What Does This MEEEEAN?!

For some context, go here.

You Gotta Hear This

Tom Waits covering the legendary James Brown's classic, "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." It's like if Albert Einstein decided to cover Isaac Newton. Or something. Anyway, it's glorious.



You're welcome.

Approaching Nugothotropolis

The freedom DC offers is something stranger, less commercial, but it still gives with possibilities. … If Marvel is the Communists, cutting off the intelligentsia and making all things mediocre and equal, DC is America, where it's every man for himself and this is a free country as long as you pledge allegiance to the flag.

It's the perfect place for Grant Morrison, whose comics "don't make sense" a lot anyway, who used to brag about using chaos to make magic. The editors have no time to wrangle a mind that big, in fact none of them have a mind that compares, and besides, he's Grant Morrison, and besides besides, our digital comics platform is coming soon, promise! Morrison can truly do whatever he wants at DC because he thrives on the continuity. He'd be doing it even if they didn't make him. It's his idea of fun to do a comic like Batman #700, where he pops out a Batman-TV-show-style villain team-up, makes Batman Beyond official continuity (brownie points!), creates some new characters for the next writer to degrade, and kills an old and useless one. DC loves it when their writers do that. They love this violent, past-obsessed kind of thing so much they let Morrison write out their future in big awesome-ugly Dave Finch pages, where Bruce Wayne lives to a ripe old post-DK2 age and the city of tomorrow is called "Nugothotropolis". There are new names, new visions, new ideas mixed in with the old ones, ideas from a yesterday and ideas for a tomorrow – unlike at Marvel where the idea is anathema and every day is the present. At DC, time and creativity flow like crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico, like blood from a Tony Daniel villain's mouth. That is to say, it's ugly and it's stupid and it's not something a lot of people want, but it's by-G** happening.

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Matt Seneca of Death to the Universe on Batman, issue #700.

Epic Epicness

It's been a good week to be a Scott Pilgrim fan. First off, we got this news and this teaser poster for the upcoming Edgar Wright-(Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, all of which are super-rad)-helmed film adaptation starring the indomitable Michael Cera:


Which is awesome. That tagline's brilliant an the layout is not only in keeping with the opening page of the first volume of the series, but it's also eye-catching as well. Well-played, Whoever Made That.

And today we got this announcement and this cover image for the final installment, Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour to be released by Oni Press on July 20th:


Also awesome.

If you like comics or rock & roll or ridiculous kung fu or funny stuff or 8-bit video games or all of these things (in which case, you like rad stuff and we should be friends), you should really be reading this before it explodes into some sort of cultural thing once this movie drops. And you know it will.

So go. Go away! Read some (comic) books!

In the Meantime

So yeah, anyway, enjoy this, which is probably my favorite Kids In the Hall sketch ever:



Oh, and also, I think I may have uncovered the secret origin of HoboDarkseid, who is still, in my estimation, the best thing bouncing around the tubes of the Internetz right now. Hopefully I'll get around to scanning and posting it in the midst of the craziness.

& I Guess That I Just Don't KNow

A while back, Beck debuted his Record Club, a quick re-recording of an album featuring his friends. The first album they chose to do was The Velvet Underground & Nico, which is sort of like saying you're going to, oh I dunno, do something really dumb like remake Psycho shot for shot. (Gus Van Sant, you just got served!)

So I was a little worried. I mean, I like Beck a lot, but it seemed unnecessary. Fun, but unnecessary. I listened to the first track, the cover of "Sunday Morning," and it was ... okay. It pales next to the original, with it's music box intro and the way Lou Reed wistfully sings, "Watch out, the world's behind you." But yeah, it's an interesting take on a rock and roll standard. My initial opinion stands; this isn't essential, but it's a worthy diversion. I've embedded all the tracks below so you can listen while you surf or work or whatever.

The next album up is Leonard Cohen's Songs of Leonard Cohen, which I think is even more untouchable that the VU debut, but if the first track's any indication, it'll be fun to listen to.

Anyway, enjoy. Have a great weekend. And may the Force be with you.

