: [smiling] So what happened, Preppie? Did she turn you down?
Zack: Guess again, my high school friend. She and I just agreed to get together and meet at "The Attic".
Screech: Wow, the attic. That is cool. There could be bats up there.
Slater: YOU'RE bats, screech. "The Attic" is an 'over 18' club, and Zack's only 16.
Zack: That may be true, Slater. But by tomorrow morning, we'll all be 18.
Screech: Oh no. Mom said I have to move out at 18. I gotta look for a place.

Mr. Belding: Zack, calm down. Just tell me who's threatening you.
Zack: Kelly "The Killer" Kapowski.
Mr. Belding: Kelly Kapowski?
Zack: Yes.
Mr. Belding: Excuse me for a minute.
[turns head to laugh]
Mr. Belding: [still snickering] What's she gonna do? Spike you to death with a volleyball?

Screech: Hey, ya know what, Slater? With this microscope, your nose hairs look like the Amazon Rain Forest.
Slater: If you don't get that thing out of my face, I'm gonna have the Natives come out and eat you.

Jessie: Eh, I hate coffee. Suzy, can I have another cup please?
Zack: So why are you drinking it?
Screech: What else is she gonna do with the coffee Zack?
Zack: Use your head as a donut and dunk you in it.
Screech: No way, my head would never fit in the cup.

Screech: Kelly! I know he asked you to go with him. Is the answer yes?
Kelly: Well, you can't tell Zack, but
[shakes head yes]
Screech: Oh, my! What a moment! What a thrill! First the Berlin Wall comes down, then the Brady Bunch comes back, and now Zack and Kelly are going steady!

Screech: You girls are lucky; wait 'til you see me in a wet t-shirt.
Lisa: Only if it involves you drowning.

Shamless self-promotion: Under 30 column salutes Trapper Keepers

2006-08-25T12:36:00.000-04:00

I hate it when I make things more difficult than they need to be. For instance, I went shopping for school supplies this week and ended up with a son named T.J.

How did it happen? It's a long story, but if you have a minute I'll tell you. It begins with a simple question: What ever happened to Trapper Keepers? You know, the Velcro binders with the plastic rings and vinyl finishing that every kid lugged around school back in the 1980s and '90s.

Back then owning a Trapper Keeper was a rite of passage. For the average fifth-grader, it meant you were old enough to be trusted with an ample supply of loose-leaf paper, folders and notebooks.

This was exciting stuff because, let's face it, the first five years of school are strictly Dumbsville. Tying your shoes, addition and subtraction, state capitals, it's not very stimulating. It's also vaguely condescending. I often wanted to pull my teachers aside and say, "Look, I know I'm at an age where shows like 'Webster' and 'Punky Brewster' are still legitimately funny, but come on! Don't treat me like a complete moron!"

Getting a Trapper Keeper suddenly made you an older kid on the cusp of awesome older kid things, like doing homework and complaining about homework.

But Trapper Keepers were more than just handy homework holders. They were a mode of self-expression. Perhaps your Trapper Keeper cover featured the cast of "Beverly Hills 90210" or your favorite member of New Kids on the Block. Maybe you were the kid with a mystical-looking dolphin on his Trapper Keeper. Maybe you were like me and got stuck with the solid red cover. No matter. My favorite color was red, and I was pretty solid about it.

Trapper Keepers served another important function specific to boys ages 12 to 15, providing much-needed cover for a particular body part when it malfunctioned on the way to algebra class. Since this particular body part also malfunctioned whenever a girl came within five feet, it would have been nice to get homework at school dances.

Read the rest here.

Has Outkast finally jumped the shark?

2006-08-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

As perhaps the most critically acclaimed pop group of the past decade, Outkast was bulletproof before this week's releases of "Idlewild," the movie, and "Idlewild," the movie soundtrack. Now critical consenus has turned against them, and it's a foregone conclusion that Andre 3000 and Big Boi are finished as partners.

Wha' happened?

The album came out Tuesday, and reviews have been less than kind. More than ever Outkast looks like the hip-hop Beatles. Before "Idlewild" the comparison was apt because Outkast was the one rap group everybody liked, and their likeability was tied mostly to their artistic adventurousness. "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" was the least commercial thing they ever did (the singles "Hey Ya" and "I Like the Way You Move" being HUGE exceptions) and yet it sold better than almost all their previous releases combined. Having the whole cake and eating it too is almost unheard of unless you're, well, you know.

In light of "Idlewild," which continues and underlines the creative estrangement between Oukast's wildly divergent halves that's been going on for at least five years, the Beatles analogy illustrates the group's dissolution. If "SB/TLB" was their "White Album," "Idlewild" appears to be their "Let it Be", a slumped-over moan of exhaustion, a death rattle, the end. I say APPEARS because I haven't heard the whole album yet. But Outkast to me has been on the decline since "Stankonia." The rambling "SB/TLB" has its moments, but for the most part it's the most overrated album of the '00s. A dictionary definition of inconsistency, "SB/TLB" is loaded with too many aimless experiments and, well, just too many songs. Artistic genius is great, but pity you can't tell genius to shut up.

What about the movie? The preview actually looks really good. I want to see it, though my gut tells me I'll probably be disappointed. (The reviews support my gut.)

Outkast is anything if unpredictable, so I won't write their eulogy yet. But if "Idlewild" is their last record, fans can't complain: This is one of the great groups of our generation. Now if we could just get them on a rooftop.

Rolling around naked in my love o' "Rock Star"

2006-08-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

My friend Tom Rozwadowski, who covers entertainment for The Green Bay Press Gazette, and I are inexplicably hooked on "Rock Star: Supernova" this summer. We ended up chatting about it over e-mail today, and I thought it was fairly interesting so I'm reproducing it here. I might try to get Tom to make this a weekly thing, so look out for some more pop culture tedium, suckas!

