Mar 23, 2008

Buckshot Is My Bread

A couple of days ago, I bogarted Sheree's newest issue of Paste magazine (which is a totally awesome publication). In said bogarted issue, a dude named Matt Price interviewed Gnarls Barkley about their new CD (which is pretty cool, incidentally). He told the dynamic duo about the story that went on in his head while listening to their new album, titled "The Odd Couple," and it went exactly like this:

“I think The Odd Couple is the soundtrack for a tortured superhero.” They [Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo] look at me and nod politely. For reasons still unknown to me, I continue: “Yeah, when I heard the album this morning, I felt like I was listening to a story about a very lonely superhero who raced from planet to planet looking for someone to love. At one point, I even saw myself as the superhero, and I was floating underwater looking up at the moon through the water, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of being who I was destined to be and the sadness that no-one could help me with that.”

When I read this, I thought that it was cool how the interviewer wasn't ashamed of the story that shaped itself in his head as a result of this album. These kinds of things are usually too personal to reveal to just anyone, let alone the group that made the album. I mean, what if they punch you in the face?
This gives me confidence because I too have listened to certain albums and had a story develop in my brain. Allow me to share one such example:

The Band: Murder By Death
The Album: Who Will Survive, And What Will Be Left of Them?
Pt. 1 "The Devil In Mexico
" On a piss-poor afternoon in some nameless hellhole of a bar, a grizzled Drifter sits at a dark table in the corner drinking shot after shot of whiskey. At dusk, a Stranger enters. The other patrons shift uncomfortably, trying to shake the feeling of eerie recognition that floods their veins and makes their neck hairs tingle. The Stranger sits at the bar without ordering anything, and strikes up an amiable conversation with the town smithy who happens to be at the stool to the Stranger's right. The Stranger's voice seems hypnotic, and a crowd soon gathers around him. After a few minutes, the entire bar has become swept up in the Stranger's masterful oratory--everyone except for the Drifter. He remained at his dark table, his gaze steadily fixed on the amiable Stranger. The Drifter's hand slid down to the six-shooter at his side and loosened it from his holster. The cold nights and unforgiving days he'd endured have led up to this moment. He was going to murder the Devil.
After money had changed hands amongst the patrons,
the amiable Stranger got up to bid the place farewell. The Drifter's heart quickened and his breath grew short. As the Stranger walked out the door, he briefly paused, as if he knew what was going to happen next. At that moment, the Drifter drew his gun and shot the Stranger three times in the back. The Stranger lurched forward and hit the ground, coughing up dark blood. The other patrons were petrified and for some reason, nobody knew quite how to react. The Drifter reloaded his weapon and stepped over the stranger's dead body. As he left, he was heard to say, "Someone say a Hail Mary for this house."
Pt. 2 "Three Men Hanging" Following the events that transpired at that hellhole of a bar somewhere in Nogales, the Drifter's path became cursed. The sun never shined on the Drifter, and the road from Tucson to San Antonio was flanked by ditches overflowing with dead and rotting memories. He took to drinking only whiskey, as it occasionally helped dispel the ghostly faces from haunting the corners of his mind. He had thought that he'd done right by murdering the Devil. But now that his footsteps were tormented by the wails and coughs of dead sinners, he realized that he'd violated some incomprehensible law...and he was being punished for it.
The Drifter walked mile after tormented mile until he noticed a knotted sycamore t
ree off in the distance. He made his way towards the tree, crashing through the bone-dry sagebrush and kicking up clouds of dust. When he got close, he saw that three dead men were hanging from the ancient branches by their broken necks. Even after witnessing the horrors that had wandered from his nightmares and into his waking moments, the sight of these three hanging corpses filled the Drifter with cold and dread. A ghoulish wind swept through the brown sycamore leaves, and suddenly the three corpses were facing the Drifter. One of them lifted his head, and the Drifter winced at the sound of grinding bone.
"Get on with it..." said the first corpse in a hollow voice. At this, the second and third corpses raised their heads to speak.
"Put off the fuss, you chickenshit...."
"Can't you see it's time to quit?" The Drifter sank to his knees, and for the first time
since he had murdered the Devil, took his gun into his hands. He knew that he was doomed to walk this never-ending nightmare for the rest of his life and thought to himself, "If I put this revolver to my head, will God also turn against me? Or will he find pity on this lost and broken man?" The Drifter pressed the barrel to his temple and pulled the trigger. He felt the gun go off, but he was still alive. He cocked his weapon again and pulled the trigger. Again, the gun fired, but the Drifter's head was still intact. He tried a third time, with the same result. That's when he felt a storm coming from behind him. A dark cloud of dust and flies was cutting its way through the desert, heading straight for him.
Pt. 3 "Pillars of Salt" The Drifter stood up to face the misty form that had now made its way to the sycamore tree. The amiable Stranger's voice emanated from inside the cloud of insects.
"I gotta hand it to you, boy...ain't nobody shot me in the back and lasted this long. Guess I gotta give credit where credit's due. But that don't mean you get out of this, boy. You think you've suffered? Well you ain't seen shit yet. The pain w
on't set in for a long, long time. I'll leave a trail of fire across this desert just to see the desperation in your eyes." The Drifter threw his gun down and looked upwards. He was heard to remark, "That crown don't make you a prince," before he was turned into a pillar of salt which was swept away by the cloud of flies.
Epilogue "The End of the Line" As for that town s
omewhere in Nogales, the amiable Stranger made one more appearance. The cursed ground that caught drops of his blood was swallowed up in the desert sands, and no records can be found of the town's existence. All that remains is a clay pot with a tree of barbed wire growing upwards to heaven, and even this (so it is said) is only visible to those who bear the burden of a cursed soul.