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01. Sunday Morning:


02. Waiting For My Man:


03. Femme Fatale:


04. Venus In Furs:


05. Run, Run, Run:


06. All Tomorrow's Parties:


07. Heroin:


08. There She Goes Again:


09. I'll Be Your Mirror:


10. Black Angel's Death Song:


11. European Son:

Setting Up Shop On the Information Superhighway

Okay, so one of my New Year's goals was to open an Etsy shop. And I have busted that goal like a Sponge Bob piñata at an eight-year-old's birthday party. And just look at the goodies that poured out of the gash in ol' Squarepants' head. The shop is called Tuff Industries and it's sort of the reason this place has been a little quiet lately.

So come on in to the factory and take a look at how the magic gets made. See the barely-oiled machines whir and clank, their gears and blades spinning at borderline unsafe speeds. Hear the crack of the supervisor's whip, refusing to let the workers stop or slow, unwilling to let the tin lunch boxes full of longing, despair and regret be opened until quotas are met and products produced. Smell the industriousness. Smells nice, right? Like old baseball mitts your granddad's aftershave and the broken dreams of children forced to work in grossly unsafe conditions.

All this exists for one purpose: to bring you the best in ridiculous posters and other products (but just posters for now).

So far, I have three (I know, lots, right?!) posters listed, with a metric buttload more to come, once Chinese New Year wraps up. This first one's titled No Mo Jibba Jabba and it features my personal hero, Mister T. I pity the fool who doesn't have this hanging on their wall.





And then there's this puppy, Snap, Crackle & Pop (disclaimer: not an actual puppy) for the vinyl lover in your life:



Then there's this guy, the first in a series I've entitled My Peeps. This guy's "The Party Boss," and he really wants you to start the party. Like, right now. Or you're freaking fired.



Keep checking back for more additions and maybe something special to celebrate the grand opening of the Tuff Industries Factory Of Industrial Tuffness and for the love of Pete, tell your friends! Eat our industriousness, Recession!

I Am Down With Mr. T & Mr. T Is Down With Me

You should just download this. Trust me, you will not regret it. It will change your life. Hopefully for the better, but that's not really guaranteed. But it will be changed. Your life, that is. That part *is* guaranteed. Or yr money back.

So just download it, okay? Mister T commands it. And you don't want to break one of Mr. T's commandments. He will smite you. You will be smitten. And then you will die. And nobody wants that.

It's Like A Tweedy Pleathery Wool Velour. With Straps. And A Buttload Of Zippers.

Oh, Fashion World. You're so dumb.

But seriously though, I want one of these. In green, maybe.

And When I Do This

So Chris is doing this thing over on his blog. and it's pretty funny. So I did some.

First one's political, seeing as HR just got re-elected Senate Majority Leader, which is pretty bad@$$, right?



Then this baby popped up:



Then 70's Stan Lee joined the party:



Followed by Stan Lee in his 70's (well, 80's):



And finally, the most bad@$$ of them all:

"Where's Axl?"

I really need to get ready for work, but I just had to share Chuck Klosterman's review of Guns N Roses' long-awaited Chinese Democracy album, courtesy of the Onion's A/V Club. Because sharing is caring.

Just so you know what your getting, it contains the following sentence, which made me giggle: "A song like 'Shackler's Revenge' is initially average, until you get to the solo — then it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python."

And I must point out that by posting this, I am in no way saying that I like Guns N Roses. Just so we're clear on that. Anyway, here's the article. Enjoy.

Hulu Hoop Champion

I will go on record and say that 30 Rock is the funniest show on television since Fox canceled Arrested Development. And if you aren't watching it, you should be locked up like some sort of horrible, foul beast with flatulence issues.

The third season kicked off last night. The premiere was hilarious. I have embedded the entire episode below for you to watch. Because I care about you. And I don't want to see you locked up like a fart monster. Enjoy:



The first two seasons are up over on Hulu - or as I refer to it "The greatest invention since beef jerky" - so go watch it. They also have all three seasons of Arrested Development if you missed out on the genius of that show.

And dude! With Hulu, you can subscribe to shows! I subscribe to The Daily Show and the Colbert Report which is awesome because we have just the rabbit ears. (We just got the HD converter box up and running, but still, we are kicking it old school up in here. The guy from AT&T knocked on the door and asked me how much we paid for cable and I told him we didn't have cable and he laughed, asked me if I was serious and then said, "How do you live?" to which I replied: "Like cavemen." True story.)