Tom: What did you think of the "Rock Star" drama (last night)? How does Lukas not get into the final three, or even have to stand the hell up? Dude sounded like he was gargling mouthwash during "All These Things I've Done."

Me: I think it's funny that Dilana has already entered her late period Dirk Diggler phase. She's clearly the best person, but I think this ego thing might cost her. I thought Ryan's original song was pretty good in a crappy modern rock sort of way, but he still seems really stiff and self-important on stage. Lukas is terrible. I was SURE the judges would rip him after the Killers song. He sounded like absolute horsecrap.

Tom: Last year, nobody failed on the "let's get someone to say something bad about another rocker to the press" ruse. Even the dude who won refrained, and he was known for Dilana-like criticism about how the band saved others, etc. I found it quite amusing. It was a bit contrived, but if Dilana had to perform last night, she would have totally choked. The camera shots had her looking legitimately shaken. Now that Patrice is gone, it actually gets interesting because Magni and Toby are my favorites (if i had to pick two outside Dilana), and they're getting in the bottom three. I, too, thought Ryan's song was decent. I just think he's a dime-a-dozen meathead rocker. Toby, to me, is the most fluid and comfortable on stage. Magni has some chops. Storm is too theatrical. I thought she did a great job with "Cryin'" -- an overplayed song i hate -- but she always makes me crack up with her "Matrix" style dance moves and bug eyes. Gotta ease up on that. I thought Dilana was mediocre on "Every Breath," to be honest. I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for her, though she might be the kind of person needed for a group with three alpha males. I also think school girl emo crushes are keeping Lukas alive in the voting. His Killers cover was just as bad as the hole butchery from a few weeks ago.

Why don't they play Jane's songs with Navarro?

Me: Maybe the same reason they won't ever play Metallica covers with Newsted. (Quick side rant: Navarro is the Rod Stewart of his generation. He could have been one of the greats based on his mindblowing playing on "Nothing's Shocking and "Ritual de lo Habitual." but once he became a rock star, he realized he could coast on his fame and not try anymore. and he's been doing it for 15 years.)

Toby is decent. I really don't like magni. His covers of Nirvana and Radiohead were WEAK. (Seriously, who is dumb enough to cover "Smells Like Teen Spirit"? I know you hate "American Idol," but Randy and Simon would have slapped Magni upside the head for tackling such an iconic song.) I don't think Ryan is a meathead. He's just a humorless dude who takes himself WAY too seriously. I can't see him surviving a band with Tommy Lee. I really think it's Dilana's race to lose.

Tom: As a sidenote before I respond on "Rock Star," have you ever seen "The Thin Red Line? I don't claim to be a movie buff, but I know you actually take your film watching seriously. I got into a heated discussion with two co-workers about my hating "Crash" yesterday, and I was subseuqently slammed for liking "Thin Red Line." It's not your typical war movie, which is why I like it. The symbolism is very "Lost" like, but more than anything, I love it's deliberate pacing. It almost lulls you into submission, or maybe i'm the only one who dug it.

Back to "Rock Star," I think I like Magni the person more than Magni the performer, which sounds stupid. I can't imagine a dude like Lukas making the bottom three and singing along with say, Toby, when he put the mic in my face. I really enjoyed his rendition of "Starman," though. But you're right ... tackling iconic songs is a bit foolish, and I think that has hurt him in the voting. I don't think he's been awful, per se, but he can't live up to either Yorke or Cobain, so the fans will naturally yawn. I'd much rather risk comparison to Brandon Flowers or something.

I say Ryan is a meathead because he couldn't even defend himself with Dilana. It was Magni who had the best line about how she's just doing the same thing every week. I would have been all up in her grill, yo!

Totally agree on navarro. It's pretty sad, actually. I suppose there would be a hell of a lot of pressure to perform "Been Caught Stealing" with Navarro, but it'd be great TV. Or maybe they can do a Panic Channel song next week.

Was that original Supernova song actually pretty catchy, or should I just end this conversation now?

Me: I saw "The Thin Red Line" when I was in college and remember liking it. I'm a fan of Terrence Malick, the director, who is best known for his first film, "Badlands," which came out in 1973 and starred Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. It's about this young couple who go on a killing spree across the Midwest. Awesome, awesome movie that is definitely worth Netflicking.

"The Thin Red Line" definitely isn't for everyone, and I think it suffered in comparison to "Saving Private Ryan," a more traditional war movie that came out around the same time. I liked "Crash," by the way. I don't think it deserved Best Picture, but it's certainly not hate-worthy. When I saw it I thought it was a well-made rip-off of "Short Cuts" with a racism theme mixed in. Not terribly profound or anything but pretty entertaining at the time. I support your right to rip "Crash," though. I remember hating "American Beauty" when it came out, and most people got ticked at me whenever I voiced that opinion. But seven or so years later, critical consenus has really turned against that movie. So I feel vindicated, fools!

Back to "Rock Star," I agree Magni seems like a decent dude. I also thought Patrice was nice (and surprisingly hot this week), but she definitely needed to go. Toby is a good singer but he has no charisma. Storm has the swagger (and she's also pretty hot) but she seems a little bush league to me. I can't stand Lukas, but he'll stick around til the end because he fits a washed-up rocker's definition of a modern rock singer.

It's clearly between Ryan and Dilana, and I'm leaning towards Dave's assertion that Ryan is the dark horse who seems to be gathering strength. Dilana seems a little to big for her britches. Ryan is a TOTAL (jerk), but aren't most rock singers?

Re: catchiness of Supernova: I kinda like their songs, too. If they pick Ryan and record his "Back of the Car" song, they might actually be better than Velvet Revolver, which must be their main goal.

