You Baby Gorilla.

2008-04-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

Joysticks

Starring: Joe Don Baker, Jim Greenleaf, and Scott McGinnis
Directed by: Greydon Clark
Written by: Al Gomez, Mickey Epps and Curtis Burch

Joysticks was recommended to me by my friend Mike Dikk. While he doesn't share my love for the American Pie Franchise, he does share an affinity for 80's T&A movies. Being that Mike is a few years older than I am and got to watch late night cable, he's also seen a lot of movies which have fallen through the cracks for me.

What makes movies like Joysticks great is that they take a perfect formula, adapt it to one situation or another, and DON'T FUCKING STRAY FROM IT ONE BIT. Innovation is all well and good, but not enough credence is given to finding a good thing and sticking with it. There's a reason all three Naked Gun movies are solid gold, you know?

The formula which Joysticks adheres to is as follows: local kids enjoy _____. Enjoyment of ______ involves sex, drugs and rock and roll. This of course angers the local ______ authority figure. Said authority figure sets out to ruin the kids good time. The kids respond by upping the ante and a final showdown for the right of the kids to enjoy ______ is set.

The formula also calls for at least one character of each of the following groups:

1) The cool guy who is cool and popular in a rebellious sorta way. At least rebellious in the sense that his parents friends would say "oh, Billy was such a good boy until he started running with that fast crowd." I mean, he doesn't stick up hookers for coke, but he likes to party and doesn't care for RULES. Also very into tits, and gets them all the time.

2) The ultranerd that the cool guy takes pity on. This guy is always a virgin, wears glasses, and has a high pitched voice. He also really wants to see tits, but can be distracted by things like math and computers and D&D.

3) The gross fatso pig guy. This guy is also cool with #1, but it's less of a situation where #1 takes him under his wing as it is a respect for gross fatso's don't-give-a-fuck attitude. Fatso is into tits as well, and will see them and enjoy them but also skeeve out the owner of said tits. Which, of course, he doesn't give a fuck about.

4) The babe of interest. Sexy babe who's not a stuck up bitch. That's pretty much it. Sometimes she's replaced by just a bunch of:

5) Babes. Big awesome hooters, real dumb, into getting naked and DOING IT ALLLLLLL THE TIME.

6) Shitty authority figure guy(s). Occasionally a shitty authority figure lady or ladies, but usually it's a guy. Often have a bevy of henchmen- see: Dean Wormer and Niedermayer in Animal House.

7) Crazy weirdo freaker punker type(s). Either one weirdo or a group of weirdos. Sometimes they're the corny version of "crazy freaks" that someone's dad would describe to the cops, and sometimes they're actually cool weirdo punkers. They can either unite with the main characters to fight the authority figure, or can be another hassle the main characters have to deal with.

And that's pretty much it. Obviously there are endless variations on said characters, and sometimes a character not mentioned is included, but I defy you to find any self respecting 80's T&A movie that doesn't have almost all of the above characters.

The setting for all this greatness in Joysticks is, you guessed it, an arcade. The arcade is run by Jefferson Bailey (#1). His recent hire, Eugene Groebe, (#2) opens the movie on his way to his first day of work. He's stopped by two babes (#5, duh) in a convertible. They are on a mission to acquire a pair of pants that belongs to a nerd, for god knows what awesome reason. They entice him into the car by taking out their hooters, which are of course incredible. The 80's might have been the pinnacle of boobs in movies, because not only were they prevalent as all hell, but they were the perfect middle ground between gnarly 70's boobs and the absurdly fake movie boobs of the 90's.

Now as I mentioned in the FRACTURE review, this was about the time my roomates Steve and Jim decided to turn it off. I guess four perfect jugs in the first two minutes was just titty overload. They're both awesome dudes and I don't mean to rag on them that much, but that was just the most absurd time to ask to have the movie turned off. Now to be fair Joysticks, and movies of its ilk aren't for everyone. There are moments in it's 88 minutes where I can see how it might drag a bit. But two minutes in, where nothing has happened except a nerd has gotten to ogle some awesome boobs? Really? That's where you shut it off? Motherfuckers.

I'm going to have to try and nip that rant in the bud and just move on before I get too wrapped up in how frustrating that was.

Being that I'm doing this write up a few weeks after I watched Joysticks, I can't remember what the arcade was called. A preliminary internet search didn't do any good either, so that will have to be lost for the ages. But you should go out and see Joysticks, and then you can find out for yourself. As mentioned, The TittyBoobHooter Arcade is run by Jefferson Bailey, and it's home to the cool kids and the freaks and the babes. Before Eugene Groebe shows up, Bailey's only other quasi employee and defacto number two is Jonathan Andrew McDorfus (#3). He's really good at beating video games while making crazy faces and stuffing his face. While the only official employee, Eugene is still very clearly low man on the totem pole.

Being that the kids go wild for video games and don't want to do anything but hang out at the arcade, it's only a matter of time before a local authority figure decides to crack down. In Joysticks said authority figure is Joseph Rutter, played by Joe Don Baker (the PI from the Cape Fear remake, among other things).

Rutter pretty clearly hates the entire enterprise of fun, and the TittyBoobHooter arcade is his most recent target. He enlists his retarded nephews to try and steal all the games, and of course they screw it up. He ALMOST gets the arcade kids by teaming up with King Vidiot (#7) the head freak who loves video games but hates Jefferson Bailey for no apparent reason. They meet when King Vidiot breaks into Rutters house in a totally awesome way- just thrashing through his sliding glass door like it ain't no thing! I also sort of remember Vidiot moshing through a wall, but there's a very real chance that my shit memory is just totally making that up.

What follows is a sort of hazy period where Bailey has a three way with two foxes that gets interrupted by a zany distraction, Eugene gets to see some more hooters, and McDorfus grosses some babes out.

Then the climax comes with the requisite SHOWDOWN FOR THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE. And/or arcade. I guess because they're still beefing, the showdown is between McDorfus and King Vidiot.

If you've ever seen any of these movies, or really any movie besides Requim For A Dream, you know how this ends so I won't bother going into it.

What I love most about this movie is that it really captures the spirit of the joy of boobs. Naked boobs, bouncy boobs, big floppy boobs, just plain old boobs. There are still movies today that have boobs in them, but its rare that a movie celebrates not only the tits themselves but the pure, gleeful, unadulterated revelry that can, nay, SHOULD be taken in the baring of breasts.

Steve and I expound upon this at quite some length during a segment in the first episode of our podcast, The Madmosa Podcast, which you can find out more about HERE. That's a pretty shameless plug but whatever. It also saves me re-typing my comments from said podcast.

Great movie, great celebration of tits, great character acting by King Vidiot, McDorfus and Eugene, great great great. Four short and curlies out of five.

Info:
-Buy It Cheap On Amazon.com
-IMDB

Trailer:

2008-03-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

Fracture

Starring: Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling
Directed By: Gregory Hoblit
Written By: Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers

Picture this: Anthony Hopkins is reallllllyyyy smart. And he's preeetttyyy eevvvill. And he's matched up against a brilliant but wet behind the ears up-and-comer. There might be some twists, there might be some turns. Sound familiar? It does, at least a tad, right?

Well that's because it probably should, considering The Silence Of The Lambs won the Oscar for Best Picture (insert little "rights" or maybe "copyright" sign that I don't have on my keyboard here) in 1991. And while my mind is sorta blown by the fact that that was over 15 years ago, and I'm once again reminded that despite my best efforts and worst behavior I'm still quite a few years past twenty one, 1991 wasn't THAT long ago.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting out of this movie since I was fully aware of the premise before I saw it, but I guess I just didn't think it was going to so transparently be Law and Order: Lecter in the Courtroom. Though to the filmmakers credit, they did cast a prettier foil for Hopkins by putting Ryan Gosling in the place of manface anglemonster Jodie Foster. It's really been downhill since Taxi Driver for her, yeesh.

I think I'm just too much of a sucker for trailers. Ninety percent of the time my reaction to whatever trailer I'm watching is "oh christ, I can't WAIT to see that!" Usually movies like Fracture get pushed to the back burner thanks to movies that I actually can't wait to see, which often involve a member of the Stifler family. But I pretty clearly remember being really into the Fracture trailer. Somehow it just didn't wear off in time.

The other reason I've become increasingly sour on this movie is that I WAS watching Joysticks with my roommates first, but they complained about how much it sucked and we had to turn it off to watch this instead. I guess FOUR boobs in the first MINUTE AND A HALF was just too much awesome for them. I ended up watching Joysticks next, and of course the following 82 minutes WERE awesome. But that's for the next entry.

The biggest issue I had with the movie turned into an increasingly heated debate with my one roommate about the logic of the movie versus real life criminal law. It's way too elaborate and long winded to get into here, but if you care, it also turned into an even longer and more drawn out argument, complete with actual legal advice HERE and HERE.

Time has not been kind to this movie when it comes to my review, so I'm bumping it down to 2 short and curlies out of 5. Only watch it if you're in the mood for a legal thriller. Or shitty fake southern accents. Or David Strathairn REALLY mailing it in.

Info:
-Official Site
-Buy it cheap on Amazon
-IMDB

Trailer:

2008-03-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Fools Gold

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland
Directed by: Andy Tennant
Written by: Jon Clafin, Daniel Zelman, Andy Tennant

I want to preface this by saying that no deeper meaning should be sought in the selection of Fools Gold as the first post. It's the first movie I saw in theaters since I decided to start this new blog, and that's all.

That said- I'll see pretty much anything Matthew McConaughey does. This will be the first of many admissions to questionable taste and viewing choices I'm going to make. They're admissions in name only, and certainly don't carry the typical connotation of embarrassed divulgence. I make no apologies for my taste and frankly think it's impeccable and most other people's taste blows. In this case I have an unflagging loyalty to McConaughey due to the fact that pretty much all he does with the free time and fairly substantial wealth he's accumulated from acting is get high, get naked, and sometimes get arrested doing one or both of those things. And for the most part he chooses roles where he plays the type of dude who would do/does those sort of things. Which, when you add it all up, means even when I see a shitty McConaughey movie, I'm still fairly satisfied.

Fools Gold is just such a movie. Unilaterally and inarguably a crappy movie, it was redeemed by a perfect moment of McConaughey-ness. Essentially he plays a beach bum treasure hunter who's been chasing a sunken ship full of treasure. His main source of funding for this hunt is a somewhat sketchy hip hopper type dude named Bigg Bunny. After McConaughey sinks Bunny's boat, he's had enough and decides to have McConaughey killed. So Bigg Bunny's henchmen take him out and throw him overboard tied to an anchor. He escapes (duh) but is now so far out to sea that he's stranded. He manages to float around on a cooler that was thrown overboard with him or something, but passes out from dehydration. He comes to as a speedboat pulls up with two bro's and two babes, and they yell "HEY BRO, YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD USE A BEER!" The bro's throw him a beer which he pounds, and the babes flash him their hooters.

I love this scene for the obvious reasons, but I love it even more so because I'd be willing to bet the farm that it was from McConaughey's actual life, and the edit came up during the first table read. The original rescue scene was probably way more boring, and then Matt was all "Dudes...writer dudes...respectfully, I think we can kick this puppy up a notch. See, I was actually lost at sea a few years ago, and right when I thought all hope was lost, this speedboat pulls up..."

The rest of the movie is pretty shitty, but primarily because Fool's Gold can never seem to decide what kind of movie it wants to be. I'd be more than content with the typical rom-com adventure romp, but it veers off into weird family drama (the father-daugther relationship between Donald Sutherland and his Paris-esque daughter) and a briefly gritty treasure hunting movie (the aggro mercenary, Bigg Bunny punching the shit out of Kate Hudson) and then the lapses into the really weak "romance" between Hudson and McConaughey. The daughter character is totally ridiculous too because they obviously included her as a one dimensional gag character and then at some point decided the movie needed more "heart" and half-assedly wrote in the whole subplot between her and Sutherland.

One of the biggest issues I had with the movie was that at multiple points a character would drop a gun in the water and then fire it moments later, sometimes even submerging the gun for a long time and shooting it off underwater. Granted, 95% of my gun knowledge comes from other stupid movies and the other 5% from going out into the woods with my friends and shooting up old computers and teevees and other garbage with AK's, so I'm not claiming to be a Navy SEAL or anything. That said, it's my general understanding that you definitely can't just take a plain old gun and swim around shooting things underwater.

