26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

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Coming to America was on channel 11 on Sunday afternoon. There is something great and nostalgic for me about watching movies on a Sunday afternoon on the old WPIX.

If you lived in New York City during the eighties and early nineties you were fortunate enough to be exposed to the phenomenon that was WPIX, local channel 11.

It was the kind of low-budget, small signal, non-network affiliated channel that I imagined existed for decades in secondary television markets across the country. Naturally, it just SEEMED that way. The Tribune Company owned WPIX since it's inception.

During the eighties and nineties WPIX was good for two things. Tales From The Darkside at 11 p.m. on Saturday nights and the stream of b-movies that the network played nearly everyday. On Saturdays and Sundays there were b-horror and sci-fi movies like The Stuff and Escape from the Planet of the Apes hosted in cramped studios be a string of over the top characters.

There is a genius to turning on public television and watching Piranha 2: The Spawning or Ice Pirates in the middle of the afternoon. Television needs a WPIX, broadcasting the type of movie that you don't have catch at the beginning to enjoy. After all, how hard is it to piece together the first 15 minutes of Andromeda Strain or Oh,God!?

Let's all start a television network!!! Read more!

You can always count on John Lydon. I've never considered him much more than a public nuisance, albeit an amusing one, but I don't think that gives him enough credit. I mean few of his colleagues were able to so smoothly transfer from punk to new wave and few are still manning the guns. In a time when there are more ex-punker pushing baby strollers than over amplification Lydon is still telling everyone to 'fuck off'. At the very least you have to appreciate his commitment.

There was the press conference in 2002 where Johnny announced the new Sex Pistols tour. When asked about the absence of professional debaser Sid Vicious (due, in part, to death) Mr. Lydon became insensed and went on a tirade about how Sid was nothing more than a coat-hanger for a bass guitar.

Then there was the Sex Pistols' stop here in New York City. The show's after party was in Serena, the bar in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel (a nod to Sid?). John was wandering around the party, thoroughly enjoying being the center of attention. A photographer friend of mine (a woman) took his picture. John grabbed her lens and she jerked the camera away from him, pointing a figure in his face. A finger he proceeded to bite. There was slapping and yelling. The whole thing was a mess. To Johnny’s credit he never involved the bar’s stuff or security. Security were squares; this was a fight one hipster to another.

Now John is telling the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to fuck off from his website. Johnny’s right, there is something unpunk about the rock and roll hall of fame. It’s a place of old blues man and The Beatles and The Who and The Ohio Players and Prince. Maybe The Clash. But not Joy Division, not Dead Kennedys, not The Flys, And not the Sex Pistols. "We're not coming. We're not your monkey." Oooooo-kay! Lydon is kind of a clown but at least he's sticking with to his guns. Or at least his pistols. Read more!

Do You Remeber? is a new series I'm starting exploring stuff that happened, well, before now.

Do you remember when someone was sending anthrax through the mail? What the fuck ever happened with that? Read more!

Here's a Van Gogh cake. And because I know you love it, here's another.

Why not? You deserve it! Read more!

My quest for a perfect Here Come the Warm Jets mixtape was aided by Stephanie from The Memoirs of Sophie T. Mishap who gave me (well, she didn't GIVE it to me) a Blank Frank cover.

Then Skittlepuppy agreed to have Heather is a Slut cover Dead Finks Don't Talk. Awesome

Then last night, at a band management meeting RAP and I agreed to cover Driving me Backwards.

Which brings me to the point of this post: My semi-nonexistant band Fuck You Pills is now proud to announce new dates in NYC. It's not really a tour but I've always wanted to announce tour dates so I'm running with it.

March 14th we're opening for A.R.E. Weapons at Don Hills. (Actually this will most likely just be one or two tracks, it may not even happen)

April 1st @ Passerby

June 6 (6.6.6) @ LIT

Locations are subject to change. As is the band's name, style and line-up and existance. Read more!

The only thing I have to drink in this apartment is champagne.

I'm a 30 year-old child Read more!

This is via Popbitch:

Now, legendary comic writer Frank Miller is
working on a new graphic novel, where Batman
takes on Osama Bin Laden, called 'Holy
Terror, Batman!' Asked for a plot synopsis
Miller explains, "Batman kicks Al Qaeda's ass."

Meanwhile... in Gotham City, AKA: Baghdad, they've adopted a new plan for curbing insurgent attacks.

A well trained, well armed Iraqi military? A coalition on UN peace keepers? US troops with body armor? A change in Administration policy?

What are you doing? Taking stupid pills? It's the "no one is allowed out of their house... ever" plan! Genius! Fucking Genius! I wish we could have used this technique last election day.

The Administration loves saying that when we criticize the war it emboldens the enemy. You know what? If this is your plan I don't think the enemy needs any help being emboldened. Read more!

So it's a day late but here is our person of the week.

Alan Patton. Age: 54. Hobby: drinking children's urine.