Please ignore this video I just posted

2006-08-24T12:25:00.000-04:00

The old complaint about MTV from codger music fans is that it made image more important than music. Which, of course, is ridiculous. Tons of people bought Elvis and Beatles records based solely on the coolness of the album covers. The fact that the music was great was an irrelevant coincidence. Image has always been a huge part of the equation.

Still, it's nice sometimes to fall in love with a band without knowing what they look like. Take Danish space rockers Mew. My favorite record right now is "And the Glass Handed Kites," a difficult but ultimately rewarding piece of prog rock sprawl that recalls a lot of music I love: "OK Computer" era Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine, New Order and the Beach Boys, to name four bands.

I just watched the video for "The Zookeeper's Boy," my favorite track off the record, and my view of Mew has changed slightly. I still like the record, but, well, these dudes look kinda lame. If I saw the video without hearing the record first, I might dismiss it altogether. (Which is a greater indictment of me than Mew, but still.)

Watch the video and check out the band's MySpace page, which has four songs you can stream. (Including "Special," another album highlight.) And, please, try to ignore the singer's resemblance to Jon Bon Jovi.

Laughing at celebrities on drugs

2006-08-23T15:52:00.000-04:00

Some Web site named Cracked.com (apparently related to the old Mad Magazine knock-off, now trying to be an Onion knock-off) has a funny feature called "The 5 Most Obviously Drug-Fueled TV Appearances Ever."

A lot of good stuff here, including clips of James Brown, Richard Pryor and Klaus Kinski. (Now there's a party I want to be at.)

My favorite clip is from a supremely weird Crispin Glover appearance on David Letterman from the late 1980s. Acutally, I don't think Glover is on drugs here, just doing his George McFly on acid schtick. But it's still pretty entertaining.

Who needs advice?

2006-08-22T13:21:00.000-04:00

I'm writing another advice column for Bull Magazine and I need some relationshippy type questions, so if you gots somethin', hook me up!

Finally! A soluation to the war on terror AND Whitney Houston's career decline

2006-08-22T11:27:00.000-04:00

Most people agree that the worst thing ever to happen to Whitney Houston was Bobby Brown. But it appears Whitney actually has a worse romantic option available to her: Osama bin Laden. According to the terrorist's former "sex slave" Kola Boof (did the Emancipation Proclamation not apply to sex slaves?) bin Laden was obsessed with Houston and dreamed of killing her husband.

Boof says bin Laden couldn't stop talking about his favorite singer and had lofty plans for her. "He said he wanted to give [her] a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney, he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives."

But bin Laden's murderous side also emerged in his fantasies about the pop superstar. "[He would say] how beautiful she is," Boof claims, "what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband - Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have womens' husbands killed.

"In his briefcase, I would come across photographs of the Star [magazine], as well as copies of Playboy. It would soon come to the point where I was sick of hearing Whitney Houston's name," Boof writes.

I say we stop the war and drop the Whitney bomb on the Middle East. We just need to find which crack house she's sleeping at this week.

Sometimes your heart cuts a fart

2006-08-21T11:43:00.000-04:00

An essential companion on any road trip is an ample amount of Tenacoius D. Listen to the songs once and you will know them by heart. They will enter your brain like a virus, invade your head like the Russians in "Red Dawn" and explode your mind like the scanners in "Scanners."

Obviously I'm a fan of the temple of rock built by Jack Black and Kyle Gass. And I'm pumped about their upcoming movie, "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny," even if I'm pretty sure it won't be any good. I mean, check out this preview. This is gonna be our generation's "Song Remains the Same"!

A short history of football video games

2006-08-21T11:27:00.000-04:00

Last week I wrote a brief history of football video games for our Weekend cover package on the new John Madden game. It brought back a lot of memories of Mountain Dew and Dorito-fueled gridiron battles.

One of my favorite games ever is Tecmo Bowl, and one of the best players was Bo Jackson. The above YouTube clip is a powerful reminder of his brilliance.

Here is my short history:

Atari Football (1978): Remember that part in “2001” when the monkeys are scrambling around the desert at the dawn of man? Of course you don’t. That movie came out 200 years ago. So did Atari Football, and the primitive game definitely looks its age. It kicked off modern gridiron gaming, but hardly anything about Atari Football resembles the actual game of football. There are no field goals, no PATs and no end zones. And the players look more like robotic toads than people.

Intellivision’s NFL Football (1980): It’s a few years after Atari Football and video game football players have grown arms and legs. Sure, they still have solid color bodies so nobody is going to mistake the little guys for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But Intellivision’s NFL Football was a giant leap for video gamekind. Among the evolutionary leaps are fairly sophisticated play calling options and way technical (for the time) game details like interceptions and tackling. Kids played this until the end of the ’80s.

10-Yard Fight (1985): Starting out as an arcade game in 1983, 10-Yard Fight was the first football game of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Despite the name, there was very little 10-yard fighting in this incredibly easy game. It was more like Run-Back-99-Yards-And-Hit-A-Wide-Open-Player-In-the-End-Zone Fight. If you sucked at every other video game, there was no better self-esteem builder.

Tecmo Bowl (1990): The game that sparked a million sleepless nights among the nation’s teenaged boy population, Tecmo Bowl revolutionized football gaming. At least it seemed that way at the time. The lack of plays (each team gets four on offense and defense) and dull two-dimensional graphics would put the average 13-year-old to sleep in 2006. Like the success of MC Hammer, the other great phenom from 1990, you had to be there to understand it.

Tecmo Super Bowl (1991): My favorite non-Madden football game ever. Tecmo Super Bowl was the first game to feature every NFL team and the superstar players of the day. Finally, your dreams of being Bubby Brister could come true. Also new was being able to play a full schedule with a post-season. Best of all was the dominance of studs like Bo Jackson and Jerry Rice, who will go down in the annals of history as the greatest video game football players ever in their Tecmo Super Bowl incarnations.