Mar 20, 2008

Toast to Comics

To Ben,





























It's on like Diddy Kong.

Mar 18, 2008

Comics Toast

Today I would like to discuss some sweet comics that I have recently read. First, there was Charles Burns' 70's high school freakout, Black Hole, and second was Gerard Way's and Gabrial Ba's Parisian dysfunctional superhero family drama, The Umbrella Academy.
Black Hole is about a group of high school kids circa 1970 who deal with the outbreak of a sexually transmitted disease that they call "the bug." The disease isn't lethal or anything, but it does cause its host to display weird physical characteristics (molting skin, weird boils, a tail, etc.). So you think, "If this weird venereal disease is going around and everyone knows about it, why are these kids still having sex?" But that's when you remember that in real life there are all kinds of bizarre STD's going around and despite knowing about them, people still have lots of unprotected sex. It's the teenage sense of invincibility coupled with the teenage reality of alienation that provides the basis of Burns' work.
The main body of the story focuses on a few key characters that go through a series of love triangles, bad trips, and eventually some murders only to realize that the best thing to do is grab someone you love and hit the road. In the background is this weird disease that has disfigured some of the kids so badly that they run away from home and take up residence in the woods.
Altogether, it's a really weird look back at high school that manages to capture the confusion, pain, lust, and frustration that comes with adolescence. I heard that David Fincher is going to do a movie adaptation of this book, and it'll be interesting to see what he does with it.
This is one that Ben lent me, and I must say that despite my hatred for My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way is a pretty good comic book writer. The Umbrella Academy is the story of seven extraordinary children that become adopted by a dude named The Monocle so he can train them to protect the world. Flash forward about twenty years, and The Monocle has died. His adopted kids, now grown up and embittered about the harsh childhood that they endured, show up for his funeral and hesitantly reconnect just in time to save the world from a psychotic composer and his orchestra of madmen, murderers, and malcontents bent on the destruction of the world.
I give this one props on the awesome narrative, but I do think that Mr. Way was just a tad overambitious. There's a lot of stuff that is brought up (The Monocle is a space alien; there were 36 other extraordinary births in addition to the titular seven) that I expected would be addressed at a later time, but weren't. All the same, it was pretty cool.
In other comic book news, The Punisher finally killed Barracuda, and I am seriously thinking about giving up on Moon Knight because both the new writer and artist kinda suck.

Any good ideas for a new series to replace it?