Ah yes, that's totally not going to ruin your weekend.

Not really a lot more to this. He's been drinking pee since he was seven and he loves it. I'm not going to knock a guy for doing what he loves but I think it's fair to say that the children's pee angle here is what is really creepy here. No, the whole thing is creepy. I don't need to tell you he's a sex offender, do I?

Plus get a good look at that mug. To quote Bushwick Bill "Now that's a nigga I be seeing in my sleep."

So for a lifetime of achivement in creepy kiddy urine drinking we name Alan Patton of central Ohio our Person of the Week!! Read more!

I tend not to post on Fridays because I'm too hungover for words but today I woke up refreshed at 10 a.m.(?!?) I blame El Nino.

Meanwhile, what's up with Illinois' Governor? Is this guy retarded or just an idiot? First this and then this.

Let's quickly take these one at a time:

You didn't know The Daily Show was a comedy show? What network did you think it was on? Is the Governor's mansion in a cave? Don't Governor's have advisors and interns? Aren't any of them under the age of 47? Does he have a computer? This isn't Montana or South Dakota we're talking about. This is Illinois. This is Oprah's Governor (she is going to be pissed). I'm calling bullshit on the Governor.

Second. Putting Farrakhan in charge of a hate crime panel is a bit like putting the Bush Administration in charge of figuring out what went wrong in New Orleans... Wait, oh yeah, they are in charge of figuring out what went wrong in New Orleans. Nevermind Read more!

I have become minorly obsessed with doing a mix tape of the entire Here Come The Warm Jets album by Brian Eno using all cover versions. I could use some help if anyone can fill the gaps or is anyone has a band and they want to do a cover.


1 Needles In A Camel Eye by Suicide Romeo
2 The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch by Eno & The Winkies
3 Baby's On Fire by The Electric Hellfire Club or Superpitcher or The Creepers
4 Cindy Tells Me by ?
5 Driving Me Backwards by John Cale & Kevin Ayers
6 On Some Faraway Beach by ?
7 Blank Frank by ?
8 Dead Finks Don't Talk by ?
9 Some Of Them Are Old by ?
10 Here Come The Warm Jets by Chrome

Clearly I have my work cut out for me Read more!

I wanted to post something terrible that happened to me last night. Something that shook me to my very core. Something from which I may never recover. I watched MTV.

Let me preface by saying that I don’t have cable. Mostly because I would watch anything about World War 2, the occult, sea monsters or stories of the bible, which is to say I would never not be watching television. Okay, so that’s a bit of a pussy answer, like when people say they’d never try heroine because “I’d like it too much!!” Whatever dude, you haven’t tried heroine because you’re a pussy and are afraid of overdosing or selling your hi-fi. That’s legitimate. So maybe I don’t have cable because I don’t want to have another bill coming to my apartment every month.

Whatever! Let’s stay focused. What I mean to say is that I haven’t seen MTV in a while. I think the last thing I saw was Total Request Live which I remember thinking was the stupidest think I’d seen that day and was a bit like the Roman coliseums for people who say “Oh My God” a lot. It represented, for me, a great slide in a network that had once, long ago, been cooler than me. More After The Jump!!


The first time I saw MTV was early in the 80s. My dad was a young professor at Pratt and he was fond of taking me out to student’s apartments when he went to hang out. So one day I’m sitting bored in some hipster’s two bedroom apartment somewhere in Brooklyn and I’m given permission to go watch the only TV in the house, in the bedroom. In retrospect this was most likely because they were all going to smoke pot or something but I was like 6 so what did I know?

The TV was a tiny black and white one that got shitty reception but somewhere on the UHF channels I found MTV. I was just starting to thing music was cool (my did listened to Talking Heads, Nina Simone and Grandmaster Flash, so that was going to work out for me) so I had heard of Music Television. Now, here is was, and it was great. There was some young kid with a microphone and a bad haircut in some shitty neighborhood in the city talking and I don’t remember what he said but I remember that he was cool. Later they did a segment from someone’s apartment (I don’t think they had a studio yet). I don’t remember any of the video I saw but somewhere deep inside my brain does.

Since then MTV has gone through many cycles. There were these, what we’ll call Gonzo Days; no studio, fast and loose and on air personalities who just happened to be at the show last night( Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn). Then there were The Golden Years, when basic cable began to appear. Like I said my Dad was a hipster art professor so we barely had a TV but when I went down to rural Georgia to visit my Dad’s family I got to see the goods. My cousin and I would sit up all night watching MTV and You Can’t Do That On Television and drinks suicides (that’s where you take all the soda in the house and mix it into one glass). It’s the birth of the VJ.

This worked out well for a while and then came a show called Remote Control. I’m not going to get into the whole thing, read the link if you don’t know what it is but this was the first none music programming on MTV. We’ll call these The Division Years. Division because this was when they started putting video into categories and shows. Yo MTV Raps, 120 Minutes and Headbanger’s Ball and Liquid Television. This is the period during which I did most of my MTV viewing because it was during this period that we got cable. I have fond memories of this period, although in retrospect it was not the channels golden age.