Shameless self-promotion

2006-08-18T14:14:00.000-04:00

If you like reading my words, you might like hearing me talk. So you should check out my podcasts for The Post-Crescent. I do three of them: Under 30, Valley Jams and a preview of Fox Cities Weekend. Enjoy!

Can we please stop humoring David Copperfield?

2006-08-18T11:40:00.001-04:00

A "story" broke this week about David Copperfield discovering the fountain of youth. And I just recieved the following press release:

In his first interview since the announcement earlier this week of the uncovering of a “fountain of youth” (see Reuters article below), master illusionist David Copperfield spoke exclusively today with CNN Headline News morning show Robin & Company about his find. The island where Copperfield located the fountain is so restricted, telephone service is nearly impossible to get; therefore, Copperfield found a pier where he was just able to pick up a cell-phone signal to contact the outside world and speak directly with CNN’s Robin Meade. Meade questions him as to whether this is an elaborate set-up to his next big trick and if he really has hired scientists to test his fountain.

Sigh.

David Copperfield pulls this crap every couple of years. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear. He walked through the Great Wall of China. Now he discovered the fountain of youth. I know it's August, which traditionally is one of the slowest news months of the year, but does CNN's Robin Meade really believe that scientists are being whisked down to this desert isle with their fountain-of-youth testing equipment?

Of course not.

Magic is lame. Everybody knows this. So why do we continue to humor David Copperfield? Is he mentally disabled? Was he diagnosed with an incurable disease? Somebody, please tell me, and I'll continue to play along.

Everything I Know About Drugs I Learned From Hollywood

2006-08-18T11:40:00.000-04:00

Under30blog does not condone drug use. But I do like drug scenes in movies. It's for the same reason I like violence in movies: it represents abhorrent behavior I find scary in real life, but in movies it's fascinating and fun to watch. Yay drugs and violence!

The above video is a genius collage of famous movie drug scenes. It's called "Everything I Know About Drugs I Learned from Movies." Pot, cocaine, heroin, booze, it's all covered. I figured this might be a handy way to kickstart the weekend. Party!

"Snakes on a Plane"? More like "Irony on the Decline"

2006-08-17T16:11:00.000-04:00

Snakes on a Plane” opens Friday in theaters. This probably means nothing to (1) people who don’t spend 21 hours a day on the Internet, (2) people over the age of 35, and (3) people who don’t get into movies about Samuel L. Jackson cursing at high-flying jungle creatures for 90 minutes. You folks might as well stop reading now.

For everybody else, “Snakes on a Plane” is a big deal. How big? After nearly a year of Web-fueled hype, “Snakes on a Plane” is poised to become the “Citizen Kane” of movies about snakes running wild on commercial aircraft. And it likely will have the most profitable opening weekend ever for a movie starring a Burmese python.

More than the movie itself, “Snakes on a Plane” has been praised for revolutionizing how films are marketed online and altered based on suggestions from snarky movie geeks. For instance, an expletive-spiked one-liner uttered by Jackson was added to the movie at the insistence of online fans.

Some wonder how this will affect the future of entertainment. Instead of relying on talented writers, directors and actors to come up with decent movies, dudes who can’t convince the dumpy girl at the comic book store to catch a matinee of “The Descent” will be the new Hollywood power players.

Coming to the red carpet on Oscar Night 2007: the black trench coat and Frodo T-shirt ensemble. Tres chic.

The democratization of the movie-making process is all fine and dandy, I guess. It’s not as if input from the public will make mainstream movies any worse. After all, the Wayans brothers were handed tens of millions of dollars to make “Little Man,” which should be enough to inspire the populace to take up torches and pitchforks and ransack the nearest Cineplex. I’m pretty sure the guy from IT who changes my password every four weeks can do better than that.

What is more intriguing about “Snakes on a Plane” is how it’s the latest example of something I like to call The William Hung Phenomenon.

Read the rest of my latest Under 30 column here.

"I feel so dirty when they start talking cute, I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot"

2006-08-17T15:31:00.000-04:00

Rick Springfield is cool.

Seriously.

Just check out the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, which called Springfield’s breakthrough album "Working Class Dog" a "relentlessly catchy power-pop classic" and compared it to Elvis Costello’s "My Aim is True."

"It’s worth re-evaluating his status in the pop pantheon," the magazine concluded.

Springfield was ripped by critics in the early ’80s for starring on "General Hospital" and crafting superficially sweet pop hits. If rock writers back then knew Dr. Noah Drake would one day be equated with their favorite bespeckled tunesmiith, they would have freaked.

Once you dig below the shiny surface of "Jessie’s Girl" and "Don’t Talk to Strangers," it’s not a big leap from Springfield’s romantic paranoia to the sexual hang-ups documented on "My Aim is True." For Springfield, the connection has always been there. It just took a while for the rock press to figure it out.

"Actually, ‘My Aim is True’ was one of the albums I was playing a lot as I was writing ‘Working Class Dog,’" Springfield said in a recent telephone interview. "It’s all truthful stuff and it’s all very stripped down power-pop."

Springfield, who turns 57 on Wednesday, talked about recent critical re-evaluation of his work, defended covering Mr. Mister and revealed who killed rock ‘n’ roll in an interview running Saturday in The Post-Crescent.

Until then, enjoy the video for "Jessie's Girl."

Still more evidence of the awesomeness of Steely Dan

2006-08-17T14:31:00.000-04:00

Under 30 Blog is gonna read more like Over 50 Blog today, seeing as how I keep writing about geezer rockers, but I have to give it up again for the awesomeness of Steely Dan, who just posted another snarky letter on its Web site. Now they are going after Wes Anderson, hipster favorite and friend of The Dan's first target, the Butterscotch Stallion.