Maybe I'm wrong, and if that's the case, feel free to let me know. It wouldn't be totally earth shattering to find out I'm wrong, because before I shot off the above-mentioned guns, I somehow assumed that I'd be able to see the bullet leave the barrel and follow it by eye all the way until it hit whatever I was shooting it. So it was sort of a surprise when it seemed like the Tandy monitor or whatever it was just exploded all by itself. And the closest I've come to owning a gun was when my friend Trevor and I got drunk and agreed go "go halves" on a gun or two. Which is one of the best/worst ideas I've ever had. Best if I convinced him to put the guns in his name, worst if I got my prints on them and then let Trevor have custody for the weekend. Come to think of it, I really wish I'd gone shooting in the woods more, but the only other times I thought to try and go typically tended to be in the neighborhood of 3am, and rarely in the company of anyone who was in any sort of shape to drive, much less shoot guns in the dark. I do really want to see what muzzle flash looks like in pitch black though.

So a bunch of other bullshit happens, and even though the movie runs barely an hour and a half, it runs long. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone, because if I can't get even somewhat excited about a McConaughey movie, I really doubt ANYONE can.

1 short and curly out of 5.

Info:

-Showtimes (Fandango)
-IMDB
-Official Site

And here's the trailer.

2008-02-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

"From The Desk Of Reg Dunlop" is dead, and out of the ashes "You Baby Gorilla" has been born.

Before I start down the road on this new project, I should mention that I like going to the movies so much that I'll see just about ANYTHING. I'll try to hassle people to accompany to movies which I have only the most passing interest in seeing, despite the fact that a movie ticket in New York is at least $11.50. When I was living in New Brunswick and had easy access to the AMC via five minute car ride, I saw at least a movie a week, if not two, thanks to AMC's weekend morning policy. For the uninitiated, any showing before noon on either Saturday or Sunday at any AMC is (about) half price. That means five or six dollars, and at that price, I will quite literally see anything. For instance, I was tricked into seeing Stomp The Yard, and I didn't even really care.

The AMC theaters in New York have the same deal, but the closest one to me is in Manhattan and at least a 40 minute train ride. So making it to a movie at 11:45 in the morning means waking up at 10:45 instead of 11:30, and my various associates tend to be wieners at that time of morning and will forego a cheap movie to sleep later.

There's also a theater in Sunnyside, Queens that has $4 movies on Tuesday nights, but for whatever reason that's the one night nobody I know can go to the movies.

As a general rule I'm really opposed to going to the movies by myself, as that's a practice I feel is generally reserved for lepers and guys in raincoats. The first time I saw "No Country For Old Men" I went alone but that was because my friend bailed last minute and I had time to kill and was way too excited not to go. And it wasn't as horribly shameful as I'd feared, but it's still more fun to go with people.

The point I'm finally getting around to is that in the interest of having a coherent and unifying theme for this blog and thereby avoid post after sporadic post of "so a funny thing happened today at the blipeededoo store when I saw Stevie Fartface do a snorglejumble", I decided to make this all movies, all the time. That will include Netflix, movies on TV, occasional selections from my DVD collection, as well as anything I see in theaters.

Before this intro prattles on further than it already has, I think it's worth listing my top 10 movies of all time to give you, the reader, an idea of my general taste.

1. Dirty Work
2. Slapshot
3. Clerks
4. Billy Madison
5. Eddie Murphy Raw
6. Vacation
7. Animal House
8. Caddyshack
9. Grandma's Boy
10. Superbad

At a later date I might break down this list and explain each choice, as well as some of the obvious omissions (Kingpin, Tommy Boy, The Jerk). But it's worth mentioning now because I think it gives an accurate idea of how my mind works. Laughing is right up there with breathing as far as my priorities go. There are some incredible non-comedic movies that I've seen, and that I love, but I'd have to make at least a top 50 list before I could even consider including any of them. They just don't rate if I don't laugh.

Onward and upward, and welcome to You Baby Gorilla.

2007-10-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Hits Just Keep On Coming...

I'm stuck here at work waiting for the shooting crew to get back to the office so I can help load in, and I've been trying to get some writing done in my downtime. I have music going from my iTunes pretty much all day, but at night when there's no distractions I try to pick stuff that's extra awesome. Plus, when there's a zillion people here during the day, I normally try not to be obnoxious and blast Citizens Arrest.

So at first I popped on Judge-Bringin' It Down, because...fuck that, there should never need to be an explanation or justification for listening to Judge.
After that, I was in a solid late 80's NYHC mood, so I put on Leeway-Born To Expire.
After that, I kind of zoned out writing and just let iTunes keep going, and it went right into Left For Dead-Splitting Heads, which got me embarrassingly amped up. I'm going to attribute that to coinciding with all the coffee kicking in.
And after Left For Dead comes Lemonheads, of course. Hate Your Friends is the first record on my computer, and while their later stuff is good and all, HYF is probably in my top 50 records of all time, with "Rabbit" being in my top 50 songs, easy.
There's no point to this post other than to revel in how nicely my accidental playlist worked out, and maybe there's some imaginary person reading this who hasn't checked out one of those four records, and they will after this. Not that any of them are exactly buried gems, but still.

2007-10-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Manny Being Manny Being A Surprisingly Sane Person
or
Morons Being Morons With No Perspective

So yesterday Manny Ramirez was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying:

"We're just going to go have fun and play the game," he said. "That's it. If we go play hard and the thing doesn't come like it's supposed to come, we'll move on. We'll come next year. Why should we panic? We've got a great team. If it doesn't happen, good. We'll come next year and try to do it again.

"We're confident every day. It doesn't matter how things go for you. We're not going to give up. We're just going to go and play the game, like I've said, and move on. If it doesn't happen, so who cares? There's always next year. It's not like the end of the world or something."

That's the full quote. But if you listen to sports radio/watch sports commentary on tv/read sports blogs, all you'll hear about is the last two sentences. "If it doesn't happen, so who cares? There's always next year. It's not like the end of the world or something."

Not only is this all of a sudden the number one story in the sports world, people are LOSING THEIR MINDS over it. Talking about how Derek Jeter would never say that, how Manny only cares about himself and not about his team and its fans, how it's another example of modern athletes being no good money grubbing jerks, and on, and on.

That reaction, to me, is the real story. It magnifies and highlights how completely, pathetically out of touch people are. Because when it comes down to it, he's 100% right. And I'm not a huge Manny supporter by any means. I'm also the furthest thing from a jock-basher, or the type of person to look down my nose at peoples devotion to sports. I spend a ridiculous amount of time every day reading about and watching/listening to sports, not to mention all the hours agonizing over upcoming games to decide who to bet on and who to put in on my various fantasy teams. But if I step back for a second, it's all just a pastime, a distraction, something entertaining to help me get through the day. Sure, I get bent out of shape when my teams lose, and overexcited when they win. But if I were to list out my priorities in life, the win/loss record of a team of professional strangers is pretty far from the top.

I think sports are totally awesome, and I'm generally wary of people who have absolutely zero interest in sports (as they might be some kind of pod-people body snatchers), but, and I mean this in the least condescending way possible, I have a life. You know, my own life, that goes on regardless of what happens on the field/court/rink/croquet lawn.

I can promise you Derek Jeter isn't still sitting shiva in the Yankee clubhouse, single tear after single tear rolling down his cheek. And I doubt Posada has locked himself in his room listening to his Bauhaus records while cutting himself. "A drop of blood for every loss..."
And especially motherfuck sportscasters who condemn Manny for a) being honest and b) having a balanced head about the whole thing. Bunch of loser wannabe athletes that couldn't hack it so they bitch about meaningless shit like this. To people like me...who tune in every day...and who would kill to be paid to bitch about sports...

I'm not trying to say I'm above all this, but it's so lame that when a ballplayer finally really says what's up, everyone crucifies him for it.
Get a fucking life, yeesh.

Oh and go Tribe.

2007-10-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORM!!!!

Motherfuck Edge Day, today is National Norm Day.

There really aren't words for what a great day this is. Norm turns 44, and the world continues to enjoy the gift of laughter, and prison rape jokes.

Steve and I put a birthday present in the mail to him this afternoon, consisting of a card and a handful of scratch off tickets. If he hits the "win for life" thing, hopefully he'll appreciate it enough to attach himself to "Slumpbuster", the movie Steve and I are writing. Or just blow it on more gambling, whatever.

A handful of Norm links since I'm kind of lazy today.

This audio clip is pretty recent, and Artie's right, it's awesome how Norm always seems annoyed and surprised that anyone tries to talk to him about anything showbiz related, despite the fact that it's his, you know, job.
Audio Interview from the Stern Show

The next link is probably the best single place for downloads, every single episode of both The Norm Show and A Minute With Stan Hooper, as well as miscellaneous stuff. You can only download three things a day, apparently, but if you just search YouTube you can find all the episodes of The Norm Show, albeit chopped into 10 min segments.

Norm Media

Two Fan Pages, the first is written by the Fat Chick in THIS picture, and while it's kind of informative, she writes like a Jr. High yearbook editor (read: not well) and thats kind of annoying after awhile. The second is slightly less retarded sounding, but not as updated either.

Number One
Number Two

And go down a few posts and watch the clips I put up from his appearance on The View a couple years ago, if you haven't already.

(Oh and something's fucked up with blogger where it won't let me post pictures. Once that gets fixed I'll have a bunch of sweet ones to throw in.)

Celebrate!

2007-10-03T04:52:00.000-07:00

Knock knock...

The teamster captain on the show I'm currently working on is probably one of the sweetest dudes I've ever met. He's in his seventies now, but he was one of the top boxers in the country years ago before a stray punch ruined his one eye. He remains one of the most effortlessly funny people I've ever met though, due in large part to the fact that he's got an even sleazier sense of humor than I do, and he's much more apt to display it in the middle of the office, regardless of the age, gender, or sexual orientation of anyone around.

Before I started here he came into the office one day and somehow got into a story of how a girl he dated when he was younger wanted him to bring home some kind of "toy." So he stopped at the butchers shop and got a "big fuckin salami", and after having some trouble getting a condom on it ("you ever try gettin a scumbag on a fuckin salami???") he went to town on her with it, and apparently she LOVED it. I say apparently because he decided to get down on the ground and act the scene out for everyone in the office, playing the role of his ladyfriend. This is a seventy year old man, lying on his back, kicking his legs around in the air and doing his best impression of a woman getting railed with a giant salami and absolutely loving it.

He later lost her to the one and only Peter Bogdonovich, which was especially hard because "I loved that girl! I kissed her asshole! That's fuckin love!" To this day, if you say the word "Bogdonovich" within a hundred yards of him, it's over. We got the intern to start talking about how he'd worked on some Peter Bogdonovich movie, and from the back of the office, no short distance thats also obstructed by various smaller offices we hear "PETER BOGDONOVICH?? THAT SONOFABITCH STOLE MY GIRL!" There's dozens of other awesome stories, including accidentally getting industrial strength cleaner with acid in it on his dick, and announcing the fact over the radio on set, but I couldn't possibly do them all justice.

The reason I started writing all this was that after telling me how a young teamster he knows is "balling" a well known actress ("he's laying some pipe there boy, let me tell you. He gets his oil changed REGULAR") and how Jim Brown speaks much less masculinely than one might think ("not sayin he's a fag or nothin, just sayin") he was on his way to the elevator when he stopped and yelled back:

"Hey-- what part of Popeye never gets rusty?"
"I dunno, what?"
"THE PART HE PUTS IN OLIVE OIL!"

Best dude.

2007-10-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Andy Samberg: batting 1000.

I didn't see Hot Rod, but heard it was pretty good from fairly reliable sources, and I haven't actually watched Saturday Night Live in forever, but all the digital shorts I've seen so far have been pretty awesome. Well the most famous one, the Lazy Sunday one, kind of blows, but that's only when put up against the ridiculous amount of hype it picked up, and most of it was from people who probably like shitty comedy anyway. There's a new one up on the good old internet now, or at least new to me. If it's old news, write me about it saying what a big fat jerk I am and we can have a nice exchange where I think of new ways to suggest you stick your head up your ass.

Oh and my roommate Zach is somehow loosely-boyz with the dude from Maroon 5, who's in this video. He got to hang out backstage at a Maroon 5 concert (I know, I didn't realize they were still a band either) and get fucked up on champagne and whatnot. That's where the story ends, but I'm sure he ended up trying to have some kind of relations with one of the band members, only to be denied. While Zach was crying into his white wine spritzer, one of the roadies came by and picked up the pieces. If you know what I mean. I'm sure Zach will deny that but he'll be all "NOOOOOOO..." and not just "No", which is a dead give away. And if he gets too sassy about it, my other roommate Steve and I will bully him back into his room with the boxing gloves we're buying for exactly that purpose.