This period ended when Kurt Cobain died. Let me explain. Viacom already owned MTV at the time. Back then Viacom was a shitty little cable provider, but they were eating up cable channels like chicken tacos. It was around 92 – 93 (I’m not going to do the research) that Blockbuster video was bought into the Viacom omniverse and with that the president of Blockbuster (a Christian Conservative) got a seat on the board. So here comes grunge, and for the first time the channel is a little behind the curve of their own demographic. During this period, a golden age in music for me personally, MTV could be either way on (Nirvana’s MTV unplugged) or way off (the first appearance of the MTV beach house) When Kurt died the network wasn’t sorry to see him go and dumped the legitimate grunge scene like a bad kisser and moved on to bands like Soul Asylum and The Spin Doctors, ugh! I call this The Beach House Years. Personally I call it the winter of my discontent but whatever. These were the days of Road Rules and The Real World and Bill Bellamy at the beach house while poor Matt Pinfield, hired by MTV as their resident musicocologist, sat uncomfortably in the beach house’s basement and introduced Snoop Doggy Dogg videos.

This period ended when MTV held there I Wanna Be A VJ” Contest and that FUCKING RETARD Jesse Camp entered my life. That was the finally straw and I stopped watching MTV on purpose. Jesse Camp heralded in The Times Square Years, when Total Request Live and Carson Daly would dominate the teen-scene landscape. Brittany and Justine and N’Sync and Ninety-fucking-eight Degrees and whoever. I don’t want to talk about this. These were dark days for the Empire.

Now the channel is in what I would call it’s Our Brand Is Youth Years. I don’t watch except when I’m visiting my mom and flipping through with my kid sister and we land on something. Diana, my sister, is now 18 and if I ask she can explain the difference between one group of obnoxious 15 year-olds and another. She doesn’t like the shows but she knows all their names. I guess if you’re a senior in High School you have to.

Which brings us to what I saw last night. (You didn’t think I was going to get to it, did you?) Last night I saw a show that I can only describe as committee thinking at it’s worst. A show that seems to have been produced by coming up with a name and than designing a show that vaguely fits. The show is called Date My Mom.

The principle is so simple a monkey could have come up with it. Send a sort of homely guy out on three dates with three mothers, one at a time. All in a sad attempt for the mother’s to convince this sap to date their homely daughters. If it was really as good as I just described it would be postmodern masterpiece, sadly, it’s not. During the shows 30 minutes I was force to watch someone’s fat mom blow on the business end of a saxophone, Someone else’s mom give a teenage boy a “booty dance” and listen to this retard kid say things like. “A thong? That’s sexy!”

The dates themselves are well scripted and time and have the same train wreak appeal of amateur pornography (now I touch you there, then I stand here. Now I sayh something. Now you say something). Fucking great, After each date we get two minutes of pointless scripted banter between mother and daughter as the mother recaps WHAT WE JUST SAW and the daughters say things that bloggers say ironically. I don’t think I had ever heard anyone say “OMG” before without it being a joke.

At the end there is a scripted showdown with the sort of witty banter that only a 26 year-old Tulane graduate associate producer could have written. Maybe this was the better of two evils; in an unscripted moment genius boy says, “My name is Chuck and I’m ready to fuck”, when describing one of the girls. Okay, let’s stick with the Tulane grad’s stuff. After this unintense and totally anti-climatic selection process the mother, daughter and boyfriend run hand and hand along a beach in what can only be described as gay in the worst possible sense of the word.

Then the loser girls get to give their little thing and the fat girl who posts half nude photos of herself on the internet calls the winner a whore and says to the boy “You could have had allllll this!” Even the other girl shivers. In the shows most telling moment Romeo is given a chance at the show’s end to woo his new love with some words of romance. He settles on “You dancing in your thong is sexy, you think I could see some of that?” You know what buddy? I think you can.

So is this it? Is there no place for counter culture kids on TV anymore? When I was in high school even the square kids wore “Why Be Normal?” t-shirts and listened to nirvana. The freaks like me were forced to listen to ever more obscure bands and tune into college radio stations on Friday night joyrides. We thought it was the worst thing that ever happened. A friend of mine made a t-shirt that read: “The squares stole our bands”. In retrospect we were wrong. The shirt should have read: “The old folks are stealing our channel.” Read more!

William Morris said that. I don't think he ever saw this. Read more!

If you're a psycho, or are so bored by your fellow man that it's come to it, than take yourself down to The Institute of Figuring on March 2 (those of us in the know just call it the institute) for a talk on knot theory. Or as I like to call it, bedtime!

No, but seriously, smoking weed and going to talks like this is exactly what people like us should be doing. Fuck working... that's for assholes! Read more!

Ang Lee is going to follow up Brokeback Mountain with a bio pic on Dusty Springfield.