Donald and Walter love Anderson's first movie, "Bottle Rocket," but feel his subsequent work has gotten progressively worse. Whether you agree, The Dan is funny and actually pretty insighful about Anderson's work.

You began, spectacularly enough, with the excellent "Bottle Rocket", a film we consider to be your finest work to date. No doubt others would agree that the striking originality of your premise and vision was most effective in this seminal work. Subsequent films - "Rushmore", "The Royal Tenenbaums", "The Life Aquatic" - have been good fun but somewhat disappointing - perhaps increasingly so. These follow-ups have all concerned themselves with the theme we like to call "the enervated family of origin"©, from which spring diverse subplots also largely concerned with the failure to fulfill early promise. Again, each film increasingly relies on eccentric visual detail, period wardrobe, idiosyncratic and overwrought set design, and music supervision that leans heavily on somewhat obscure 60's "British Invasion" tracks a-jangle with twelve-string guitars, harpsichords and mandolins. The company of players, while excellent, retains pretty much the same tone and function from film to film. Indeed, you must be aware that your career as an auteur is mirrored in the lives of your beloved characters as they struggle in vain to duplicate early glories.

Read the rest here.

Three cheers for Macaca!

2006-08-16T10:56:00.000-04:00

Sen. George Allen is a Republican running for re-election in Virginia. Some say he might run for president. He likes "the real America." He doesn't hang with them movie moguls like his opponents. He is one of us.

He also might be a tinsy bit racist. Well, you can't have everything!

Allen was caught on tape last week singling out 20-year-old SR Sidarth at a rally. Sidarth, a campaign worker for Allen's opponent Jim Webb, was there to tape the speech.

Knowing a camera was pointed directly at him (Sidarth informed Allen's staff that he was there), Allen proceeded to call Sidarth "Macaca, or whatever his name is" and welcome him to America. Unfortunately, Macaca is a racial slur for people of African descent. Sidarth is Indian-American, but, you know, it's still pretty offensive.

I don't know if Allen knew that macaca is a slur. I agree with John Dickerson of Slate, who said the word "sounded like the fraternity TV-room appellation for 'funny-looking foreigner.'" But, you know, it's still pretty offensive.

Allen's staff, of course, is denying any wrong doing. Hilariously, they claim Allen was trying to say mohawk because of Sidarth's hairstyle. Except Sidarth clearly doesn't have a mohawk. Even if he did have a mohawk, do you really want to vote for a guy who would mangle the pronounciation so badly?

I'm pretty sure Allen won't be running for president anymore.

On the fast track out of Fond du Lac

2006-08-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

Outside Tony Anders’ door are palm trees, relentlessly sunny skies and the Sunset Strip. On weekends he’s getting invites to hang out with Jason Newsted at the "Rock Star: Supernova" mansion. Best of all, his only responsibilities are playing and writing music. And he’s doing it all rent-free.

Yep, dude obviously isn’t still in Fond du Lac.

Anders, the singer/guitarist for FDL’s favorite pop-punk band Verona Grove, packed up for West Hollywood earlier this month with bandmates Max Harder and Charlie Wilhelm to begin work on their first album for Pat’s Record Company, a division of Universal Records that signed the band in June.

Local music followers might know PRC as the big-shot label that scooped up Appleton band The Robins (formerly Number One Fan), who also just left for L.A. to work on an album. Verona Grove hooked up with PRC thanks in part to Justin Perkins, a local music scene legend (and member of the Obsoletes and Yesterday’s Kids) who produced Number One Fan’s "Compromises" CD and recorded the Verona Grove song "Small-Town Celebrity" at Smart Studios in Madison. Perkins put the band in touch with PRC, and the label sent a representative to check out a local Verona Grove show in March.

"We were like, ‘Why the hell are you coming to Wisconsin?’" Anders, 22, said. "They were like, ‘It doesn’t matter where you are. Music is music.’"

PRC is providing a house and rehearsal space for Verona Grove over the next two months so the band can write songs for the new record. The band has already finished 15 tracks, but Anders expects to continue writing so the label has lots to choose from. Verona Grove will be back in Hollywood to record the album, shoot music videos and perpetrate all the other rock star stuff in future months.

Last weekend the band took a break from rehearsing to visit the "Rock Star" mansion where they spied Newsted and the show’s crop of dullard contestants. Sadly they didn’t find their favorite Supernova member. "We wished we saw Tommy Lee but he wasn’t there," Anders said.

Oh well. I guess Anders will have to be content living the dream of a million bands. "It’s cool for the time being to live like this," he said. Pretty soon, Tommy Lee might be checking them out.

Anybody know where I can find video of Boy George sweeping up the streets of New York City and swearing at reporters? Anyone? Bueller?

2006-08-15T13:24:00.000-04:00

I've been reading a ton about Boy George's community service for cocaine possession in New York City, which involves sweeping up the streets and taking crap from NYC tabloids. I don't know about you, but that is some serious service that helps not only New York but an entire nation. I appreciate the restitution, because I was pretty put out by George doing all that blow.

Here's a pic, by the way:

I searched YouTube yesterday for some video and came up empty. Anybody have a Web link I can post? This is for the sake of journalism, people!

Todd Snider gets away with it

2006-08-14T14:16:00.000-04:00

I am in love with "The Devil You Know," the new album by smartass folk songwriter Todd Snider. I saw him described somewhere as a cross between John Prine and Tom Petty, and while I hate descriptions like that, it will do. (I'd throw in a dash of Randy Newman.)

I became a Snider fan with his previous album, 2004's "East Nashville Skyline," a great collection of short stories about losers and guys too lazy to lose. "The Devil You Know" might even be better. Snider mostly plays electric guitar on this one, and he has assembled a loose rockin' band that sounds drunk on Old Milwaukee and "Sticky Fingers."