I guess I could have just said "awsum new video lolz" but somehow the above paragraph makes me feel like this post was slightly more valid. One.

2007-10-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Well now I know what it's really like to be a Mets fan.

Not that I was short on excuses to drink heavily already, here's another. Historic collapse, Glavine somehow transforming himself into a human tee for the Marlins to hit off of, and a team I forgot even existed (The Colorado Rockies? Seriously?) at least having a shot of getting in, with the Mets sitting home with their thumbs alternating between their collective mouths and asses. The only good that can come of this is hopefully Lastings Milledge is inspired to put out another album, full of examples of why the Phillies are all homosexuals in none-too-subtle terms.

On top of the Mets eating shit, I went 4-9 in both my NFL pools and got blown out in the head-to-head fantasy league. And, shockingly, after opening the pre-season with a win, the Bruins dropped all of the rest of their last 5 games, giving me further hope for new lows in awful seasons. But Cam was named VP, so at least that much went right.

To cheer myself up, I re-watched the following clips of Norm on The View. Highlight include "I'd have sex with YOU while you're awake!" I don't know if theres ever been someone I'm this dangerously close to wanting to abduct and force into my body through some kind of unproven scientific method involving skin stretching and full body transplanting. Cause, you know, he's funny.

Part 1

Part 2

Lastly, I've more or less given up on doing my comics blog as a freestanding thing. Trying to review every stupid comic I read every week, on top of the dozens of other little projects I make for myself, was just getting to be too much. Not in the sense that it's such a massive undertaking, but that if I'm going to cut something out in order to actually accomplish the others, this is going to be it. I'm not totally abandoning it, but instead of every issue every week, I'll just do a write up if I read something exceptionally awesome or exceptionally shitty, and I'll just post it here, rather than on a separate blog.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the old posts from my comics blog are located HERE.

My only advice for the day is this: listen to "Pissed Jeans-Boring Girls", and realize how awesome a song can be with just one riff over and over again.

2007-09-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

Man, I love abusing the postal system.

At my work we buy rolls upon rolls of stamps every week. Nobody cares if you use a handful for personal mail, and they just sit in a drawer a few feet from where I sit. So I've started mailing things that really don't need to be mailed. All of the bill for my apartment are in my roomates names (along with the lease, score) so every month I have to shell out my share. Now instead of having to go to the bank and get cash to place in their grubby paws, I write them checks and mail them from work. The added bonuses being that when they hassle me about it I can get all indignant and yell "THE CHECKS IN THE MAIL! TAKE IT UP WITH THE POST OFFICE AND STOP GRATING MY SACK!" Then I like to slam a door or two for no reason. Well actually, I haven't done that yet because I just started this system, but I'm looking forward to doing it the next time the opportunity arises. The second awesome part is that I can address the envelopes with comical return addresses. My cable bill money was sent to Steve, from "Sawyer Williams: The Moon." And Zach should receive my rent check in a few days courtesy of LeatherDaddy magazine.

This might seem really juvenile and stupid to you, but that's because you're a big dumb jerk. You probably don't even take advantage of the hilarious possibilities afforded to you by the "memo" section on the front of a check. I'm really tempted to make one of my friends look like a big scumbag Klansman by filling out the memo section "white sheets, scissors, wooden crosses, gasoline." But so far I've stuck to just making the memo a variation on the same homo erotic themes. Sometimes I also like to draw little hearts down there.

I hope this has inspired the rest of you to take hold of life and live it to it's fullest.

2007-09-21T17:15:00.001-07:00

"Why I Hate the Yankees, or: How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating and Update"

Before I get into the topic of why the Yankees can eat my asshole, a few bits of what qualify as "news" in my little blogging world.

-I started writing for my friend Mark's site, Exploder 98. There are some other contributors, Mark writes a bunch, and it appears to be a decent place to stop on the internet. I "review", in a loose sense of the word, things I do, buy, and drink. At some point I'll start blogging over there too. Lord knows the content is just overflowing here.
-Finally put up all the pictures from the trip Kyle, Greg and I took to Panama. Those are over on my photo blog.
-Comics blog is semi-updated.
-All the back issues of Brickshitter are now permanently hosted thanks to Mark, so I won't have to remember to re-up the YSI links, which I hardly ever remembered to do in the first place.
-Speaking of Brickshitter, Number 6 will be out in a few weeks with the final Hardcore Superbattle, and interview with For Science from New Jersey, and the usual horseshit.

So exciting!

As I was saying, the Yankees blow. Bear with me here.

I grew up playing hockey year round, and being that I don't come from an especially sports-centric family, hockey was the only professional sport I followed at all. As I got older and got more into other sports, I found myself in a weird position where I had to choose a team to root for. It seems most sports fans are fans since birth, or at least since before the age where there's any particular rhyme or reason to allegiances. When you're little you're a fan of a team for usually one of three reasons:
1) Your Dad/older brother/Grandfather/some male relative is a fan. I know its 2007 and all, and everyone saw Rookie of the Year where Henry peels off the label on his glove to find out it's his mom's glove after all, and she's in the stands and is all "thats right honey. Now throw that bullshit underhanded limpwristed floater of a pitch and strike that comically villainous fatass out." So yeah, in theory, that could be the case, but lets be real. Your Dad liked the Jets, you like the Jets. End of story.
2) The team in question is your hometown team. This sometimes ties into reason #1, where your Dad grew up somewhere and moved by the time you came around, but he's still pulling for his old team. This is especially the case when he moves from somewhere sweet, like New York or Cleveland, to somewhere totally sucky like Florida. So maybe your folks made some poorly advised investments in a Gator Ranch and now you live in Florida, but you still root for the Tribe because to both live in Florida AND be a Marlins fan would make you human garbage. Unless you're this guy, who's an inspiration to us all.
3) Whatever team has won the most recently is your favorite because little kids can't handle liking a suck team, and it's awesome to like the best team even if every other kid in school likes them too. This accounts for 95% of Bulls fans my age not from Chicago.
4) You have some sort of bizarre little kid logic behind it. This often involves colors, mascots, logos...you know, the kind of reasons girls like sports teams.

The only pro team I've followed for more or less my entire life is the Boston Bruins. That choice was a combination of reasons #1 and #4. My babysitter at the time was the son of one of my mom's co-workers. My brother and I both loved having him as a babysitter because he'd play street hockey with us all day and let us do questionably dangerous things like play games that consisted of throwing two by fours at each other, that crappy girl babysitters would never let you do. He also played high school hockey, which to my six year old mind might as well have been the NHL. So he was essentially the coolest dude in the world as far as I was concerned, and while he wasn't a relative, he qualifies for the reason #1. The second part, the #4 part, was that I didn't know a Bruin was a bear, and thought it was some kind of a monster. In fairness the bear patches on the shoulders of the jersey's look at least as much like a monster as they do a bear, at least if you're a little kid.

As I got older and decided I wanted a baseball team to follow, I was in the strange position I mentioned at the beginning of this trainwreck. Almost all my friends in Albany were Yankees fans, and the Yankees were in the middle of winning a thousand world series in a row. I was way too old to be some frontrunning asshole, and the Yankees of the last fifteen years have been such a bunch of stuffed shirt clean cut douchebags that I couldn't get behind them even if they hadn't won in years.

So I became a Mets fan. And I'm obviously not going to pretend like I've suffered through ups and downs with them, because since I've followed the Mets they've been either really good or at least pretty alright to decent.

So here's where the title comes in. This year, for the first time in my brief life as a Mets fan, not only were the Mets pretty awesome, but the Yankees were sucking not one but many cocks. I made a half dozen or so $20 bets with friends of mine that the Mets would finish with a better regular season record than the Yankees, and I was so confident that I would have made a dozen more. Every commentator and sportswriter were declaring the Yankees dead in the water, so bad they wouldn't even make the wild card. The mets were riding high, close to a double digit lead atop the NL East. Everything was SO RIGHT.

But then, the Yankees decided to be the Yankees, and the Mets decided to be the Mets. Now the Yankees have the AL Wild Card on lock and are only a game and a half behind the Sox. The Mets however, are teetering on the brink of not only losing the NL East title, but missing the playoffs all together. And I'm going to have to listen to smug fucking Kyle and his stupid fucking Yankees as they probably win the World series, and the Mets will somehow get raped by a gang of wild dogs when they have to make an emergency landing in the desert. It's not the fact that the Yankees are playing near flawless baseball that bothers me. It's not even that the Mets are huffing hard. It's that both things are happening at the SAME TIME in what was supposed to be the Mets year. If you got served a shit sandwich for lunch every day for weeks on end, it would suck but you'd get used to it. But to one morning come in and see the lunchlady preparing a four course gourmet feast, with a big banner that said "JUST FOR YOU!" over it, and to think about it all morning, and get all excited...and then to get not only a shit sandwich but a COLD shit sandwich...man, that blows. And that's what's happening to Mets fans this year.

2007-07-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

John Lovitz 4 Prez

Jon Lovitz already an awesome dude based solely on how fucking hilarious he is. Even if you were to erase his entire career and judge him based solely on The Critic, he'd be great. Actually, scratch that, even if he had never done anything but the one sketch on SNL where he plays the game show contestant who keeps getting answers wrong on purpose so he gets a worse and worse wedgie, he would STILL be great.

But the other day he did something that moved him from just plain great into the running for BEST DUDE EVER status. Apparently he was out somewhere and Andy Dick just came up to him and said "I'm putting the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next to die." Maybe Andy's jizz/meth slurpee had a little too much taurine in it and he was all hyped up, but short of that I seriously can't imagine what made him think that would be a good idea. I mean I don't know what prompts Andy Dick to do the majority of the things he's done in the last decade, but this just seems like such an obviously bad idea. It's not a secret that Lovitz and Hartman were pretty good friends, and I'd imagine even the local news on Planet Jackoffizoid where Andy lives these days must have picked that up.

But I don't think anyone could have predicted just HOW bad of an idea it was. When it first happened, I guess Lovitz was just kind of shocked or surprised or whatever. Then when he ran into Dick again, he expected an apology, which he didn't get. So then he "picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started pouring out of [Andy's] nose."

So Dick made the mistake that we all probably made, not realizing that not only is Jon Lovitz HI-LARIOUS, he's also HARD AZ NAILZ.

Okay, so smashing someone's face into a bar isn't really hard as nails, but considering most celebrity fights resemble THIS , it's pretty fucking sweet. And it's not like Jon Lovitz is some action star that takes all sorts of ass-kicking classes for his various roles. This is just a dude who wasn't having it anymore, and busted that fucker up. Good for you Jon Lovitz. Smash some face.

2007-07-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

"With age comes wisdom."

I think there's a saying that's along those lines. Or maybe it's "the wisdom of age." Regardless, the general understanding is that you get smarter as you get older. And while for the most part that's been true in my life, sometimes I think the trajectory gets knocked off course a little bit. I guess you could also chalk said departures up to lapses in judgement as well. But in the past weeks I've managed to surprise myself not once but three times by doing things that most people figure out not to do well before the age of twenty five. Usually around say, twelve. I'll work my way through them in descending order of stupidity from "you're SURE you made it out of grade school?" to "tell you what, let me have those matches back."

The first being blowing up my toilet last week. And I don't mean in the "duuuuude, I just took the burliest dump EVER, I blew that shit UP" way. I mean in the more literal sense. To preface the situation: for those of you out there who are dirty commies/don't have calendars, last Wednesday was the 4th of July. Being a red blooded 'merican who really enjoys drinking, bar-b-que'ing, fireworks and any and all out-of-doors activities, it's a holiday I look forward to each year. With the exception of Christmas it's probably my favorite one.

This year however, was not one of my best. In fact, I'd say it was probably my worst. That's assuming I didn't have any particularly horrible 4th's in the first couple years of my life that were so traumatic that I've blocked them from my memory. Due to a variety of factors including my work schedule, inabilty to travel, weather and how long it took to get anywhere that day, I ended up doing exactly one of the handful of things I'd planned on doing. By the end of the night, my roomate/confidant/writing partner/belly-chain enthusiast Steve and I had given up on going up to our friend Trevor's for the fireworks, and ended up watching "Accepted" in our livingroom. Afterwards, I wanted to at least go sit on the roof and shoot off some of the sack of fireworks I had leftover from a trip to Cleveland a month or so ago. Despite his many positive qualities that make Steve the joy that he is, one of his downsides is that he's a pussy. By that I mean, he's afraid of heights/doesn't like fireworks that much, and he refused to climb the fire escape to our roof with me and light off fireworks. So I ended up on the roof by myself in the drizzling rain shooting roman candles and bottle rockets down into the street.