No word on how gay porno director Afton Nills will follow up Bareback Mounting. (not really safe for work, but not horrible or anything) Read more!

The BBC has put together a pretty cool antidrug website where you give various dosage of illegal drugs to some twat and see what happens to him. He never falls down and starts crying so I'm guess he's not at Passerby!

Unlike the whole your brain on drugs campaign here in the states (that only proved that even the DEA casting director is a prick) this actually gives out some real information without sounding like a condescending asshole. I did say some, right? Cause if you need the BBC to tell you that alcohol might make you drunk and blow speeds up your heart rate than you should sit Friday nights out.

This does remind me though, I've been meaning to take mushrooms and go to the MET.

Party responsibly everyone! Read more!

Because of the late postings this week Wednesday will be the last day to celebrate Dick Cheney as our person of the week. It's been a wild ride for our POTW, but as he knows, all good things must end. Except wars, those must go on. And on and on.

So to celebrate the Great Dark One I offer this from The Notorious MOG:

Although, Cheney's new blog has more cursing in it than I like from a sitting Vice President. Read more!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have about as much connection to popular culture and music as my toaster does to The Peloponnesian War. Which is to say, not much. If you want a more connected DJ, one who say knows his Artic Monkey from he’s asshole I suggest checking out this post.

No, I’m more of an obscure and deserted loner type. Anyway, that’s what I’m telling the chicks so back up off me.

That’s why this post is going to be soooooo interesting…

There’s more after the jump!

I’m going to recommend a brand new record that I think will be widely enjoyed and will create world peace. A true Novus Ordo Seclorum. Lasting world peace… Real world peace....

If you haven’t heard of Destroyer or Dan Bejar there’s only one good reason, blind (bad) luck. You can’t hear about everybody and none of his albums have produced the sort of breakout single needed to propel a band from indie-world overlord to, well, to Wilco.

Since 1995 his work has produced the sort cultish hyper-metaness that has even spawned a drinking game. This self-obsessed, self-involvement can come off as boring to people not in on the reference. Bejar is sometimes the guy a little too into something he just read in The New Yorker. Sure, Bejar’s lyrics have always been wrapped a bit too tight (“Screwed on the chemical floors of the Dance World, now you see why I'll always be a dancer. Plucked by the transcendental brats to the Trance World, but desertscapes on the face of a girl were not the answer...” From The Very Modern Dance off of 2001’s Streethawk: A Seduction”) and here they seem even more wrapped around themselves, but they’re pretty (“In spite of Western Sacrifice, we auction off the sword. But Damascus never asked us to write a song about being bored with Our Lady Of This Immaculate Currency…” from Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever on Destroyer Rubies) Maybe someone should let Bejar know that writing pop lyrics are a bit like wrapping a boxing glove. Wrap too tight and you break the hand. Although I think he knows that and is just being a smartass. He starts the song Watercolours into the Ocean with “Listening to "Strawberry Wine" for the 131st time/it was 1987. It was spring. Now it's 1987 all the time...” These lyrics, and the reference to My Bloody Valentine’s 1897 EP Strawberry Wine are themselves taken from a previous Destroyer song, Song for Acurarela (watercolors), which itself ends with the line “Call me Morbid, call me Pale…” a line taken from a The Smiths song Half a Person, off the B-side compilation The World Won’t Listen, released in 1987. That’s pretty smartass. I’m not saying Destroyer is the Wes Anderson of indie rock, I think Destroyer is smarter than that; more delicate, even if sometimes it is a delicate brick. This level of post-modernism goes back to James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon. I mean it’s that deep (as in depth). You can image you end up pretty drunk playing the Destroyer Drinking Game.

Destroyer can sometimes be hard to get a grip on. Imagine a band as a guide in a forest. With each album or release he takes you further and further into the thicket. You don’t know where he is taking you or what you’ll find when you get there but if you know the guide you may have a sense of what’s coming up around the bend. With Destroyer there’s always the fear that you might fall of the face of a cliff. Most people will only follow with caution.

That’s why makes Destroyer’s Rubies such a great record. To use the forest analogy, it’s the part of the trip when you stop for a rest and you talk about where you’ve been and what you’ve seen. You know you won’t fall off the cliff because you’re not going anywhere. As the name suggests it’s less a proper album and more a collect. It sounds a bit like Streethawk: A Seduction a bit like the two albums since but it’s a really beautiful, and at times, moving pop album. Read more!

I've been reading the lastest issue of Unusual Holes.

Also the news Space Douchebag just came in and I've been enthralled.

I'm going to look at comic book art at Pratt Manhattan. Read more!

Can ANYONE explain this?

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Here is the 1977 promo video for Chinese Rocks by Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. Enjoy! Read more!

I can answer questions faster than you can ask them. Tomorrow you were going to ask: "What would World War II have been like if it were an online game?"

Alas, Now you won't have to. Read more!