The songs, of course, are top notch, both hilarious and full of indignation. The best of the lot is "You Got Away With It," a song sung from the point of view of an frat brother talking to his famous friend. It's pretty obvious by song's end who the bro is addressing, but it's a joy to hear Snider slowly reveal himself through the progressively biting lyrics.

This YouTube clip is of Snider performing "You Got Away With It" at a recent concert. The quality is OK, but it's worth checking out for Snider's trademark stoner dude introduction where he talks about his past adventures at frat parties. If you ever see the man live, you'll find the between-song patter is almost better than the songs. Which is saying a lot.

I strongly recommend going here to hear four songs from "The Devil You Know." You can hear "You Got Away With it" along with "Looking for a Job," a song about an ex-con who isn't about to take guff from the rich guy who hired him to put up day wall.

Blind Melon hate mail, or, All he can say is my column's pretty lame, he likes watches puddles gather rain, etc.

2006-08-11T13:46:00.000-04:00

I didn't think a Blind Melon joke in my latest Under 30 column would tick anybody off. After all, who still likes Blind Melon? But I just got this piece of hate mail.

your an idiot. Blind Melon was SO much more than the bee girl. Idiots like you saw a Pop Icon and heard one song and bought into the pop culture trap, your still in it, swirling around americas waste water drain pipe. commenting about mel gibson, please.

you just embarras yourself mocking one of the greatest original bands of thier era....

do your self a favor listen to the whole second cd they released (soup) and see if you still want to mock them...... you missed the whole point of the song.... besides Mtv stoped playing videos because bevis and butthead and everyone knows that.

More to come? I'll keep you posted.

Who wants to see Britney Spears acting, um, a little "altered"?

2006-08-11T12:47:00.000-04:00

I don't want to speculate because I don't have all the facts, so let's just say Britney Spears is a little "goofy" in this clip where she's "munching" on food and talking about the possibility of time travel.

You can make up your own minds from there.

iPod Journal for July 2006

2006-08-10T16:02:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I started making mix CDs of songs I was listening to a lot during a particular month. It was an idea I stole from Cameron Crowe, who kept monthly mix tapes as a sort of musical journal. I like it because music is my best memory jogger, and I can listen to a disc I made in Sept. 2003 and remember exactly what I was doing that month.

Here is my iPod journal for July 2006:

1. "Feel It (Don't Fight It)" (Live at the Harlem Square Club), Sam Cooke
2. "When Jokers Attack," The Brian Jonestown Massacre
3. "Thursday," Asobi Seksu
4. "Hangin Dowtown," The Replacements
5. "Faraway You," Marah
6. Track 5 on the Vesicular Basalt live disc Tim Schweiger gave me
7. "Lloyd, I'm Ready to be Heartbroken," Camera Obscura
8. "Pick It Up, Lay it the Cut," Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
9. "A Bell Will Ring," Oasis
10. "The Road to Gila Bend," Los Lobos
11. "Lonely Teardrops," Jackie Wilson
12. "So I," Tobias Froberg
13. "Smash Your Head," Girl Talk
14. "Cohesion," Minutemen
15. "Shake Shake," The Robins
16. "Junior Kickstart," The Go! Team
17. "Doctor Robert," The Beatles
18. "Runaways," XTC
19. "Just Drums," Tapes n' Tapes
20. "Murray," Pete Yorn
21. "The Same Boy You've Always Known," The White Stripes
22. "Long Legs," The Magic Numbers
23. "Earth Angel," The Penguins
24. "Ijustwannalayaroundalldayinbedwithyou," The Coup
25. "Have a Cigar," Pink Floyd
26. "Everywhere," 7L & Esoteric
27. "Lovely Lady," Rock City
28. "Big Exit," PJ Harvey
29. "High Water," Bob Dylan
30. "Ice Age," Birdmonster
31. "No More No More," Aerosmith
32. "Naked Eye" (Live in Denver 2000), The Who

Shameless self-promotion

2006-08-10T16:01:00.000-04:00

Check out my Under 30 column on making fun of stuff too late.

A show called "Rock Star" that doesn't actually rock? Sounds great!

2006-08-10T00:22:00.000-04:00

It's almost six months until Simon Cowell splashes cold water in the faces of the latest crop of Mariah-lovin' high school theater kids, so I've been forced to scour the depths for my crappy talent show fix. Hence my recent fascination with "Rock Star: Supernova," which airs Tuesday and Wednesday (!) nights on CBS.

I didn't catch the first season of "Rock Star," which featured '80s pop rock band INXS seeking a replacement for dead lead singer Michael Hutchence. It's my understanding the first season contestants were better than the current group, but I don't care about quality. As is the case with "American Idol," the appeal of "Rock Star" has nothing to do with music. I already have ZERO interest in a band featuring Gilby Clarke, Jason Newstead and Tommy Lee, so who cares who the lead singer is? (I might feel differently if "Rock Star" host Dave Navarro was in the band. Believe it or not, but Navarro used to be a really good rock guitarist. It's crazy that Jane's Addiction masterpiece "Nothing's Shocking" came out 18 years ago. Times have changed, yo. By the 20th anniversary Dave will be on "Hollywood Squares.")

I don't even like Velvet Revolver, and that band has three REAL ex-members of Guns 'n Roses. All Supernova has is the dude whose peak with GNR was appearing in the "Estranged" video.

I like "Rock Star: Supernova" because it presents rock cliches with the utmost seriousness and an air of unashamed calculation. (I should also mention host Brooke Burke, an unintentional riot whose hotness is in inverse proportion to her ability to read a teleprompter with conviction.) In the world of "Rock Star", there's no way a band called Supernova anchored by three over-the-hill hasbeens could be lame. This band is going to be THE BEST EVER! So let's make devil horns as we download The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" into our cellphone, which just happens to be a major sponser, because we never heard the song before and we really want to fulfill our lifelong dream of jamming with guitar legend Slash! I mean Izzy Stradlin! I mean the other guy! Who? Oh yeah, Gilby Clarke!

