let's knock two of these out in one day.
there's a big part of me that wants to hate this album.
pitchfork media is reporting that, in an attempt to be totally fucking ridiculous, the FBI questioned Morrissey to judge whether or not he was a threat to U.S. National Security. the impetus was that Morrissey made a comment at a Dublin show where he wished that George W. Bush would die. so it was time for a fun filled investigation for him!"My view is that neither England or America are democratic societies," Moz summed up. "You can't really speak your mind and if you do you're investigated."
this is C.C. Sabathia, ace pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. and right now he is scaring the crap out of me. why? because he's on the roster for the US team in the World Baseball Classic starting in March.
this is my favorite category. i love the original stories that are written for film, and the best movies always seem to come from this category.
i don't understand the big deal about James Frey making shit up for his memoir A Million Easy Pieces and his getting dropped by his publisher for it.
and what can be said about Don Knotts that hasn't been said before? he died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications on Friday night.
Usually i save the celebrity deaths for a catch all post, but there were two deaths over the weekend that are so huge i thought i'd give them their own posts.
happy 59th birthday to Edward James Olmos, who plays Admiral Adama on my favorite TV show, Battlestar Galactica.
there are three nominees:
see that cute little plane to the left? it's actually a Lego product. that figure is actually sitting on an inch wide Lego connector, which also happens to be the only connector in the set. we got it free because when my kid shits, we get points to redeem with Pampers. so as long as he keeps shitting he can get more cute Lego toys.
Could you imagine what it must have been like to be Dan Treacy in 1978?
today i'd like to thank whoever it was that invented the modern pacifier. being the father of a 11 week old, i don't know how we'd live without it. whenever my son decides that maybe he doesn't want to be asleep at 2 in the morning, a quick placement of the pacifier in his mouth placates him and buys his exhausted parents a few more hours of treasured sleep.
one thing you are going to learn about me--i love ice hockey. i consider it to be the greatest sport ever created, and even though i claimed i would never watch another NHL game after the strike, i found myself watching Red Wings games on NBC once they came back on.
speaking of Oscar nominated films, i finally managed to sit down and watch Tim Burton's Corpse Bride last night, even though i got it from Netflix last week. i wanted to watch it since i knew it was going up against Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (a film i absolutely loved) for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. we'll get to my prediction later, but let me just say now that Wallace and Gromit have little to worry about.
i think i am one post behind where i want to be on these Oscar predictions, so let's knock one out right here.
here's some celebrity deaths you may have missed since our last report:
have you seen this dog?About 12 psychics are counseling searchers as they check the heated cargo buildings near where Vivi escaped from a travel cage at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Paul Lepiane, the dog's co-owner, told Newsday for Tuesday editions.
"They are telling us that she is alive and they are telling us she is warm," said Honi Reisman, a friend of the dog's owners. "They are saying she's in a building -- but there are hundreds of buildings."
don't you love when charlatans get involved? they just keep repeating the same mantra:
tell them what they want to hear...tell them what they want to hear.
Crow told investigators that the men were fighting about the toilet paper over the weekend when Matthews pulled out a rifle. Crow said he then began beating Matthews with the sledgehammer and claw hammer, according to an affidavit.
Matthews was beaten so badly he had to be identified through his fingerprints, detectives said.
"It is un-usable," the man told police in the hope they would help him get his money back.just remember kids, dope makes you fucking dumb.
Ed from Chasing Infinity (on before my show on WRUW, Sundays 8-10am) always laments that Neko Case hasn't released a proper rock album. Ed, like all of us, has gotten a taste of Neko's rock chops from her work with the New Pornographers, but on her own, Neko seems to drop somewhere in between riot grrl, chantuese and sweetheart of the rodeo. and unfortunately for Ed, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is no different.