So after we had our little talk the other day about how great Luis Bunuel is I dug up this.

A gallery of some (most) of his movie posters. I suggest printing the page out and using it as a guide when birthday shopping for me.

YOou can tell how much I like the director from how unironic and meta this post's title is. Read more!

Great news for my friend Jed. I talked about the film he edited "Who Gets to Call it Art?" a few weeks ago. It just finished running two weeks at the Film Forum where it did well.

Now it's having a week long run over at Cinema Village on East 12th starting Feb 17.

I was smart enough to go to a screening last Friday and the film is great. Especially for a nerd like me who went to art school, getting to hear so much from so many contemporary artist was really a treat. It's also the first time I've ever heard Andy Warhol open his mouth and me not roll my eyes. He comes off better than I think he ever has before.

If you missed my originally post it's here and I talked about what it's about.

Here is the filmmaker on Leonard Lopate's show

Here is a review from FilmThreat.

Here is Cinema Village. Read more!

Actually it's not Kenny Rogers' birthday. Although this sunday will mark his half birthday (this is something I'm trying to get started National, the celebration of half birthdays) so here ya go

And here's my gift to you big guy. Cause on Uncle Kenny's birthday you get the gifts Read more!

I'm thinking about painting my apartment. Of course thinking about it and doing it are two totally different things. Thinking about it is as far as I'm willing to take it. Read more!

As if I didn't have enough problems, now I have to image these two love-birds going at it hammer and tongs tonight.

I guess this only proves that point that there is much loneliness in the world, and sexually loneliness breeds a certain type of freak. This is only a stone's throw from making out with a poster.

Anyway, all is not right in the world. Read more!

Happy V-Day ya big geek. Read more!

This is going to be the last post tonight.

After all, I still gotta masturbate and listen to NPR (at the same time)

I just wanted to say that someone has finally answered the important question of the day: Where are they getting all those flags? Read more!

People sometimes ask me what I think the future will be like. I always just send them a clip of this. This is our future, it's inevitable. The wheels are already in motion, there is nothing that can be done. Stare deep into the future of mankind and tremble in its sublime awkwardness... Read more!

There's trouble in paradise in the West Village/MePa.

A couple of people I know work over at Batali's new place, Del Posto. They've been telling me for a awhile about the spots various problems with the landlord who hasn't been too happy with the contruction build-out or the way things have run in the month and a half since the place opened. The Times is reporting this as the latest shot across the bow.

…Del Posto explained that the landlord had announced plans to do electrical repairs that day, forcing the restaurant to close on the Saturday after Valentine’s Day, in the middle of the Washington’s Birthday weekend. Del Posto’s owners say the landlord, Somerset Partners, deliberately scheduled the project for the busiest night of the week…
For the shutdown next Saturday, Del Posto will load the food from the restaurant’s refrigerators into rented refrigerator trucks. Del Posto will also have electricians standing by, in case of problems with restaurant equipment when the power goes back on.

Tough times...

Secondly, I met this guy who works over at the new Balducci. He claims they are already having a hard time making the money add up in their new spot on the corner of 14th and 8th Ave. It's important to note that the Balducci family no longer owns the name. They sold it to Sutton Place, a supermarket chain corporation out of the Virginia area. It's only been open a month and they are already grilling the employees about upselling. No wonder they can't make a buck, the rent for the space is 50,000 dollars a month. Read more!

Luis Bunuel's short film Un Chien Andalou (well I guess Salvador Dali was invovled too but fuck that asshole) from 1929. It's great and must be seen at least once. Maybe a little too much of the surrealists pottering about, walking backwards and stuff but still. Personally I love Bunuel but hate Dali. Never really been a big fan but I figured a little of the Avant-Garde might class this blog up a bit. Guess I was wrong again.

Try downloading the clip, not streaming it. It's a pretty big file (150 mbs).
Read more!

"Because of a reporting error, Dr. Arleigh Dygert Richardson III, former teacher at Lawrence Academy in Groton, was described in his obituary yesterday as favoring tacky pants with tweed jackets and Oxford shirts. Dr. Richardson favored khaki pants."
- The Boston Globe (May 29, 2004) Read more!

Nudity and booze! Ahhh, two of my great loves, together at last!!

To that end here is a small gallery of tasteful and subtle wine labels. Read more!

This must have been a great party!!! Read more!

This week we here at 26 Reds and a Bottle of Wine are giving our Person of the Week award to someone who has had it coming for a long time now. The Dark Prince himself: Dick Cheney.

The VP shot a hunting buddy in the face late last week. If that doesn't get you a Person of the Week award I don't know what does.

What makes it great, what elevates this from simply a weird happening (like Bush choking on a pretzel a few years ago) to blissful irony is that when George W. Bush was governor of Texas he appointed this guy to the state Funeral Services Commission. Come on, that's good stuff. Appoint the guy to the Funeral Commission and then have the VP shoot him in the face. Even Luca Brasi got a better deal than that.