Now, as anyone who knows me well can tell you, there are few things I love more in the world than fireworks. Specifically the kind that you can shoot off yourself. The big shows are nice to watch and all, but I prefer the more up close and personal kind. A large part of that enjoyment comes from lighting them off with/at other people. One of my single favorite things in life is a good fireworks-fight, and that's one of the many standard 4th of July activities that I missed out on this year. Which also contributed to it being a kind of crappy year.

Point being, as much as I love fireworks, sitting on your roof in the rain by yourself is a pretty lonely time, no matter the activity. Around the same time that I started to get good and wet, my lighter started to shit the bed, so I headed inside. Still pretty bummed on the days events, or lack thereof, I went for a last ditch effort to cheer myself up. Amongst my various fireworks were a few packs of little black cat style firecrackers with waterproof wicks. Now, I've had black cats go off in my hand, in my pocket, down my shirt, pretty much everywhere they could go off save for between the ole' cheeks. (Yet.) So I assumed, like any other rational person would, that these things aren't exactly halfsticks. Being that the only body of water in my apartment was my toilet, I tossed one in the bowl, watched it sizzle, then PLOOP, nice little water spout.

Say what you will about me, but it really perked me up. Frankly I take pride in the fact that it's the little things in life that keep my spirits soaring. A sunny day, a crisp apple right off the tree, the smell of fresh cut grass, blowing shit up in a toilet...

The problem arose on the third try. After the pleasing geyser, there was a distinct cracking sound, and the lower half of the toilet bowl separated from the upper. The water that was left ended up on the floor, and that was pretty much the end of the toilet. I already knew this wasn't going to make me too popular with my roomates, and it probably didn't help matters that when Steve came in to see what I was talking about I started laughing again.

As an aside, we have two toilets, so it's not like I was causing anyone to have to go hobo-style and shit in a bag and throw it out the window. And yeah, blowing up the toilet was a stupid thing to do, but it's one of those things that no matter how rationally you can realize and understand that it was a bad idea, it doesn't stop it from being funny. I tried to propose the idea of not fixing the broken toilet so we'd have one toilet to make in and another to blow things up in. That resolution was voted down two to one. (I bet you can guess which to no-fun-niks voted "nay.")

The next morning I was waiting for the train to go into work after hockey, and I noticed that all the support beams in the subway station were now a much brighter red and had "wet paint" signs on them. Before I could even stop to think twice, I was just like "Really? For sure?" and stuck my hand on one of them. And believe it or not, the signs weren't kidding, it was wet paint. So I had a nice bright red palm to take to work.

The last thing happened the following day. A couple buildings on my street are under construction or being renovated, so there's a big dumpster parked down the block. Someone threw out a mattress that's just been leaning up against it for awhile now. It had rained on the fourth, pretty hard at times, and as I walked by it, I thought to myself "boy, I bet that old wet mattress that's had time to bake in the sun smells TERRIBLE." And again, before I really thought about it, I stuck my nose in for a big whiff. And yup, it smelled fucking disgusting. Jamming-a-hooker's-hoo-hah-with-a-dead-rat-on-a-stick-disgusting.

Again, that was probably something I could have assumed without double checking, much like the wet paint. But for whatever reason my initial instinct is just to check it out for myself. As someone I just met suggested when hearing all this, I guess I'm just curious.

Oh and the toilets fixed, so I won't get to find out what happens when you stick a bunch of firecrackers inside a tube of toothpaste and put it in the toilet. But whatever happens, I bet it's awesome.

2007-06-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

Terry Crews may be the most underrated comedic actor of the last forty years. That's something of an arbitrary number, because I don't feel like sitting here and putting together any kind of accurate timeline where I can say, "oh, well, in 1967 there was a little known comic by the name of Sonny Jim who, despite countless years and miles logged touring the comedy circuit never got the recognition he deserved." I like the way "in the last forty years" sounds, so I'm going to go with that.

As I was saying, Terry Crews: he's never had a starring role, and beyond that he's pretty one dimensional. He's pretty much always cast as the "big scary black guy who _____" in any given movie. And to be fair, while Terry might have the range of a younger, buffer, blacker, Hoffman, the casting industry is a pretty raw job where you're constantly trying to weave between a million shitty actors and thousands of stressed out AD's who just want the role filled and don't have time to sit around watching the larval actors try to emerge from the cocoon of typecasting as a versatile butterfly of a thousand faces. Basically you need to get an actor, any actor, into the part so you can move on to the next one.

I hope everyone enjoyed that butterfly metaphor, because it took me a solid thirty seconds to remember the word "larval", and being that time is money, that shit wasn't free. Though in the interest of full disclosure, I'm writing this on a northbound train around noon and working my way through another tallboy, so my time isn't exactly priceless at the moment.

At some point I'm going to follow this blithering back to Terry Crews, but thinking about casting agents reminded me of when casting sent over a few dozen actresses to audition for the role of "Hooker #1" for a pilot that was shooting out of the production office for the other TV show I work on. Normally when we have auditions in the office it blows for me because I have to take time out of my busy schedule of trying to find punker videos on YouTube to direct a bunch of dumbass actors to the bathroom, kitchen, etc etc. But THIS day was awesome because the office was full of a ton of struggling lady actors, or "actresses" for the feminists out there, who came it dressed up like hookers. Which, to my mind, is even better than an office full of actual hookers, because this way I don't have to watch my wallet every thirty seconds, or get fired for ALLEGEDLY making time in the bathroom with said hookers.

But moving on, it's not to say that I, or anyone else for that matter, doesn't believe Terry is capable of a career turning performance as a "big scary black guy who's also a lovable retarded guy" ala Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. He just hasn't gotten that break yet. But honestly, you know what? Good for him. In a way I find it really obnoxious when actors bitch about getting typecast into a certain role, and complain about not being able to fully explore their potential or whatever other horseshit they're lead to believe they have by softhanded agents. Yeah, you have to go to work for twenty years and play variations on the same part over and over and over again, but that beats the shit out of going to work for thirty years doing LITERALLY the same thing every day, especially when that same thing is something that you hate and get paid jack shit to do, like most of the rest of the world.

I don't mean to say I begrudge actors who are able to break out of a certain role, and who are able to land all sorts of new and exciting parts. Good for them, if that helps make them happier, that rules. But there are worse things in the world than playing "farty guy" in National Lampoon straight to DVD movies for the rest of your life.

And this is where it finally gets back to Terry Crews. He's basically the same guy in every movie, but he has absolutely PERFECTED that role. The pinnacle of his acting achievements is White Girls. The Wayans Brothers written/directed/produced film features Crews at his absolute best. Were I to put together a comedy time capsule for the ages, it would have to include two scenes from White Girls. The first being when he sings Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" and the second being when he's on ecstasy at the dance club and is rave dancing shirtless with glowsticks and a whistle. Fuck. I defy you to watch either of those scenes without dying. And if you don't, you're a shitty asshole with a shitty asshole sense of humor.

When it comes down to it I have unending respect and admiration for Crews and the fact that he has no bullshit actor-y delusions of grandeur. When it comes down to it, he knows that he's a big scary buff black dude who has GREAT comedic timing, and if he takes his shirt off and raves out with a whistle and it makes the people laugh, that's all there is to it. It's all summed up in a bit from Raw, substituting "them", being smarmy pretentious jerkoffs everywhere, for "Bill" in the original bit.

"Do the people laugh when you [do] that shit? " "Yeah." "The tell [them] I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up."

And the two clips from White Chicks that I mentioned earlier are below. The second, the one at the club, is funnier in context, but it's still pretty hilarious even if you haven't seen the movie.

2007-06-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

There was a point in my life that I'd be too embarassed to admit what I'm about to admit. Back in my youth, I was way too concerned about losing punker cred if it were to come out that I wasn't exceptionally well versed in the entire catalog of all the bands a serious punker is supposed to be aware of. Partially because when I was a little shithead and first getting into hardcore the internet was still in it's fledgling stages, and for those of us with AOL and a dialup connection, which, in the mid 90's, was most everyone except super geeks, the internet was primarily useful only for experimenting with cybersex and patiently awaiting the reveal of a nipple as you tried to download the free samples off the playboy site. Come to think of it, cybersex, or "cybering", as the kids called it at the time, is something else that I probably would have been too embarassed to admit to at one point. But you know what, if you were like 13 and talking dirty to strangers who may or may not be hot chicks was a new and exciting thing and you didn't AT LEAST check it out, there's something wrong with you.

The point is, it wasn't like it is now where you can get any record ever made in about three mintues of searching. So instead of hearing every awesome record under the sun, I heard a handful which I fell in love with and can pretty much recite word for word to this day (see: Bad Brains-s/t).

A band that I'd heard when I was younger, but only in snippets due to never owning any of their stuff, was Poison Idea. At some point I got a copy of "Feel the Darkness" on CD, and that ended up getting regular rotation for awhile. I don't think anyone is going to try and debate the merits of that record, or at least not anyone with halfway decent taste. But as great as it is, it's a very different record than "Pick Your King", which, in a typically roundabout fashion, is the reason for this post, and the admission which was alluded to earlier.

Here it is: I never REALLY go into "Pick Your King" until the last few months. Yeah, of course I'd heard the record before, and it's not like I disliked it in the slightest, but for whatever reason it never just kicked me in the stomach until recently. I'm now at the point most kids hit at 17 where I just can't stop listening to it. It's such a perfect record I'm honestly dumbfounded that I haven't tried to whittle a larger hole into it and just take it to bed with me. Not a single throwaway song, and it doesn't let up from start to finish.

I'm not going to go on and on about how great it is because a) pretty much everyone knows that already and b) that's not the point of this. The point is, it's totally sweet finally getting to the age where I give less and less of a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me, least of all a bunch of little asshole punkers who want to call me a poseur because I just got into PYK at 25. One of the few things I'm looking forward to about getting older is that the older I get the less of a fuck I give about other people, and it's going to be awesome when I'm 50 and stop bothering with hassles like "pants" just to appease other people.

Hardcore rules, ok?

2007-06-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Zines, Zines, always more Zines.

That's actually rarely the case. Most of the time these days, zines are few and far between. While they're inarguably becoming more and more antiquated every day, there's something to be said (and has been, ad nauseum) for the qualities of a paper zine that still make them worthwhile. Thanks to my current job I've been able to finally do Brickshitter on the regular, and I've been trading with people more frequently too. Matt Radiobeat has been banging out Beat Sheet just as quickly, if not more so, and I just got the For the Worse/Concrete Facelift tour diary issue in the mail. I also picked up Ride the Fury Fanzine #1, a new zine out of NJ that my friend Pat puts out. More on both of those in a second, but getting new zines in general is always a highlight of doing a zine, so anyone who's doing anything zine-ish these days, please send me a copy, I'll send back all my garbage and more. Lucky you. Hardcore zines rule, ok?

Beat Sheet Vol. 5: For the Worse/Concrete Facelift World Tour Diary

Matt roadied for the above four day world tour, and recounts the weekend's events in this issue. Most tour diaries are either so bland and matter of fact ("Show was cool, some kids moshed. Ate pizza after, watched movies. Van ride was long. Repeat.") or made up entirely of longwinded inside jokes ("So then Bobby Stagedive was like 'ALFALFA SPROUTS, COCKSUCKERS!' and everyone was all 'LOL' and then we all went to that one place that Stevie said was awesome, but it was only awesome becuz he got this girls digits there and then f-banged her in the van that one time.") This zine, happily, is neither. There's a good balance between the funny shit that went on and plenty of show/bands talk as well. Really entertaining, perfect length for a straight through read with no filler. And on a strictly aesthetic level, this is the best looking issue Matt has done by far. He'll have the whole thing up for a download in PDF form on his blog sometime soon, so check that out, or email him (radiobeat@gmail.com) for a copy.

Ride the Fury Fanzine #1

RTF is a Jersey based zine that, at least so far, focuses mostly on said area. RTF#1 is a short fullsize zine with a Dustheads interview, record reviews, two short columns and a list of tips on how to go about booking DIY shows. Pat and Jeff split the writing pretty much down the middle, so there's two perspectives that are different enough to stand apart but not so far divergent to give the thing a schizo tone. The interview is a little on the short side, but otherwise no complaints, and as the Dustheads are arguably the best band going right now, no such thing as too much exposure. (Side note: Tall Tales I and II are both out now on Don Giovanni records, I is almost out of print, so get both asap.) In addition to the interview there are reviews of new records from the Ergs, Mother Night Hellhole, Kill Your Idols, and Pellinore, a column about the last last Kill Your Idols show, and one about the whole "coatrack" issue.