So, in closing, I would like to kiss whoever invented Hulu firmly on the lips because they are real American heroes like G.I. Joe or George Washington or Sherman Helmsley. I would also like to kiss everyone involved with 30 Rock because it is the best show ever and you really should be watching it if you're not.

The end.

TIE Fighter

I'm introducing a new element to the blog today called This Is Excellent, or, TIE for short. It's basically a way for me to flag stuff I think is awesome. I wondered if I should start a new blog for something like this, but I figured this was a way to have this blog updated regularly since my whole "This blog is gonna be about Important stuff" episode a while back. So, this excellent stuff is gonna get dumped over here. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.

So anyway, today's TIE comes from Portland-based designer Christopher David Ryan, aka Atmostheory. It's this poster titled "Solar System":



This Is Excellent.

The Music Of Chance

If you know me at all, you know that I love the satirical fake newspaper, The Onion, like a baby loves, uh baby food? Anyway, I love it. But Did You Know? that The Onion has a "legitimate" pop culture wing called The A.V. Club? Well, they do. So now you know.

One of my favorite segments over at The A.V. Club is a feature they call Random Rules where they take a celebrity like, say, Patton Oswalt (or just some random hipster like Randall Poster, the guy who put together, among others, the killer Rushmore soundtrack) and have them shuffle through their iDevices and talk about what comes up. No skipping allowed.

Now, I'm no celebrity. But then again, neither are half the people that they refer to as "celebrities" on those dancing/circus/quiz/competitive BB-stacking shows that are all the rage with the kids these days. So today, I'm gonna play a celebrity and we're gonna do a Random Rules session. Except I skipped a couple doo-wop tracks and removed a Stephen Stills track to make room for something cooler. Because I must look super-cool at all times. Otherwise, I'm just some tall, handsome, pasty white guy in his 30's who just wants to talk about how cool his taste in music is in order to not feel like he's totally losing whatever amount of hipness he once had. And who wants to read that?

Nobody, that's who.

Morphine - "Kerouac"
Morphine makes music for some postmodern noir movie that has yet to be made. Like the sequel to Zero Effect (Speaking of which, have you seen that movie? Because it's really good.) or something. Something sort of seamy, smoldering, morally labyrinthine. Morphine makes that kind of music.

The Kinks - "I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain"
Not the best Kinks song or the best Kinks album (off of their self-titled debut), but it is good, classic rock & roll.

Tom Waits - "Army Ants"
I really love this album (Orphans). I'm guessing that this is off of the "Bastards" disc, as it sounds like he's reading from some sort of science textbook over a weird jazz scale. Tom Waits is on my "Must See Before He/I Die" list for sure.

Oranger - "Just a Little Dumb"
These guys are really good. Totally adept at crafting solid fractured (or is that a contradiction?) pop music. I read a review of their Doorway To Norway album a while back and when I saw they had a song titled "Mike Love, Not War" I immediately set about tracking down their work. It was not easy, but like the motivational poster says, it was worth it. This is off their Shutdown the Sun album, which is pretty excellent.

Marvin Gaye - "Baby Don't You Do It"
For a long time I'd only heard the Band version of this. Marvin's version is just as good. And that's saying something because I think that the Band version is aces.

The Creation - "Cool Jerk"
The Creation were a bunch of producers who decided they'd put out some Who-esque (and later Dylan-esque) rock and roll records. Their "Making Time" is on the indispensable soundtrack to Wes Anderson's Rushmore. This is a cover of The Capitols' song that you've probably heard on oldies radio like a million times. Not their best track, but still passable for sure.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - "Who Are The Brain Police?"
I really never thought I'd ever be the type of music snob who was "into Zappa." But here we are. And while I'm not all gaga over him (I only have his first few albums with the Mothers. I don't think I'm adventurous enough to delve into the skronky, jazzy stuff of his later career. But who knows, right?), I must say, he makes some very interesting music. As in "This song makes me question my mental health, like, seriously"-type of "interesting." Still it's not as disconcerting as the music made my Zappa's former roommate, Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart. Seriously, Trout Mask Replica is possibly the most disturbing music I have ever heard. Ever. And I'm not convinced that that's a bad thing either, if that makes sense.