Whenever I watch "Rock Star: Supernova," I play this game where I list things mentioned on the show that do not rock. A recent list included the following items:

Jason Newstead (Cliff Burton would have never done a freakin' reality show)
Tattoos (Your mom probably has one now. Unmarked skin is the new rebellion)
Leather
Crucifixes
Covers of Live songs about dolphins
Newborn babies
Gilby Clarke's heavy cheek rouge (it's more Elizabeth Taylor than Gene Simmons)
The words "jam" or "killer"
Bad Company covers
Growly, third-rate Eddie Vedder imitations
Bands named after interstellar phenomena
Women named Storm who aren't part of the X-Men
Eye make-up

Under 30 preview: Mocking Mel a week late

2006-08-09T17:27:00.000-04:00

I’m mad at Mel Gibson. Not because he downed enough booze to make a blue whale French kiss a goldfish. Not because his drunken driving turned the streets of Malibu into “Mad Max 4.” And not because his theories about Jewish people lack the sophistication of a fourth grade book report on “Mein Kampf.”

I’m mad at Mel Gibson because his meltdown happened while I was on vacation.

This column is all about making fun of people. And I need a constant supply of hilarious buffoonery to ply my trade. Mel, I take only three weeks off every year. Would it have killed you to wait a few days before going insane? Thanks for nothing, pal.

If I had been here last Friday I would have written something like this: “So alcohol turns Mel Gibson into an anti-Semite. I’m not condoning such behavior, but is there a person among us who wasn’t done something regrettable after a sustained assault of Jell-O shots from pretty blonde women? Mel got drunk and blamed Jews for all wars. I got drunk once in college and stole a girl’s car keys, which I later threw off the Water Street bridge in Eau Claire because my buddy John told me to. Who’s the bigger jerk, me or Mel?

“I’m not even sure this is the worst thing Mel Gibson has ever done. Haven’t you seen ‘Signs’?”

Kind of funny, no? Unfortunately, when it comes to mocking people, places or things, you have one week tops to get your wisecracks in. I’m about one week late. So now I’m stuck with a bunch of moldy one-liners you probably already dozens of times from Jay Leno.

Timing means a lot in the topical column writing game. I started writing this column five years ago this week (hold your applause until I’m finished), and I have been lucky enough to write about topless pop stars, body hair, grinding and getting shot in the face, among other timely journalistic topics.

But I can’t help obsessing over all the funny stuff that happened before I started writing the column. Just as every investigative reporter in his 20s or 30s wishes he had been working during the Watergate era, I would have loved to write a pop culture humor column when Steve Guttenberg was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. The comedic value of a man whose filmography includes “Three Men and a Baby” AND “Short Circuit” AND “Police Academy I-IV” should never decline, but Guttenberg’s mocking power in 2006 ain’t the same as it was in 1986.

Find out about four other topics I wish I had been able to make fun of in timely fashion in Friday's Under 30 column.

Lollapalooza recap

2006-08-09T12:24:00.000-04:00

I love music, but I'm not crazy about outdoor music festivals. They tend to be hot, sweaty, dirty places, like refugee camps for hipsters. The sound is never good enough, you never have enough personal space and the beer is both lousy and expensive. That said, this year's line-up for Lollapalooza was so enticing that I set aside my disdain for "herd rock" and ponied up for a three-day pass.

Turns out I only made two out of three days last weekend. By Sunday I was exhausted. My legs felt like Eddie and Charlie Murphy pounded on them after I spread mud on their couch. Plus the Sunday line-up was packed with bands I'd already seen (Wilco, Shins, Redwalls, etc.), so with apologies to Queens of the Stone Age (a band I love but also missed in Green Bay on Monday) and The Hold Steady, I headed home early.

But I was there most of Friday and Saturday and managed to see a dozen or so bands. It was pretty awesome, despite being covered by a thick veneer of sweat, filth and barbecue sauce from the chicken sandwich I drunkenly "borrowed" by festival's end. Here are my mini reviews of each concert.

Ryan Adams: Despite his erratic live reputation, Adams was one of the acts I was most excited about seeing. And, yeah, he was kinda disappointing. The music sounded good. I have a bunch of bootlegs of Adams with his current backing band The Cardinals, and they have a mellow fluidity on stage very reminiscent of the Grateful Dead. It's just that I like that stuff more when it's coming out of my stereo in the middle of an air conditioned room. When I'm taking a shower in my own juices, I want something more rockin' to help me wash down my $5 beer.

Adams also appeared to be extremely stoned during his set. He mumbled something between songs about eggs. Maybe I was stoned from all the weed being smoked around me. But I don't think so.

The Secret Machines: The biggest surprise of the festival. I liked the Secret Machines going into Lollapalooza, but I really like them after catching their ballsy Pink Floyd/Led Zep-inspired rock thing live. I just re-bought their first album after they blew my mind with the CD's opening track, "First Wave Intact." I also was drinking vodka throughout this set, and that mixed with my minor heat stroke might have added to my euphoria. (I will stop blaming chemicals for my reaction to bands for here on out.)

The Raconteurs: The album is pretty average, but this "supergroup" kicks some major arse on stage. I guess the crowd was huge for this gig, but I was pretty close to the stage so I couldn't tell. After not caring about the White Stripes for a few years, this show re-confirmed that Jack White has that "it" that makes grown heterosexual men (like me) wet their pants out of rock star worship. My favorite performance of the weekend.

Sleater-Kinney: I missed them. Damn. But I did get that free barbecue chicken sandwich.

Ween: My friend Lori compared them to Styx. I'm not sure this is a compliment. But I see the comparison. I hate Styx, but I love Ween. And they were pretty great, especially when fireworks started going off around the time they played "Ocean Man."