Both columns are concise and straight to the point, the only issue I (personally) have is with the coatracks one. And you know what, as I typed the following few sentences, I started thinking about the column and remembered that what I'm arguing against isn't what the column was saying at all. The whole "not enough girls in hardcore" thing always sets me off though, so I ended up on a fairly unrelated tangent, at least as far as said column is concerned. But this is my blog, and I'm a pretty self indulgent guy, so I'm leaving it in. But for the record, the column is actually saying that there are plenty of girls in DA SCENE and that people just need to look around more, at least in jersey. Basically. So here's the aforementioned blathering: Partially because I'm a sexist, but partially because I don't believe in coddling people, I have zero desire to go out of my way to make hardcore more welcoming to girls, or to give them a pat on the back for showing up and singing along. I also don't go around looking for other "under represented" groups and say like "hey, black guy, you know what you might like? Punk rock! And we don't have too many of you folks, so you should come up the quotient. Awesome. Oh and if you have any friends who are gays or asians that would be GREAT. High five!" Hardcore is something that primarily appeals to guys, and, for whatever reasons, white guys. While I obviously have no problem with it if girls and every other race under the sun wants to come to shows, (except Italians, just don't trust em) I don't think there's any need to adjust things to cater to people. I don't expect the knitting classes at the Y to start including tailgating and fireworks just to make sure I feel welcome.

Yeah, so at one point, I was still talking about Ride the Fury. This is also the first zine Pat and Jeff have done, and while it shows with some of the layout aspects**, it's still an enjoyable read, and hopefully we'll be seeing more in the future.

(**About that layout...something it took me literally years of doing crappy zines to learn is to limit the handwritten parts to an absolute minimum. I know how it is, last minute stuff that you forgot, but try to use it very sparingly.)

Get ahold of Pat (gerity@rider.edu or http://myspace.com/xpatgerityx) or Jeff (atlf27@comcast.net or http://myspace.com/jeffguerriero) for a copy.

And, my last little plug, Brickshitter #3-5 are still available for mailorder, send your mailing address to grossnation@gmail.com, and #6 will be out in a few weeks. And all the back issues, #1-5 are up for download as PDF's on the myspace (if the links are dead, check back in a few days, I have to refresh them every so often.

dog cum.

2007-05-10T18:10:00.000-07:00

Brickshitter Fanzine #5 is Out Now!!!

Issue #5 features interviews with Black SS from Syracuse, and Nate Wilson/Gloom Records. It also has the third round of hardcore superbattles, this one focusing on Boston. And of course, another installment of Dude-eronomy from Mike Dikk and Jay Pud, a Steve Fontamozzarella column about the ladies, Twiztid Chris's column, and some other nonsense.

As always, send your mailing address to grossnation@gmail.com for a free copy in the mail, and it will be up along with all the other back issues on the myspace for download as a pdf in the next few days.

I've also made major steps in the advancement of the zine when I purchased a giant extendo-stapler, so the issues are no longer just folded together. It's a wild twenty first century world out there, and I'm diving in headfirst. Hoo-rah.

make sure to check out all the bands/people/stuff in this issue, as well as other things the contributors do:

Black SS
Gloom Records
Gloom/Nate on Myspace
Nate's Punk/Metal Blog
Dumpin' (Mike Dikk's Music Blog)
EWA (Music, Movies, Random Shit Blog feat. Mike Dikk, Tommyrot from Black SS, more)
Pictures of Idiots
My Comics Blog
Brickshitter Fanzine on Myspace

In other zine news, I got issues 1 and 2 of "Treble High, Talent Low", a new zine out of Glens Falls, NY, and issue 4.5 of "Beat Sheet", a newsletter style zine from the Boston-ish area in the mail this week.

TREBLE HIGH, TALENT LOW:

Treble High is a really well put together zine, though it may just be impressive to me because my layouts are either exceptionally sparse or look like they were used to paper a racoon breeding pen. The first issue has the first half of a 9 Shocks interview, an interview w/ Not Very Nice Zine/Tape label, some columns, some poetry (that's happily not pretentious, obnoxious, or poorly constructed) and a comic-y sort of thing. The second issue has the rest of that 9 Shocks interview as well as interviews w/ The Jury from Albany and Gross National Product from Florida, as well as more columns and so forth.

I think what I like most about Treble High is that while I'm not terribly interested in the zine's politics, nor do I particularly agree with them, Brandon and his contributors write about them in such a manner that it's readable, neither preachy nor boring. Although having been in a band that's covered Vile on multiple occasions, and another "band" that's done an entire Vile cover set, I can't say I'm really behind the whole last page rallying cry in issue #2. But it's refreshing to read a zine that still manages to be enjoyable even though most of the subject matter isn't exactly up my alley.

All around great zine, and really well put together, especially considering Brandon is in 10th grade or something like that. Certainly miles beyond my first zine. If he has any copies left, definitely try and get ahold of one. Write him at: brandon_gaffney@yahoo.com.

BEAT SHEET:

Beat Sheet is a newsletter type zine that Matt Radio Beat puts together every so often. They seem to come out around every month, sometimes more frequently so. Short and sweet, with show reviews, record reviews, food reviews, pictures and general musings, thrown together in an appropriately haphazard cut and paste style. An always entertaining read on the goings on of hardcore in the general New England area and beyond, and it comes out regularly enough that the record reviews and recommendations are actually relevant and current. I think he still has the most recent issue and possibly the one before it, so write and grab a copy while you can. Radiobeat@gmail.com

It's been said to death, but there really is something rewarding about doing paper zines, and even more so checking out other peoples zines. Sure, a large percentage of them are horrible, but it's still worth checking out new ones and tracking down old ones, at least as far as I'm concerned. Speaking of which, if anyone has the first three issues of Town Of Hardcore, get in touch.

And of course, anyone doing a zine right now, I'd love to trade. I might make fun of it later, but you'll have plenty of ammo to return fire if need be. Write to grossnation@gmail.com to set up trades, because I'm moving in the next few weeks and don't know what my mailing address will be yet.

2007-05-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Don Rickles!

I'm sure if I actually wished him a happy birthday to his face he'd spit on me and then insult me in such an acerbic manner as to make my head spin and set my loins so aflame they'd spontaneously combust. I should disclose that one of the reasons Sarah Silverman ranks so high in my top twenty is that the idea of her breaking my balls whilst balling me is about as close to heaven as it gets. You know how Jack Black was blinded by love or whatever in Shallow Hal? Well that's me, but with one liners. I'm actually concerned that if I were to hang out with Don Rickles long enough he'd eventually start looking more and more like a sexy broad, that one morning I'd wake up next to a 80 year old man. And contrary to popular belief, that's not my shortlist of life goals.

Don Rickles is the Moses of insult comics. He went up on the mountain and came back down with perfection. He isn't the first, he won't be the last, but he won't be topped. Triumph is the only one that's ever come close, and he's a fucking puppet.

He also just published his memoirs, which you can (and should) buy HERE.

And finally, I'll leave you with the comedic equivalent of a four day orgasm. Whatever that asian meditation sex thing Sting does is called, that's bullshit. This is the real deal. 81 years young, hopefully 81 more.

2007-04-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Kunker War Bunker, a Historical Analysis.

In various posts on this blog and in some zines I've done I've made reference to the time I spent living with Greg and AJ at 41 Kunker Ave in Latham, more affectionately/accurately known as "The KWB" or "The Kunker War Bunker." I can't remember who came up with that name, I'm going to say it was either Greg or Kyle, but for awhile Greg listed his occupation as "General of the KWB." Which was pretty appropriate because that was during his long, drawn out unemployed phase, which was a dark and strange world that I got drawn into for awhile, bur more on that later. As a brief aside, it wasn't dark and strange because he wasn't working, but because of the hours he started to keep and the way he occupied that time.

But moving on, the time I spent living there and some of the times just hanging out before and after have added up to make up a large chunk of some of the best/most ridiculous moments of my life. Rather than just try and do a big entry about those times, or mention them sporadically throughout this thing, I decided to start putting together a timeline of sorts of the house in it's various stages and occupancies.

This first entry is just a very general history of the house predating my time there, as best I understand it. It's not exceptionally comical or interesting, but it helps to explain how Greg and AJ came to be the quasi-owners of an entire house.

When I met them, Greg and AJ were living up the street with their folks on Grandview. Kyle did a really good job of talking about the neighborhood and its inhabitants in his blog, so I won't go into that at all. But at the time, which was a little less than nine years ago, they lived up the street on Grandview and their Grandmother lived down the street at the future KWB. She was their maternal grandmother, and their Mom grew up in that house, and (I think?) their grandfather built the house primarily with his bare hands, which is pretty awesome. Somewhere around 5 or 6 years ago she moved up the street to Grandview and then passed away a few years later. The house was then semi-used until Greg came back from culinary school in pittsburgh and then working in Nashville, at which point he and AJ first occupied the house simultaneously. Being that the house had been in the family for generations it was well beyond paid off, and so it was a cheap and easy way to get Greg and AJ out of the house up the street, so it made sense all around. And essentially, this is where our story begins.

The next entry will be my first stay in the house, and it's birth as the KWB in a fire of fun and idiocy.

2007-03-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Brickshitter #4 is out.

Brickshitter Fanzine Issue #4 feat. Mother Night, harDCore superbattle, a mike dikk column about hype/sensi-male music, another steve fontamozzarella column about ladies, a kyle chard column about the state of hardcore merch, a Twiztid Chris column about the state of the union and a joe steinhardt financial advice column.

Free as always, send mailing address to: grossnation@gmail.com for a copy. I didn't make it to the post office this weekend due to a sever bout of inebriation, but the people who are waiting for issue 3, the second round of those are going out this week as well.

Issue 5 out in a few weeks w/ more of the same.

other Brickshitter news:
-we're on myspace, add us: http://myspace.com/brickshitterzine
-all the back issues are up for download in PDF format on the myspace. issue 4 will be up in a week or so.
-still in need of puke pictures. send any and all to grossnation@gmail.com

-check out the following things/contributors:

Mike Dikk/Dumpin'
Kyle Chard
Mother Night
Brickshitter on MySpace

2007-03-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

Brickshitter Returns.

So Brickshitter Fanzine is back in action, issue 3 came out two weeks ago, 3.1 (the revised and nicer looking #3) and #4 will be out by this Saturday. There's a Myspace for it too, and all the old issues will be up in PDF format in a little bit. So add us, THANKS.

Brickshitter Fanzine

2007-03-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Fucking Blogger.

So no matter how much I mess with it and change the formatting, I can't get the font sizes to stay normal for the post below. If it weren't for all the links I'd just cut paste and do it all over again, but thats far too much hassle. It's kind of frustrating that an otherwise really easy to use thing has such a shit aspect to it. And I talked to people who actually know about website stuff who have the same problem, so it's not just me being a caveman.

Hopefully you can trudge through the size changes and still embrace the exhilirating and arousing content that lies beneath.

2007-03-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

I feel like a bag of dicks.

I've been sick for the last four days, and between my head feeling like it weighs 30 pounds, everything tasting like medicine, and generally feeling like a 75 year old man, I've had a really hard time getting motivated to do anything. Just making it in to work Friday was enough of a chore.

That said, I'm going to keep this thing updated come hell or high water. I'm too mentally fuzzy to put anything exceptionally creative up, so this is going to be a brief list of things I'm excited about these days. As always, since I have impeccable taste in everything, you should check these things out too, because they're all pretty great, or will be. I'll try and include entertaining and helpful links wherever possible.

1. 300
This should be a pretty big no brainer. If I didn't already have a massive hard-on for pretty much anything Frank Miller does, the trailers alone would be enough to sell me on this. And pretty much everyone I know* is equally excited, so this won't be too eye-opening for anyone, unless you live underneath a rock. A rock WITHOUT an internet connection.
(*My friend Matt is actually actively opposed to this movie, and while I think he's crazy, his reasoning is actually pretty funny. "Like when I first saw the commercial I was so into the battle scenes. Then there would be like some sort of fairy floating around. And I was not into it. I think im going to smoke weed and watch Passion of the Christ instead.")