I don't think i get this recent trend of artists putting out cover records. there's always a big risk when a group releases a covers record--the music will be immediately compared to the source, and often times, their renditions are completely off the mark, dealing a blow to the credibility of the artist doing the covers. take for example 2000's The Covers Record by Cat Power. With one shitty covers record, Chan Marshall managed to blow through all of the good will she had accrued with What Would the Community Think? and Moon Pix. The point is, it's difficult enough to nail one cover successfully, and it's almost impossible to float an entire record doing it.Joseph says his attempts to contact Rock and Stapp, who do not engage in sex acts with each other (my emphasis) on the tape, have so far been unsuccessful.
i know you all are worried that the Olsen Twins didn't have enough cash, so you'll be glad to see they've signed a deal to hawk Badgley Mischka brand dresses. it makes total sense, really:Ashley and Mary-Kate have grown up to become America's young style icons. They have an amazing sense of fashion and individuality that intrigued us," the design duo of Mark Badgley and James Mischka said Wednesday in a statement.that's the sort of individuality that having your whole celebrity based on being one of two twins that we should all try to emulate.
The picture to the left is of something that doesn't exist. it's a "million dollar bill" something the U.S. Government never minted.
continuing with my look at the Oscar nomination, today i'll predict the award for Achievements in Make Up.
the dog to the left is Rufus, the Bull Terrier that took "Best in Show" at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. now don't get me wrong--Rufus is a beautiful dog, but i've never understood how a dog show could really ever be fair. every dog lover has their favorite breed (i grew up around Labs, so i think they are the best) and i just don't know how you can compare a St. Bernard to a Chihuahua. even if you say you are comparing apples to apples, it really doesn't matter...i am going to have adifferent experience eating a granny smith than i would eating a red delicious or a fuji, and frankly i am going to like the granny smith the best.Smith told The Washington Post that only unmarried detectives are allowed to do the under-the-covers work.He said actual sex acts are needed to help win prostitution convictions.
"If I thought we could get the conviction without that, we wouldn't allow it," Smith told the newspaper. "If you want to make them, this has to be done."
He said most prostitutes are careful not to say anything incriminating, which makes sexual contact necessary.
i can figure out who is more daft on this one, the husband for being so sloppy or the wife for paying for the privlege of finding out what she already knows...One spouse who may be in for a Valentine's Day surprise this year is a Michigan man whose wife spotted an email confirming his hotel reservation for Tuesday, when he was supposed to be undergoing a special training session at work.
"The job is booked and he'll be under surveillance Valentine's Day," Dank said.
when i was in college and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction was all the rage, a friend of mine brought around a copy of Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express, which had recently been released on video in the US, backed in part by Tarantino, who was basically shitting gold at the time. i remember that back then that i was totally confused by Chungking Express, as it really didn't follow the "rules" of American filmmaking and didn't seem to me to have a point. of course, at the time i didn't know anything about foreign or art-house film, and i haven't seen Chungking Express since.
Since were doing the pop culture thing, i am going to bring you guys some movie reviews whenever i watch something new via Netflix. today's selection: the movie Hustle and Flow, the story of a small time street pimp and drug dealer who aspires to become a rap star. a lot has been said about Terrence Dashon Howard's Academy Award nominated performance as DJay, and I don't have much to add in that regard, because without Howard there would be no film. but the thing that really impressed me about this movie was the dense tapestry that was woven around Djay and his environment. I think too often, white left leaning people (myself included) tend to think of the inner city as this amorphous landscape where everyone in the neighborhood is troubled and that it is our duty as white liberals to "clean it up" and give the people that live there "opportunities." but where we make our fatal mistake is in not thinking of the people who actually live there and the living that the people who live there do. i think we are always quick to judge that the life of the pimp or the small time drug dealer is not a life worth living when that simply is not the case. DJay has made his way through the world by following the opportunities he has been given--his ability to manage his girls, his ability to find the best weed. through his rap he is able to find the poetry and inner beauty of life in the tough part of town. of course, once he finds his voice he wants to be heard, and convinces himself that if he plans it just right, he will be able to make it big. Of course, the best laid plans often go wrong and DJay's goes horribly wrong, which in the end might be the best thing that has happened to him and his dreams.