So for shooting a campaign contributor is the face with a shotgun and making sweet love to lady irony, Vice President Dick Cheney, you are our Person of the Week Read more!

If you need a quick grand and you have a good working sense of physics and a calculator I suggest you head over to the Catholic Apologetics International website. They’re giving a 1,000 bucks to the first person who can prove that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

At first glance this sounds like the sort of bullshit nonsense you except from that guy in high school who always wore a fedora and a Hawaiian shirt let me assure you, this is not he.

I love the ridiculousness of Religion. Thousands of scientists, over hundreds of years, along with billions of dollars worth of technology launched into space have all come to agreement. Yet these yahoos still need proof. Of course there is no proof needed to believe is a flying invisible superman who lives in the clouds and watches me masturbate. That’s a given.

I’m not knocking Religion. I know some very bright people who believe in God. I just love that it’s like the little engine that couldn’t. Believe in a God, that’s great, but don’t tell me that Evolution is just a theory, on par with the idea that God made women out of spare ribs. Or that there are serious question about the carbon dating but no question about dinosaurs living in harmony with man in the Garden of Eden 5,000 years ago. If you’re gonna read a Religious text as a science book then you don not get a fruit cup!

Of course there is no mention on the site about what criteria will be used to meet this “Proved” label so I doubt you’ll ever get that check, just in case you were gonna count on it for next month’s rent.

Let me just say for the record that reasonable people have moved on from the whole, “the-world-is-flat, the-Sun-revolves-around-the-Earth thing”. If anyone ever asks you for proof just punch them square in the nose and say If that hurt than the Earth must revolve around the Sun.” Read more!

I’m convinced that the entire world functions just as it did for me when I was six. It’s the playground all over again. No one matures, we just learn bigger words.

I heard this weekend that Iran, world center for compassion and critical thinking, has gone all Freedom Fries on us. Some grade ‘A’ jackass there has proposed changing the name of the (wait for it) Danish.

Few things:

First, you can get a Danish in Iran? Why? Since when? Must sell them at the same store as all those flags.

Second, the proposal calls for calling the pastry by the name of a flower that itself is named after the Prophet “you-know-who”. If you ask me, walking into a Tehran coffee shop and asking for a cheese “you-know-who” is just as bad.

Anyway, I love the problem-solving going on in Iran. Pissed off at a cartoon? Let’s burn and embassy, print some holocaust jokes and change the name of a pastry. It must be great to live a country with no REAL problems. Read more!

I know next to nothing about the Canadian disco duo called Nightlife Unlimited except that the album cover above is the coolest record cover ever for about twenty reasons. Plus the song Just Be Yourself is uber-badass.

The smoke machine
The pin spots
The font
Check out the teardrop the name of the single is in
Take a look at those hot pants

I could go on and on.

These girls remind me of Baccara. Except Baccara were French and there is something more spikey about French disco sluts. Nightlife Unlimited are Canadian and for some reason that means all they do is drink Champagne and touch my wiener.

I’m in love with this woman. It’s shit like this that makes disco make sooooo much sense. Can you image being backstage after one of their shows and you walk into the dressing room to say ‘hi’ and she’s sitting like this? Read more!

Barry Manilow has the number one album in America. "The Greatest Songs of the Fifties." WTF?!?

I demand to know who these people are buying new Barry Manilow records. (in Darth Vader voice)I want you to find them and I want you to bring them to me alive!

Read more!

I haven't posted any music in a while. I'm trying to get a few things into digital format but I'm recorder is busted. I'm at the mercy of M-Cat. While you wait for the good stuff here is a song by The Knife. Not downloading this song is a Federal Crime.

The Knife - Heartbeats (OneMusic Session) About halfway down the page.

The Mp3 is courtesy of the awesome music site Said The gramophone. You can find it under Music Geeks in my links. Read more!

Violence is funny. I think that's a life lesson you learn early. Remember the first time you watched someone fall down a flight of stairs. Or you pushed someone down a flight of stairs. You watched them bounce around and scream and you thought to yourself: 'There is a delicate poetry at play here'. Remeber the first time a freind fell off his bike. You thought: 'That Brian, he's such a cut-up!'

I think girls figure this out before boys. Read more!

I think the best way to protest one's dissatisfaction with being labeled a mass murdering, violent lunatic is to burn one's own country to the ground. That'll show 'em. ‘So, you think we're all violent extremeist? Huh? Well we'll see what you think after we burn your embassy to rubble." And the WRONG embassy at that. Norway is all like: ‘What did I do? I was just sitting here staring at the fyords.’ Poor Norway. I'm calling bullshit on those guys.

More after the jump!

Now I'm not taking Denmark's side. I think ever taking Denmark's side only ends in tears. I thing it is hilarious that the editor of the newspaper that originally printed the cartoons was pretending to be surprised. No dude, people never take making fun of their God seriously. What, does he live in a bubble? So I'll calling bullshit on that too. If you didn't know that making fun of Muslims was going to tick off some Muslims then you shouldn't be editing a newspaper, even in Denmark.