2. Mother Night/Hellhole/Staring Problem @ the Court Tavern

The court tavern is some bar on the outskirts of MY New Brunswick, which is generally limited to the areas between the park where we play football, the train station, 75/77 Louis, Easton Ave, and sometimes the Rutgers Dining hall as an outside boundary. I mention the paramaters of my NB because the first time I ever went to the Court Tavern it seemed like a far off and mystical voyage. And it's still farther than I usually stray, in the weird no-man's land between fancy-downtown and sleepy-mexican-town. As far as bars that have shows, it's pretty cool. More or less on par with downstairs Valentines, as far as a comparison for the Albany folk. But Valentines doesn't have Williams Brewed Hot Lager on tap.
More importantly, this show is going to rule. I'm not from New Jersey and it's not 1999 anymore, so I don't really care about Ensign. And I don't know who The Gaslight Anthem are, but Hellhole are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands, Mother Night always kills live, and I've been wanting to see Staring Problem for awhile. AND it's St. Patrick's day, which doesn't mean anything to me in the way of "Hoi Toi Toi, Proid of the Oyrish!", because I'm no fan of the Irish, despite being half myself. But it DOES mean something to me in the way of "you're allowed to drink in the street." So I'm sure by 2pm I'll be good and drunk, and if the weather's decent, there's nothing better than drinking outdoors and then doing something fun.

3. Farce of the Penguins
Most cinephiles and scholars of film agree that the greatest movie of the last 50 years, and possibly in movie history was a delightful dash of whimsy that sprang off the screen and into our hearts in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Eight by the name of...Dirty Work. Bob Saget, who directed Dirty Work hasn't directed a feature film until now. And by feature film, I mean 80 minutes of stock nature footage with Penguins telling dick and fart jokes. Norm makes a brief appearance during a penguin orgy with the highlight line of the movie: "Hey, a foursome, can I join in? No? Can I just urinate on the four of you then?"

4. "New" Cracked Magazine
Well, life is really just doing its best to give me lemons, wait for me to turn them into lemonade, then take away my lemonade and kick me in the crotch. This entry WAS going to be about how I randomly picked up an issue of Cracked for a train ride home, and spent the entire trip pissing off Zach and Steve by laughing uncontrollably. If you were ever 10 and not a dork, you read both Mad and Cracked. You always knew that Mad was the superior magazine, but there just weren't enough puns in a month, so you had to get Cracked too. It was always okay, but nothing amazing. This is an entirely new magazine, that was front to back hilarious. Everything from a first person piece by Socrates as he goes door to door under Meghans law* "Oh and by the way, I'm an excellent tutor. Ever hear of Plato? I taught him everything he knew, for free! Well, not exactly for free." to "New Years Resolutions vs. New Years Reality" (Resolution when offered a drink: "No thanks, I'm cutting back." Reality: "No thanks, I brought my own thermos of scotch.")
Yes, this entry WAS going to be about how great that was, and how I just became a subscriber. But when google searching for an image, I found out that after the relaunch in it's new format that just started in August, Cracked has folded. It's now entirely web based. So that pretty much ruined my day. And this blog entry. Fuck. Go to the website though, it's still really funny. But man, life is a evil, evil, bitch monster. With fangs.
*Socrates fucked boys. In case anyone somehow didn't know that.

5. Movie Trailers.
I honestly think that trailers are my favorite part of the moviegoing experience. Even if the movie I go to see ends up being awful, there's always at least one or two good trailers. And most of the time, after the trailers are over I want to see every single movie advertised. Even the movie with Stone Cold thats a blatant rip off of Series 7 and Battle Royale, but way dumber. So since I'm now in a bad mood about the whole Cracked going under thing, I'm going to end this by just linking my top 10 current trailers, in no particular order. Except #1 is #1.

1. Knocked Up
2. Aqua Teen
3. Mr. Woodcock
4. Live Free or Die Hard
5. Grindhouse

6. Dead Silence
7. Reign Over Me

8. Disturbia
9. Black Sheep
10. Shooter

I'm not saying these are the best movies coming out, or that they're even the ones I'm looking forward to the most. I could probably have done a list of 25 and still left off some sweet ones. I left off things like the Simpsons Movie and Spiderman 3 because everyone's going to see those anyway. There's no closure to this entry. Ta ta. (P.S- I can't figure out how to un-underline this last part. Which is just more sand in my craw. Fuck.)

2007-02-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is going to be my addendum to Kyle's "Behind the Mall" blogs. While I didn't grow up in Latham or the neighborhood, I've spent a ton of time there for going on eight years. For part of my sophmore year and practically all of my junior and senior years I stayed at Greg and AJ's almost every weekend. This was in large part because of the fact that at that point I only had my conditional drivers licence, which in New York means you can't drive after 9pm until you turn 18, unless you take drivers ed (which is for queers.) Greg's parents didn't care when I drove, and since at that point I was one of the few of our friends who could drive at all, this made doing things a whole lot easier. Before I get too far off track with a story that will inevitably go nowhere, I'll just jump right into it. These are the characters/places/events I experienced as a hanger-on in the 'hood.

1. Bobby Ray.

I always knew him as Bobby Arnold, and out of everyone on this list, I've had the most interaction with him. When I first met Bobby, he was just this goofy little kid who told Greg how much he liked Greg's boxers. As he grew older, he turned into this quasi sketchy lump with a moustache. AJ and I have speculated that he probably can't deal with a razor on his own, so his mom must groom it for him (see Kyle's Blog for info on her). Now, this means that a grown woman thinks to herself "What would make my already haggard son look better? OF COURSE!! A thin, scraggly, greasy excuse for a moustahce!" I guess it's kind of arbitrary, since it's not like Bobby was going to be pulling babes in any event (except by the hair, possibly).

I spent a summer and winter break living at the Kunker War Bunker about 2 years ago. The house is laid out with a big livingroom downstairs attached to the kitchen through an archway, and then a bathroom and two bedrooms to the left (as you face the house). The second floor consists of an open livingroom and a separate master bedroom. This was pre-fire, while AJ still lived there too. I had the upstairs livingroom as my bedroom in the winter, and the downstairs front bedroom for the summer. I mention those locations only because the way the house is laid out is somewhat relevant when explaining my two most recent dealings with Bobby.

That winter break was a month and a half, and after a few halfassed attempts to get a job within walking distance of the house, I decided there was no point in trying to get a job for a few weeks anyway. Greg was unemployed at the time as well, and I can't remember if AJ was in school but he had a pretty loose schedule either way. This lead to Greg and I falling into a nocturnal sleep schedule, we'd usually wake up somewhere between 4 and 6 PM, get dressed, go hang out with whoever was around that night in Albany, come back home and bullshit around until around 7am, then finally crank it enough times to fall asleep as the sun was coming up. It would be a really depressing lifestyle if it carried on for more than a few months, but it was awesome for a short period of time. The only other useless detail that helps with this story is that there was no heat in my room and there was a hole in the window, so it was painfully cold, which lead to me sleeping underneath 7 blankets and a sleeping bag, completely covered and cocooned, head to toe.

One of my mornings/the rest of the worlds afternoon's, I was starting to wake up but pretty much still asleep when I heard a quiet rustling from above the blankets. I groggily pulled myself out of my nest and was fully awoken to the unpleasant sight of Bobby's face about 3 inches from mine. I jumped and almost fell out of bed, which spooked him and he ran off like some kind of frightened racoon or possum. Which honestly isn't too much of a stretch when it comes to how he carries himself in general. I pulled all the covers back over and hoped to fall back asleep and pretend it was some kind of bad dream. But a moment later, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and AJ walks up with Bobby in tow.

"Tell Sawyer what you said to me."
(Sneer and general smothered noises from Bobby.)
"Come on, tell him!"

After he looked around the room warily and muttered to himself some more, Bobby stared down at me.

"Yer...yer...yer a no good lazy bum JUST LIKE MY BROTHER!"

No matter how low my lifestyle had sunk at that point, there was no way I was going to lay around and be insulted by Bobby Arnold.

"BOBBY. Get the fuck OUT of here."

And with that, he scampered back down the down the stairs and out of the house.

The following summer I was back living at the KWB, but this time working at Safway Scaffolding with Kyle, and seeing daylight on a regular basis again, unlike the winter. I had gotten home from work and was dicking around in my room before heading out, and I heard AJ and Bobby talking in the other room. This was the first time I'd seen Bobby with his post "6 month Pie Eating contest" physique, so that was kind of a surprise. Though it really wasn't too shocking, seeing as I'd imagine his diet consists mostly of ho-ho's and cheez-its. I still don't understand why it shocked and unnerved Kyle as much as it did. He kind of plays it down in his blog, but he was in absolute disbelief when Greg and I first told him, and then after seeing Bobby with his own eyes, seriously contended for some time that Bobby might actually be wearing a fat suit. He's such a wierd dude sometimes.

So Bobby strolls into my room, and with some prodding from AJ, starts to brag about what a great rapper he is, and how he never loses a battle, and so forth. AJ suggest that Bobby battle me. Now, while this may come as a shock to some of you, I'm not the seasoned hip hopper that I might seem to be, and unless I'm amnesic and am forgetting a past life, have never actually "battled" anyone before. But I don't see any way I could have possibly turned this down. So I accepted Bobby's challenge, and said he could go first. He then told me he had to go "get ready" in the other room. He walked into Greg's bedroom, which was then across the hall from mine, and closed the door. From outside the door all AJ and I could hear was something between Bobby hyping himself up and lots of cursing.

After about a minute of this, he comes back out and immediately starts to serve me, as the kids say. If I could recount his freestyle verbatim, I would, but even if I had a dictaphone with me at the time, I doubt it would have been possible. But as memory serves, it went something like this: "Bitch motherfucker fuck you I'mma fuck shit bitch fuck you motherfuck bitch slut shit fucker fuck fuck fuck." Only it lasted almost two minutes. When he was done, I did the only thing I could do, and conceeded. I mean, he was on a whole new level of no-bullshit rapping that cut out all the flowery prose and got right down to the best part, the swearing.

2. Zach Arnold.

I only really have one story to share when it comes to Zach, but I think it gives a pretty good snapshot of the kid. Seven or eight years ago I was waiting in my car outside Greg's house to pick him up to go somewhere. I think Tony Fed was in the car too, but I can't really remember. After a moment or so, Zach moseys up to the car, leans on the doorframe and pokes his head in the window.
"Whatre you guuyshh doin?"
"Waiting for Greg. What're you doing."
"Shhhnnoootthhin."
In his one grubby little paw he was clutching some kind of container with a spout which he kept sucking on.
"Zach, what are you drinking?"
"Thissh? Ittssh a honey bear."

Yeah, he was drinking a big plastic container of honey, right out of the spout. Just strolling around town, suckin on his honey. I've been known to eat some bizarre things before, and I'm sure Kyle will say that a tortilla chip sandwhich is up there with this, but I'm sorry, it's not.

3. Steve Dunkin.

Two quick things relating to Steve. First, for a few years running, Greg would always try and talk a bunch of us into throwing a brick through the windshield of whatever shitty car Steve was working on at the time. We'd always kind of play along like we thought it was a great idea, and Greg would inevitably end up dissapointed when yet another night ended without any bricks going anywhere.

Towards the end of high school, Steve did a band with Joe Cammarere called "Dead To These Eyes." If I ever get really ambitious and dig up the demo and rip it, I'll be sure to post it here, but that isn't too likely. The only thing worth knowing about the band was that they wrote parts specifically so Steve could jump out from behind the drum kit to mosh for his own band. Then the other guitar player would throw down his guitar and join him. The most memorable of these moments was when they played some shit show at Winners, to about 20 people. I barely have a functioning memory, much less a photgraphic one, but I'm pretty sure there were jumpkicks off the stage involved. Now, Joe had enough sense not to take part in this stuff, but he still spent almost a year in a band with these clowns. Bravo, Joe.

Oh and Steve also got the outline for some kind of tribal tattoo on his back that just looked like a big tribal christmas tree. So that's pretty sweet too.

4. Mrs. Breninger

I've never actually met this woman, but Kyle left out a pretty important detail in his blog, namely that she apparently has giant tan boobs with sunspots on them, which he used to watch from his upstairs window. And I think there were some half baked schemes to go watch wrestling at Joey's house and somehow seduce Mrs. Breninger during the course of the evening.

5. Snake and the Snakepit.

I was going to write about this but I'm just going to use this opportunity to bug Kyle to do it instead, as I can't remember all the details and I wouldn't do the story justice.