Wolfmother: Pretty good, but they didn't blow me away. I really like the album, but I expected a little more from the live show. Probably too much advance hype. But I did like it when Andrew Stockdale, aka the singer dude with the afro, promised to take the crowd on "a psychedelic exploration." Two words: Jazz Odyssey!

Gnarls Barkley: I think only Kanye West had a bigger crowd (unless the Raconteurs was REALLY big). I liked this show a lot. Everybody came out in matching white tennis outfits, and they rocked out like Sly and the Family Stone. Still, the most memorable part of this show was the huge walk out after they did "Crazy." I wonder if Danger Mouse noticed. He can't like that. I bet the dude is a recluse in five years.

Dresden Dolls: I only saw a bit of this, and only because a friend wanted to go. It wasn't bad. But cabaret songs don't really work in front of thousands of people. They did cover the Louvin Brothers, which scores points with me, but I couldn't tell if it was ironic. That puts them back at par.

Common: Another really good set. Common's "Be" is a pretty awesome album, and he did most of my favorite songs. However, I was pretty bummed that Kanye didn't come out for "The Food," the awesome duet he does with Common that was taped live from "Chappelle's Show." Considering what came later, Kanye would have redeemed himself here.

The New Pornographers: No Neko Case, just like the first time I saw them, but otherwise they were terrific. Carl Newman was pretty funny on stage. "We're on between Common and Kanye West. Makes me think we're somewhat like them." Carl should play the Seth Green/Jamie Kennedy "dorky yet likeable white guy" part in the next Wayans brothers movie.

Kanye West: I was probably looking forward to this show more than any other and while I won't call it a disaster, it was a pretty big letdown. First off, the sound was terrible, which I don't get because the sound was generally pretty good for all the other shows. How do you screw up Kanye West of all people? Plus, like most hip-hop shows, they were way too many guest stars. Still, the show-closing rendition of "Touch the Sky" WAS uplifting, and Kanye West is big enough to sound bad in front of 40,000 people and not have it affect him too much.

There you have it. A Lollapalooza recap as tiring to write as it was to live through. I'm gonna go towel off.

Day o' jerks continues

2006-08-08T14:01:00.000-04:00

LA Times reporter Claire Hoffman has written a hella good profile of "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis that has to be one of the most damning personal pieces I've ever read. The story is long, but every word is a must-read.

Here's how it begins:

Joe Francis, the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" empire, is humiliating me. He has my face pressed against the hood of a car, my arms twisted hard behind my back. He's pushing himself against me, shouting: "This is what they did to me in Panama City!"

It's after 3 a.m. and we're in a parking lot on the outskirts of Chicago. Electronic music is buzzing from the nightclub across the street, mixing easily with the laughter of the guys who are watching this, this me-pinned-and-helpless thing.

Francis isn't laughing.

He has turned on me, and I don't know why. He's going on and on about Panama City Beach, the spring break spot in northern Florida where Bay County sheriff's deputies arrested him three years ago on charges of racketeering, drug trafficking and promoting the sexual performance of a child. As he yells, I wonder if this is a flashback, or if he's punishing me for being the only blond in sight who's not wearing a thong. This much is certain: He's got at least 80 pounds on me and I'm thinking he's about to break my left arm. My eyes start to stream tears.

Dude, if a reporter from The LA Times is following you around, maybe it's a good idea not to assault her. Might affect your coverage, after all. Have I mentioned that Francis appears to have a raped a drunken 18-year-old right under Hoffman's nose? Yeah, he's real media savvy, this Francis guy. If this is how he acts with a represenative of one of the country's biggest newspapers on his tail, how does he act when he's on his own? Yikes!

Possibly a bigger jerk than Mel Gibson

2006-08-08T11:05:00.000-04:00

The first day back at work from a long vacation always is a little disorienting. I tend not to follow the news that closely when I'm not working, so it's a little like coming home from the moon. I mean, I only know about the whole Mel Gibson fiasco because they talked about it on Howard Stern.

Anyway, I was reading The P-C today and this story caught my eye. It's about a 20-year-old Appleton man facing 10 years in prison for stealing a bucket of ice cream from a 14-year-old boy.

Police say the man, Ryan R. Van Hammond, stole a bucket of ice cream from a 14-year-old boy who was toting it home for his own birthday celebration.

Van Hammond, W3184 Westowne Court, is charged with a felony count of theft from a person, and two counts of felony bail jumping. The theft charge could land him in prison for up to 10 years.

The alleged incident occurred while Van Hammond was free on bond while facing drug and child-abuse charges in Calumet and Outagamie counties.

Police say Van Hammond snatched the ice cream from the boy at the 2200 block of S. Schaefer Street. While struggling with the boy Van Hammond asked the boy, "Do you want me to kill you?" the complaint said.

The defendant told police he was hungry when he asked for the ice cream, and later "realized what he had done was wrong and left the bucket of ice cream on the sidewalk."

Before I say anything else, let me get the obvious out of the way first: It is wrong to steal buckets of ice cream for teenagers. That said, this is hilarious. It's like an Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell movie come to life. OK, maybe I feel a little bad for the kid, but he now has an anecdote that will last him a lifetime. And as for the guy, well, it WAS pretty hot last week, and does a single kid REALLY need a whole bucket of ice cream for himself?

Something I plan to do next week, Part II

2006-08-07T21:51:00.000-04:00

Here I am, the last night of my vacation, and I just realized that I didn't update my blog, i.e. change the "stuff I like" section, get rid of suck/lame hall of fame, etc. So I have officially failed to live up to my pledge as predicted. Actually, I could do it now. But "Valdez is Coming" is on in 45 minutes and I have a frozen pizza to make.

See you dudes Tuesday for some serious blogging action.