I'm also calling bullshit on the rest of Europe who reprinted the cartoon. First off, it's not a very good cartoon. Secondly, it's only getting reprinted as part of some bullshit staring contest. After all, no one reprinted when it originally was printed in September. European newspapers are all like: ‘You can't tell us what to print.’ and European governments are all: ‘I know dude!’ and Muslims are all: ‘Hey, that's not cool! Jihad on you!’ Bullshit. Freedom of speech doesn't mean getting yourself involved in some sort of protracted, bullshit game of chicken. Grow the fuck up! What are you, six?

I'm also calling bullshit on Iran who has taken the opportunity to start a cartoon contest designed to make light of the holocaust. It's not even close to the same thing, plus what do Jews even have to do with this? It was in DENMARK you retard! Let's just admit it. Iran loves sticking it to the Jews and is always looking for an excuse. The Mulas hate Jews, they hate the idea of anyone even observing the Sabbath. They even hate Black Sabbath. I'm calling bullshit on Iran.

Bullshit on firebombing your own neighborhood too. Why is it that whenever one group feels oppressed by another they show their displeasure by burning down their own neighborhood? It happened after Rodney King. Happened in France. Happening now. What dissatisfaction is the oppressor suppose to get out of watching you torch your local fruit market. I'm calling bullshit on that.

So here's the Bullshit wrap up.

Danish editor dude, you knew the cartoon was going to piss people off and you sort of like that. You're an asshole!
European newspapers, you're only reprinting the cartoon to get a pissing contest started. You guys are dicks!
Muslim rioters, knock it off, you're only proving the point. You guys are idiots!
Iran, quit trying to rub the world's face in it. Everyone knows you hate Jews and no one cares. You're a bozo!
People who firebomb their own neighborhood, if you hit my house I'll give you something to riot about. You're a retard!

SO there you have it: assholes, dicks, idiots, bozos and retards. Great book title. Read more!

The Armory Show is coming up. Get ur art on!!

The painting above is from my favorite artist(s) Muntean/Rosenblum. It's their version of the Deposition of the Christ. I think it's called How Soon is Now? Read more!

I could do this all night and I don't even dislike The Faint Read more!

People are always asking me if I make the mash-ups that I play. The answer is no, I barely have time to write these stupid posts about mash-ups. So if youa re interested in this sort of thing direct your attention here. 20 free tracks out of San Fransisco based mash-up party Bootiesf. I don't see how you can make a party out of it, but there you go! Read more!

So it turns out that the Vietnamese are the most optimistic people in the world. Not the ones I know. And how would we even figure out this useless piece of information? Anyway, Alex, take advantage of the good natured optimism of the Vietnamese people and score me one of those hats!

It also turns out that half the people in the world think 2006 will be a better year than 2005. 30% said worse and 20% were too busy drowning, exploding or being ethnically cleansed to answer.

Where are they the most optimistic? South Africa, by three to one. I guess people around there just figure it can't get much worse. Read more!

Anyone who has been to more than one Cat Power show is aware of the bizarre stage anxiety suffered by Chan Marshall. Storming off stage, long crying jags and of course her refusal to talk publicly about our long torrid love affair.

Anyway, she’s cancelled her whole American tour, which means I got to find some other singer-songwriter to stalk on Valentine’s Day.

Here’s a video for her song Living Proof, off of her new record The Greatest. It’s directed by totally shitbag Harmony Korine. The page has a few video’s on it including the one for Nude Like the News which she wrote about me!! Read more!

There are many difficulties for an inspiring drug dealer to waddle through. Run-ins with competitors, unscrupulous addicts and of course the police. The police are a particularly sticky wicket to out maneuver. The desire to stay out of prison leads many an intrepid narcotics privateer into increasingly complicated and elaborate security measures. Ever changing phone number and passwords. Complicated membership systems and, of course, not selling drugs to uniformed cops.

Given the latter one must assume that Michael Garibay here was high on his own supply late last week when he walked up to a uniformed police officer, sitting in a marked patrol car in Orlando, Florida.

He asked the officer "Would you like to buy some cocaine." Patrolman Ed Johnson answered, "Yes," assuming that Michael 'anywhere, anytime' Garibay was kidding. Of course he wasn't and produced a bag loaded in white gold! Columbian tea! Bolivian marching powder! Texas yaya! Bogata bonbons!

Naturally dumbass was arrested and booked where he snapped this "I'm a dumbass!" mugshot.

Thanks for the memories Mike!! You are our Person of the Week!! Read more!

So finally, now that a million little pieces of dust have settled, someone is willing to come forward to admit that there is no J.T. Leroy. Well duh! Talk about missing the 'who gives a rat's ass' window.

Just in time for a book deal, 'rocker' Geoffrey Knoop has come forward to say that his girlfriend of 16 years has been writing under the name (and life story) of J.T. Leroy.