So that's pretty much it, my far inferior yet slightly expanded add-on to Kyle's Behind The Mall blogs. It was worth writing if for no other reason that it got me to start working on a brief history of the Kunker War Bunker, from it's inception around 4 years ago to the present day.

And lastly, if you haven't already, go read the full version of all of this in Kyle's Blog. He's been updating pretty frequently and it gets better every day.

2007-02-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

Back out of Retirement!

I rejoined the workforce Monday for the fourth season of Rescue Me. So far its less work than my last job, better hours, a shorter commute, and it pays better. I'll be working all the way until August, with a few hiatuses (read: vacations) in there, and then when August comes, I start collecting unemployment and HELLO MEXICO! That's right Greg Strait, YOUR tax dollars are going to pay for MY donkey show in Tijuana and cabana on the Mexican beach.

Life is good.

2007-01-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

Netflix Reviews Part 3.

21. The Dead Kennedy's-The Early Years Live
Mix of live footage and random interview type clips. Highlights are tv spots/interviews from Jello's mayoral run. Not mindblowing, and pretty short, under an hour, but worth watching.

22. The Office-Season 2
Starting with the Dundies and ending with Casino Night, pretty untouchable. I don't want to talk about how wrapped up I've gotten in the Pam/Jim thing, and how much that ending killed/thrilled me. The current season (3) has been even more of a rollercoaster. Ah, love.
Oh, and it's fucking hilarious.

23. Surburbia
Not the Linklater one, which rules as well, but in a different way. Skinner is pretty great, and it's pretty much the archtype for any and all punk movies to come. "I hate cops to the max."

24. The Basketball Diaries
I'm probably the only guy my age who didn't see this within the first ten years it came out. The first half of the movie is all "man, being a little bastard is AWESOME!", and the second half is all "man, being a little bastard who gets into herion SUCKS!" Oh, but he became a writer, so it's a-okay. The cliff jumping part just made me wnt to go back to the Rexford Bridge. Really good movie, probably would have had a bigger impact on me if I saw it when I was 15 instead of 25. And by that I mean I would have gotten fucked up and stolen a car, then robbed a soda fountain. ON WEED.

25. The Propostion
Oh, so you think you're bad-ass, huh? You think you can kick ass and take names, huh? WELL NOT IN THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK MOTHEFUCKER. BANG! Grittiest movie since....True Grit? I don't know, I'm basing that strictly on the title. But jesus, this movie was so good. Ray Winstone is the fucking man, between this and Mr. French in the Departed, so underrated. John Hillcoat and Nick Cave are working together again, adapting a Cormac McCarthy book, can't remember which one. Suffice to say, it should be awesome.

26. The Wire-Season 1
Pretty much the only serious show I've ever really gotten into. And, because of that, I have nothing to say about that. Essentially it's every other cop/lawyer/crime/political show if all the shitty parts were replaced with pure, undiluted, awesome.

27. Scum
I put this on my queue after somehow mistaking it for this TV show "Made In Britain" where Tim Roth is a crazy teenage skinhead. This is a movie about British reform schools/juvenile detention center type thing. Ray Winstone is really young and still hard as nails as the new kid who comes in and takes over as the "Daddy" or basically the head badass kid. He leads a revolt after one kid kills himself, but it gets put down by THE FUCKING MAN. Meeting the leader of the black kids with the pipe for the fistfight though...ridiculous. Really fucked up/great/fucked up movie.

28. Bukowski- Born Into This
Documentary about Bukowski from childhood until the end of his life. Really well put together with lots of old footage of Buk himself mixed with current interviews of people who knew him ranging from his ex-wife and John Martin to Tom Waits and Sean Penn. I watched this after reading "Charles Bukowski- Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life" by Howard Sounes, which is one of the better Bukowski bio's out there, so it was awesome to see and hear all the people I'd already read about. It's no big secret that I've got a massive hard-on for Bukowski, so maybe I liked this more than the average person would, but if you have even a passing interest in him, it's definitely worth seeing. As a side note, I just saw "Factotum", which was also pretty awesome, despite the fact that Matt Dillon is way too good looking to be Buk. But yeah, check that out too.

29. Sympathy For Mr. Vengance
I can't remember where this falls in the trilogy. I THINK this is first, then Oldboy, then Lady Vengance, but I could be totally wrong. This started out really slow, and I was pretty let down until everything fell in motion and it got awesomely fucked up, just like Oldboy. The end isn't quite as "HOW COULD LIFE EVER EVER GET THIS FUCKED UP AND SHITTY" as Oldboy, but it's close. I can't begin to fathom what it's like living inside Chan-wook Park's head. Probably kind of like a japanese Hubert Selby, but with more murdering. Fuck.

30. Fletch Lives
So for some reason Netflix doesn't carry Fletch. I blame it all on Kevin Smith and his ill-fated plan to remake Fletch that shit the bed a few years ago. Bear with me- it's also near impossible to find Fletch on DVD for less than 20 bucks, and it's the most basic DVD, with no special features, and the shitty cardboard case. The only thing I can figure is that Universal was holding out to release a special edition to coincide with the remake that never happened. And I'm going to blame that for the fact that Fletch is STILL on my "saved" list. I'm pretty steamed about it, to be honest. Fletch Lives is readily availabe in affordable format AND on netflix, so it hasn't been a total wash. Great movie either way. "We call them Klookies."

2007-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

"See Mom, I DO use good judgement sometimes."

While I was putting the pictures up from the "Dudes With Beers, No Shirts and a Camera" founding on my photo blog, I was reminded of something I thought I'd share with my imaginary friends on this blog.

I'm a fairly intelligent guy (so modest!) but it's fair to say that I don't always use the best judgement when deciding to do or not do certain things. This is something my mom has reminded me of (read: gotten on my case about in a nice way) since I was 14 or 15 and stopped being a polite little boy all the time, and started to turn into what some people would graciously refer to as a jackass.

At one point a few years ago, Greg and I were sitting around doing nothing and debating about what we could do on a weeknight that was free and less boring than whatever else was going on. Somewhat out of nowhere, he suggests going out and digging up some graves. Not to really do anything with bones or whatever, but just to check it out I guess. Now, to be fair, I wouldn't mind having a skull or a jawbone or a whatever you call the arm bone. And I WAS really pissed at my dentist when he wouldn't get my wisdom teeth out of the biological waste bin after I got them removed so I could make a sweet necklace out of them. I really let him have it too, because I was six kinds of fucked up on all the medication. I guess I spent the whole ride back to my apartment telling my mom what a terrible driver she was, and how I'd be safer walking. Shockingly, she dropped me off with some pudding and left. There's a lot more to that story, as far as that night when I went to Americade (huge motorcycle/redneck rally in Lake George) still tore up on meds, but that's for another time.

Anyway. So while it's not like I'm completely opposed to having weird bones and shit, I've yet to get to the point where I'm ready to dig up peoples graves for them. I said "no" and that was pretty much the end of it. A few weeks later, I did something else stupid, and my mom was tellling me how I should really use better judgement, to which I replied "Well Mom, sometimes I do use good judgement. Greg wanted to go grave robbing and I said NO!"

She just kind of looked at me like I was a mirage, shook her head, and said "I'm glad you didn't do that Sawyer." Then she walked away, probably to go double check my birth certificate.

Greg was upset when he found out I told her this, but she still thinks he's a good kid, so alls well that ends well. But I still don't have my tooth necklace. So if you get your wisdom teeth out, please donate them to me. But you have to tell the dentist IN ADVANCE, otherwise he'll be a real hard-on about it.

2007-01-10T22:15:00.000-08:00

Marathon Man aka "They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To."

On the train ride back to NB last night I finally got around to watching Marathon Man. On my last job we had a circle of Netflix going where we would circulate whichever disc's we had at the time, and anyone who wanted to watch them could rip them to their computer before tossing them in the outgoing mail bin. I mention this only to help explain the next useless detail to this story, which has to do with my priorities when it comes to watching DVD's.

In what passes for my mind, there are three sorts of DVD's. I'll try and outline them in succinct (yeah, right) detail right now.

The first is the largest group, the ones I own. I used to buy DVD's fairly regularly, but stopped a few years ago when I realized it was a lot of money to spend on things I rarely use after purchasing them. But around the time of my first retirement (read: September) I said to myself "hey, your disposable income is shrinking exponentially, why not find something BESIDES records, alcohol and comics to waste it on!" So I started actually COLLECTING DVD's, which is worse than just plain buying them. For instance, before I decided I HAD to own every Eddie Murphy movie, I would never have paid good currency for a copy of "Pluto Nash." Fuck, I probably wouldn't have paid in wooden nickels, because that's honesetly a kind of embarassing thing to own. But now I not only own that movie, but almost bought "10", despite the fact that I have no desire to actually watch it, because I thought it would be funny to own on the sole basis of "Dad...she's a 10!" (if you don't know...)

Now, leaving aside my already problematic collecting tendencies, I also have access to the Princeton Record Exchange, a haven for creeps and assholes who spend too much money on crap. They have a HUGE and constantly updated selection of used DVD's that range from two to five dollars, before any markdowns that may or may not take place. In my few months living in New Brunswick, I've purchased at least a few dozen movies there, and they're not exactly all Oscar Winners. While I'm not at Joe Steinhardt levels by any means, my DVD collection is growing at disgusting rates.

The second group is whatever I've burned/ripped from other people. These either reside on DVD-R's, or my computer if I'm out of blanks. I only rip movies that I want to see but don't want to own, either because I don't like them that much or they don't fit into my collecting blueprints. The number of these varies, depending on factors that aren't worth mentioning. And considering what I obviously think IS worth mentioning, that's really saying something.

The third and final group is whatever I have from netflix on any given day. I feel like there should be at least a sentence or two of useless information to go with this group too, but oh well.

So if you take the reverse order of how I just listed them, that's my priority when it comes to actually watching DVD's. I watch my netflix movies first, because then I can send them back and get more, therby getting every cent's worth out of my monthly fee. Then I watch the ripped/burned movies, because that way when I'm done I can erase/throw them out/give them away. Because anyone who has collecting problems can tell you, you don't keep a burned copy of something for your collection, because then you're not just a pathetic asshole, you're a pathetic asshole with no standards. And when I've plowed through both those groups, I move into my collection and see if there's anything I haven't watched yet/really feel like watching again. There's exceptions to this of course, like if i buy/get something new that I can't wait to watch. But for the most part, that's how it goes.

SO. I watched Marathon Man, which falls into category #2. And it was fucking awesome. Totally insane yet completely tied down and believable, at least in the little internal world it created. And it got me thinking about how they really don't make movies like that anymore, edgy, weird movies that aren't totally out there, movies that are fantastic and far fetched but stick tightly to the built in logic of the movie. Dustin Hoffman as a young man is an actor that just doesn't exist today, and Laurence Olivier as a Nazi dentist...fuck. Seriously, go out and see it as soon as you can.

I know that last paragraph was pretty pretentious and laced with too much "back in the day"-ism's for someone who wasn't around, believe me. But remember that it was written by someone who thinks Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo is one of the most underrated films of the last ten years.

"DO THE LETTERS T and J MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU????"
"Uh, I don't know, Turkey Jizz?"

"Ahh, perhaps you don't understand. Ahh... if you don't pay me now, I'm going to uhh... take this swizzle-stick, and uhh... I'll be shoving that right up your pee-hole. "

Goodnight and godbless.

2007-01-09T21:16:00.000-08:00

Leaving Home, Going Home.

Back in New Brunswick after almost three weeks in Albany. For the first time in my life I've left without feeling like I'm leaving home behind and going to "some other place." It's not that NB has replaced Albany as home, because as much as I love it here, it's only been 3 months. And it's not that Albany is now some foreign DMZ where I'm just passing through. I suppose it's just that I really have moved away from Albany for good. I'll forever be going back and forth for shows, to visit, and god knows what else, and as long as my best friends are there I'll never be gone for long, but this summer really was it. No more semesters, no more summer breaks. I'm okay with it now, and it seems natural, but I know it's going to be hard come summer. I'm just glad I was able to fall out of the nest into such an awesome cushion here in New Brunswick. But it's a strange, bittersweet feeling nonetheless.

Well, that was fairly somber. To close, I'll recount an equally touching moment from Beer Leauge, which I watched tonight.

Dirk: "When I was in prison, I fucked bigger guys than you!"
Artie: "Did Dirk just say he fucked guys?"

Night night.

2006-12-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

Photo Blog is up.