The Who - "Sally Simpson"
I love the Who. Honest I do. But I hate Tommy. I think the songs sort of suck and the story is lame. Sorry. But I do. So yeah, this song, not may fave.

The Clash - "Washington Bullets"
Ah, the Clash. Who else could write a nice little punk tune about US foreign policy and make it sound this good? From their triple-album ¡Sandanista!

Old 97's - "Barrier Reef"
These guys are just plain great and this is one of their better songs. Clever without being too clever, the title refers to the narrator's drunken philosophizing as he chats up a girl at a bar. "What's so 'Great' about the Barrier Reef? What's so 'fine' about art? And what's so 'good' about a Good Times van?" These are the questions we need to address, people.

Anyway, so there it is, my installment of Random Rules. Here's your challenge: post the next 10 songs that come up on "Shuffle" in the comments section. I will send a prize to someone who does so. Because I am nice like that.

It Finally Happened

I finally stumbled across a recipe involving sausage that I don't want to immediately devour like some wild beast you see on the Discovery Channel or something. In fact, after reading the title alone, I want to vomit. Repeatedly. "Apple and Sausage Pie"? It sounds like some kind of euphemism, doesn't it?

Congratulations, Internet: you finally broke me.

Death To Jar Jar [or] Adventures In Hardcore Nerdery

I love Star Wars. You know it. I know it. Dogs know it. But let's face facts, the Prequels were not very good. Not very good at all. This is very unfortunate. It makes me whine. A lot.

Thankfully, not everybody who loves Star Wars is like me and just sits around bellyaching about how much opportunity was wasted, how much a franchise that was so cool could go so wrong or how fake Qui-Gon's beard looked. Some people actually [gasp!] do something about it. I know, crazy, right?

John Seavey over at Fraggmented - when he's not figuring out how and why superhero comics work with his always excellent Storytelling Engines series (I tried linking to it, but couldn't make it work. Duh!) - has been serializing some fixes for the problems of the Prequels.

And they work. Like, really, really well. I'm jealous.

I'd definitely brave lines full of Jedi cosplay nerds singing that freaking Weird Al song to see his versions of Episode One, Episode Two and Episode 3. Give them a read and see if you would, too.

And judging by some comments (or he's probably mentioned it and I missed it) he made in Episode 3's comments section, he's going to take a crack at the Original Trilogy, which could prove interesting. (Just don't touch Empire and we won't have any problems, mmmkay?)

And who knows? With Crazy Old Uncle George always mucking with his movies, maybe he'll just redo all of them and have Seavey write them. What? It's no more far-fetched than the whole midichlorians thing. Yeesh, what the heck was that all about?

Deaf, Dumb and Blind Pinball Kid

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow I managed to forget just how much I love the Flaming Lips. I realize that this is unacceptable. I was severely chagrined when I stumbled on this footage of them rehearsing some Who songs for an upcoming celebration. Oh man, they are the bestest. If you haven't seen them live, then you are not alive. You are dead. Like a zombie. Or Dracula. Or Chewbacca after that moon got dropped on him in that one Star Wars book.




Via You Ain't No Picasso.

What We Talk About

So, I started a forum to work alongside the blog for those of you interested in participating. Head over here to get started. You'll have to get a free Ning account, but it'll be worth it. And it's free. I've played around with it a little and it's a fairly slick system and, as I've mentioned, it's free.

Anyway, you're all invited. Come over and play.

We Are The Champions, My Friends

Polls closed Friday. High Five! won. It'll be up tomorrow. Are you psyched? Not yet? Then how about if I show you the cover art? Will that help? Maybe? Okay, here.

Better?

Also, I started Twittering and added a little box to the sidebar. Are you on? Because I feel weird just Twittering at Chris.

And speaking of the Internet, would anybody be interested in participating in a forum related to the blog/pop culture/life in general, etc.? Lemme know below.

That Movie With Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper Was Not This Cool

Okay, that clinches it: I'm buying a Hummer and I'm going to hook it up to a gas pump and I'm just going to let it idle all day long every day and then I'm going to buy a buttload of flamethrowers and devote my life to melting some mamma-jammin' ice caps, just so I can live in one of these things sweet babies:

Who's with me? Let's do this thing.

*******

Via the Veer: Ideas blog which is via something else, etc., etc. You know how the internet works.