This wouldn't have anything to do with the couple's split in December or the custody battle they're waging over their son. No, no, Mr. Knoop just wanted to come clean to the Times. Interestingly this story has generated less ado then Mr. Frey despite the allegations being someone more shocking. I guess Oprah's book club will do that to you.

Sadly, for a lot of people including the reading public, Mr. Knoop doesn't think his ex will ever admit to her role in this whole mess. Of course she should. Like James Frey she sold a lot of books based on the mythology of J.T.Leroy. If there is no J.T.Leroy then it's just another piece of ridiculous fiction written by some middle age wanna-be. Read more!

While I'm doing my short post thing let me include two hilarious stories I got to in my morning read.

This one is just brilliant.

And... what an ass! (horrible pun inteaded) Read more!

In honor of last night's game and the end to all that is good and holy in the world (end of football season) I present to you the top ten football teams of all time (according to ten mojo.com). Cleveland is oddly absent. Anyone have any thoughts on all this?

My plan is to talk about this list and nothing else until the NFL draft. Read more!

Everyone was watching the superbowl tonight. I know this because someone on television said so and those people don't lie. Well, that's fine for you squares but all us hipster were watching the PuppyBowl. Read more!

and buy me the dvd!! Read more!

It’s amazing to consider that less than 20% of the US population own a passport. Especially considering I don’t know anyone without one. I assume there are vast stretches of the country where passports are rarer than mynah birds. It’s only a guess but I’d say that these were the people who are so fond of calling America the greatest country on Earth. Frankly, I’ve been to a few places. America’s good, not great. Read more!

Let me introduce to you Sean Ramiro Lopez (photo redacted), a Clement middle School science teacher in Redlands, California. Mr. Sean “grab-ass” Lopez has been busy lately lowering standards for grade school teachers everywhere.

It seems Professor Lopez convinced three male students to partake, in the name of science mind you, in a program to help strengthen their muscles and genitals as well as check their semen. You’ll want to check your semen every 5,000 miles or so.

This “program”, which has been discontinued as part of the Presidential Program on Fitness, involved the boys watching porno and masturbating. Turns out I’ve been enrolled in this program for about 15 years!

Naturally they weren’t doing it right so he decided that for the sake of science it would be best if he did it for them. For his part the good teacher admits to the whole thing but claims that the kids weren’t all that traumatized and so he should get a maximum of ten years. They may not be traumatized yet, but wait till this shit gets around school. Trauma is going to look like a walk in the park.

As horrible as Professor Sticky Fingers is who the fuck are these kids? I mean, even in middle school this would of stunk to high hell. Mr. Mancuso tells me he wants to check my semen and he gets a swift kick in his test tubes!

So in the name of science, and for creeping us all out for the next seven days, Professor Sean Ramiro Lopez, you are 26 Reds and a Bottle of Wine's Person of the Week!! Read more!

So I’m getting pretty excited about the Superbowl which promised to be an ACTUALLY football game. For the last few years it’s been eight minutes of football and 52 minutes of a foregone conclusion.

The halftime show is always a highlight in that sort of Rotten.com, car accident gazing, stare straight into the fire sort of way. I know lots of people are going to moan their way through the Rolling Stones who are literally my Dad’s age. It’s easy to dismiss someone’s grandfather who has more money than the Pope complaining about not getting any fucking satisfaction but then there’s this clip from 1981 when they were only like 200 hundred years old.

You think they’re full of shit but watch Keith give some stage-rushing fan the business end of a stratocaster. Read more!

In case you only have about six minutes, have no standards and have never seen the original star wars trilogy but would like to - The Art of Arguing in a Phonebox has the pixelmash versions of star wars, the empire strikes back and return of the jedi.

I make no promises Read more!

Don't know if you heard but it looks like professional nanny fucker, Jude Law is going to play Ian Curtis in the up coming Joy Division biopic, thereby ruining Joy Division for countless generations. Way to go Jude, fucking the help, ruining new wave music. What's the encore, shitbag? Stuffing spotted owls in dolphin blowholes?

Well, we'll always have these videos:

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Digital

She's Lost Control


I don't know much about the Digital other than it is from the Factory Records collection Here Are The Young Men, released in 1982 and was recorded in 1979.

The Love will tear us apart is from the March of 1980 (another version was recorded in January of 1980 but not used as a single).

The She's Lost Control is from their Sept 15 1979 (3 days before I turned 4) appearance on the show Something Else on BBC 2. Earlier that summer they had appeared on Tony Wilson's (from 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE) Granada TV show What's On, but this is not that. Anyway, enjoy. Read more!

I post this without comment as a public service. Read more!

As part of my commitment to the African American experience I intend to post something related to the African Diaspora every day in February.

Well, not every day…

Okay, okay, this will probably be it!

I’m committed to the African American experience…. lazy and committed. Read more!