I have a ton of pictures from the last year that I've just recently gotten organized in my photobucket, and rather than take up tons of space here, I've decided to make a second blog that will just be pictures with short captions/intro's/etc.

Hindsight is 20/20, my friend.

So enjoy, and ladies, if the intense arousal from the images ever gets to be too much, drop me a line and we'll work that out. And i mean WORK it out. Yeah.

2006-12-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

"I...had...the time of my life..."

So a bunch of my cockheaded friends boo'ed me out for putting on Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes duet "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" on the jukebox at McCormacks (Albany*). Leaving aside the point that they're clearly all a bunch of closet jobs, it really got under my skin. When I was old enough to operate the record player in my parents livingroom myself, the two things I had on constant repeat were Thriller and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. I think there was also a Disney record that was in pretty heavy rotation where Scrooge McDuck retold A Christmas Carol, with Mickey as Bob Cratchit and so forth. But that's neither here nor there.

These mongloids were not only shitting on a childhood memory of mine, but also have absolute garbage taste in music. I mean granted, it's not the Pay to Cum single, but it's a great fucking song. And as far as schmaltzy songs to slowdance and romance a babe to, it's head and shoulders above whatever happy horsehit of a Modest Mouse song they'd pull up in a similar situation.

These last few weeks that I've been semi-unemployed, one of the steady pleasures of my days has been the fact that the WE (channel for lonely housewives and me) has been showing Dirty Dancing a few times a day to promote their new reality show based on the movie, bunch of babes vie to be the next Baby to some sultry latino's Johnny. So while I've yet to actually catch the enitre thing, it's been a little slice of heaven to catch bits and pieces of the movie every day. Obviously, the money shot of a scene is the slow shirtless dance right before the DO IT for the first time.

If there was a snapshot that best exemplifies how great/not great/great being semi-unemployed is, it would be of me in my underwear in the recliner, Dirty Dancing on the tube, and a koolaid/vodka slurpee from my own personal slurpee maker in hand.
-----------------------
*There's also a McCormacks here in New Brunswick, down the street from the 77/75 Louis complex, and were it not for Albany McCormacks, it would be THE McCormacks, because it's a pretty decent bar in it's own right. But no other McCormacks can live up to Albany McCormacks, unless it includes the Fellatiator 5000, open bar 24/7, and Negative Approach circa 82 as the house band.

2006-12-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

Do you ever feel like life is dumb?

Sometimes, I realize taht waht i do with my life is prett "UHHHHH" stupid. ANd it makes me feel good about everything else, because when it comes down to it, everuyone is an asshole, and at least my friends and i revel in it, rather than dancing aroudn it like the rest of you pieces of garbage.

Goodnight, and blow me.

2006-11-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

Netflix Reviews Continued.

No flashy intro needed.

11. Dead Alive
I'm dumb and didn't watch this when we had it and was too impatient for the next few things in the queue so it got sent back w/o being watched. Such is life with Netflix ADD.

12. The King Of Comedy
Awesome, De Niro at his quietly yet increasinly unsettling best. If I'm never a decent stand up comic, I'll be a great Rupert Pupkin.

13. Home Movie
Made by the same guys who did American Movie (the filmmakers, not Mark Borchardt and Mike Schenk), this follows a handful of different crazy people with fucking bizarre houses. Well actually the guy who lives in the bayou isn't really crazy, just Greg Strait circa 2025. The looniest loony award is a tie between the guy with the Robot House and the Cat People. Highlight for me is when the Robot guy alludes to the fact that his wife is a hooker while she gets in a truck with some guy and goes away for awhile. He then proceeds to show off his futuristic robot who "talks" but is basically a giant RC car with a speaker and a picture of some guys face taped on. His entire "house of the future" is basically shit that the Jetsons would have poo-poohed 30 years ago. Great fucking movie.

14. Murder City Devils- The End
Their last show (pre-reunion) in it's entirety. Sound and video quality is awesome, a few surprise songs, whole set is great. Obviously if you didn't like this band you won't like this DVD, but if you liked them even a little, well worth watching.

15. Final Destination 3
Thanks to Nick I've always been fond of these movies, and this one doesn't dissapoint. The predictable "ALTERNATIVE" characters are pretty funny, and the new ways people die is creative I guess. Only complaint is poor casting for the girl with the premonitions, should have been more of a babe.

16. The Best of John Belushi
This is pretty self explanatory. Falls into the aforementioned "if you don't like this you're an asshole"/David Zucker category. "I em afred...we are out...of badjurs. Would you accept...a wolver-eene...een es place.

17. Jim Jones- A Day in the Fastlife
Pretty much the same idea as The Game DVD, "hey, let's give some guys who have no concept of editing, but will most likely do some really outlandish shit a bunch of cameras and see what happens." Highlights being when he shoplifts some crap and lots of yelling at the camera. I love this sort of crap.

18. The Game
So 50 is fed up with all of this G-U NOT talk, and he enlists Jayceon Taylors younger brother Sean Penn to set him up to take part in an elaborate life and death game that blurs the lines of reality. David Fincher directs an excellent cast with notable cameos by Da Brat as Nicholas Van Orton's love interest from the other side of the tracks, and Crunchy Black as the dastardly mind behind the whole thing. Two thumbs up.

19. Pauly Shore Is Dead
So fucking unfunny it hurts. And honestly, it pains me to say that as I'm a big Pauly Shore supporter. If he ran for any kind of office, espescially one where he had press conference privileges, I'd vote for him at least once. But this is so bad that I didn't even finish watching it. I've probably done that three times in my entire life, and that's pure speculation because I honestly can't remember another time it's happened.

20. The Office- Season 1
Count Choculitis. Possibly the best show not on HBO.

2006-10-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

Girls Gone Wild-The Ultimate Rush!

So now girls gone wild also includes girls skydiving topless. Look, I'm an adventurous guy, so much so that I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO SPELL CHECK ADVENTUROUS, despite the sneaking suspiscion that I spelled it wrong. But topless girls+exxxtreme sports (insert "does not equal" sign) boner. I guess this is what I get for watching comedy central at 2am.

Less than a week of retirement left, I'm really going to miss it.

Things I Highly recommend on this tuesday, October the 3rd:

The Wire (On Demand)
ALDS/NLDS
The Washington Redskins
Saso's (best Japanese in Albany)
David Koechner
Uncle Tupelo
Integrity-Humanity is the Devil
Mary Louise Parker (The Mom on Weeds)
Blake Lively (girl from Accepted, an otherwise garbage movie, the other exception being...)
Jonah Hill (fat kid from Accepted and Grandma's Boy)

and of course, Black Motherfucking SS, best band in hardcore.

2006-09-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Netflix is pretty much the single greatest innovation since the merger of mops and puppets into Muppets. One of my roomates and I got Netflix a few months ago, and we've gone through a couple dozen movies by now. We have the three-at-a-time deal, so we usually try to get a decent mix of stuff. Since I've retired and have all this free time on my hands, I decided to succinctly review all the stuff we've gotten so far, so as to better justify doing jack shit, and maybe even inform you, the imaginary strangers that read this. So with out further delay, in chronological order:

Sawyer and Ryan's Netflix Selections, Reviewed! (The book, not the movie)

1. Coachella
This was Ryan's first pick, and it happened to come first. I didn't watch this, it was probably crappy though. I'm pretty sure it was about weiner music of some variety, and not one of the varieties I happen to support. We're really off and running here.

2. Dark Days
This was also Ryan's pick, but it was pretty awesome and something I wanted to see anyway. It's about people who live in the train tunnels in the city. Being a pretty big fan of all things underground and tunnel-ish, I enjoyed it, and took away the fact that while walking around in tunnels is pretty fun, living in them appears to blow. Worth the watch!

3. Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch)
I probably spelled the Russian title wrong but they don't list it in Netflix and I'm too lazy to hack into the web to find it out again. This was my first pick (FUCKING FINALLY) and it was, of course, awesome. It's the first in a Russian trilogy about a fight between good and evil and people have powers and all sorts of other D&D shit. This stuff always comes off corny in the description, so I won't bother. Suffice to say if you like the whole action/horror/thriller type deal, this is really really well done, and does stuff most American movies in the genre don't really do, like make you pay attention. The downside to being a foreign smarty pants movie is the lack of tits. Ah, life.

4. Wu-Tang Clan, The Legend of the Wu-Tang: The Videos
This was a joint pick (GO TEAM!) and it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Pretty much every video they ever made. The older ones, pretty much all the ones off of 36 Chambers are pretty awesome because they're fairly shittily made and mostly consist of them walking around and yelling at the camera. Once they start making normal asshole rapper music videos they start to blow. This is a perfect example of the kind of thing I would probably never rent or buy, but got because Netflix is so awesome in that it allows me to justify watching something like this and not getting pissed off about how much it cost.

5. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
So gorgeous, so funny. Two of my asshole friends thought this was unfunny, and one of them thinks she's unattractive, so he's an extra big asshole. Totally worth watching, even though it made me hate Jimmy Kimmel more. He gets to get sassed by her AND ball her, probably even at the same time sometimes. That fucker.

6. DJ Shadow: In Tune and On Time
Another Ryan pick. This was probably about music that makes my brain fall out of my ears because I only like ignorant music.

7. Metallica: Cliff 'Em All
This was sweet because it's all old Metallica footage when Cliff Burton was still alive (duh.) It was not sweet because it was advertised to me to be about them partying and being the awesome metalheads they were before they turned into assclowns with toolbox haircuts who make music for 30something office dudes who like to get aggro after a night at the bar at Applebees, and there was very litlte of said partying taking place.

8. Screwed
I saw this when it first came out and thought it sucked pretty hard. I decided I had to give it a second chance, if for no other reason than the fragile hope that somehow my renting it would send a few royalty dollars Norm's way. I should be honest about my raging man-love/lust for Norm MacDonald, because I'm sure it colored my opinion of this movie. But I honestly think that it's way funnier than I gave it credit for at first. And the skewing of former president names for characters-Willard Filmore, mwah (thats the "tastes great!" sound that people make when they kiss their index finger/thumb to say somethings good. Just to clarify.)

9. DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist: Freeze
Enthralling! Mesmerizing! Mind opening! Thats how I felt about the concussion I recieved after cracking my skull into the mailbox 10 times after seeing that this thing had arrived.

10. The Jerk
Only saw part of this movie when I was little, and my life has kind of been incomplete ever since. Easily one of the 25 funniest movies ever, and hands down the greatest thing Steve Martin has ever done. This is in David Zucker territory: if you don't like this, we might be able to get along and maybe even be friends, but deep down I'll always think you're an asshole.

Ok, I don't feel like typing any more of these right now so I'll stop at 10. ENJOY! BUONO SOMETHING-O!

2006-09-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

So about, oh, a whole lot of years too late I finally got into Fifteen. Fuck. Better late than never. For all the griping we all do about this mess of music that passes in/out of/through punk rock, the great thing is there will never be a day when I don't find out about some band I'm just finding out how much I love (them).

2006-09-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

If you don't think David Zucker is funny, you're an asshole. That's one of the few facts of life that is pretty inarguable. He's not the end-all-be-all of comedy, and it's possible that you may not think he's funny and still like other quality stuff, but you're still an asshole. Not in the "eat food out of your fridge when you're not home and piss on the toilet seat kind" kind of way, cause we all know someone like me. But in the rod up your ass too good for anything really good, kind of way.

Goodnight.

2006-09-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

So, it works. My caveman tendencies come sliding back every now and then and I'm never totally sure that computer type things will work out as they're supposed to. For instance, those little animated gif things people are always making-? They kind of seem like magic to me. I'm not sure why, but as I was laying in bed this morning trying to drag myself out of it by noon (unemployment is ROUGH, let me tell you) I was thinking how mindblowing it is to me on a small scale that people can do that in a matter of minutes. So, I'm still a small "C" cretin in that regard, and that's why the first entry was checking to see if it worked.

Speaking of which, SPORTS! In the last few years of my life I've become a full fledged closet jock. When I was at work I listened to ESPN radio alllll day long, PTI, around the horn, etc when I got home, wasting time on sports on the internet, and so forth. And I just started my first ever Fantasy Football league, so I'll probably yammer about that a good deal on here, AND it's almost October so that means the start of the NHL season and a hopeful resurgence for my beloved and beleauged B's (hopefully a manslaughter charge for Zdeno taking someone's head off at center ice) AND baseball playoffs (and seeing the Mets in the Series).

Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports...Marge, Bart gets to sit up front because he's a good guy at sports.

2006-09-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

so does this fucking work or what