Mar 10, 2008

100 Reasons to Own an iPod (In No Particular Order)

1. "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem
2. "Make it Wit' Chu" by Queens of the Stone Age
3. "We're Not Alone (remix)" by Peeping Tom w/ Dub Trio
4. "A Stone With Your/My Name" by Nekromantix
5. "Age of Consent" by New Order
6. "Righteous Heart" by Nathan Lawr and the Minotaurs
7. "Apply Some Pressure" by Mark Ronson w/ Paul Smith
8. "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse
9. "The Desert is on Fire" by Murder By Death
10. "You Got It All... Wrong" by The Hives
11. "Natural Fact" by The Mooney Suzuki
12. "What About Us?" by Ministry
13. "Valerie" by Mark Ronson w/ Amy Winehouse
14. "How U Feelin'?" by Peeping Tom w/ Doseone
15. "Lucky Star" by Madonna
16. "Vicarious" by Tool
17. "Supernaut" by Ministry
18. "Hard Rock Hallelujah" by Lordi
19. "You! Me! Dancing!" by Los Campesinos!
20. "North American Scum" by LCD Soundsystem
21. "It's Not Over Yet" by Klaxons
22. "A Well Respected Man" by The Kinks
23. "Club Foot" by Kasabian
24. "Staring At the Sun" by TV On The Radio
25. "Kiss Kiss" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
26. "Thou Shalt Always Kill" by Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
27. "Rock and Roll Evacuation" by Electric Six
28. "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire" by Queens of the Stone Age
29. "Born Too Slow" by The Crystal Method
30. "Beat That My Heart Skipped" by Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
31. "The Infanta" by The Decemberists
32. "Keep the Car Running" by Arcade Fire
33. "Starting Over" by The Crystal Method
34. "Lose Yourself" by Eminem
35. "10 AM Automatic" by The Black Keys
36. "Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine" by The White Stripes
37. "Abra Cadaver" by The Hives
38. "Love & Destroy" by Franz Ferdinand
39. "Future is in the Future" by Electric Six
40. "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by The Dropkick Murphys
41. "The Mariner's Revenge Song" by The Decemberists
42. "Rebellion (Lies)" by Arcade Fire
43. "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys
44. "Dreaming of You" by The Coral
45. "Music is My Hot, Hot Sex" by CSS
46. "Hurricane Jane" by Black Kids
47. "Here Comes Your Man" by The Pixies
48. "When the Lights Go Out" by The Black Keys
49. "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" by Arcade Fire
50. "You Only Live Once" by The Strokes
51. "Won't Be Long" by The Hives
52. "Oh No" by Gogol Bordello
53. "This Boy" by Franz Ferdinand
54. "3's & 7's" by Queens of the Stone Age
55. "My Moon My Man" by Feist
56. "No Cars Go" by Arcade Fire
57. "Dance Pattern" by Electric Six
58. "I'll Be Your Man" by The Black Keys
59. "60 Revolutions" by Gogol Bordello
60. "Human After All" by Daft Punk
61. "Someday" by The Strokes
62. "Always the Quiet One" by The Wedding Present
63. "Icky Thump" by The White Stripes
64. "I Can't Decide" by Scissor Sisters
65. "Phenomena" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
66. "Right Hand on My Heart" by The Whigs
67. "Stinkfist" by Tool
68. "Ultimate" by Gogol Bordello
69. "Last Night" by The Strokes
70. "1234" by Feist
71. "Wonderlust King" by Gogol Bordello
72. "Wolf Like Me" by TV On The Radio
73. "Little Cream Soda" by The White Stripes
74. "Aenema" by Tool
75. "Zero" by The Smashing Pumpkins
76. "Fit But You Know It" by The Streets
77. "Sick, Sick, Sick" by Queens of the Stone Age
78. "Down Boy" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
79. "I'm Your Boogieman" by White Zombie
80. "Bodies" by The Smashing Pumpkins
81. "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes
82. "Schism" by Tool
83. "Seventeen Years" by Ratatat
84. "Way Out" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
85. "Kiss You Off" by Scissor Sisters
86. "I Turn My Camera On" by Spoon
87. "Bring the Light" by The Smashing Pumpkins
88. "Something Against You" by The Pixies
89. "Go With the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age
90. "Lex" by Ratatat
91. "Lazy Eye" by Silversun Pickups
92. "Comfortably Numb" by Scissor Sisters
93. "The Seed" by Roots
94. "(Come On) Let's Go!" by The Smashing Pumpkins
95. "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones
96. "Not a Crime" by Gogol Bordello
97. "Feel So Numb" by Rob Zombie
98. "Dusseldorf" by Regina Spektor
99. "Loud Pipes" by Ratatat
100. "H." by Tool

Mar 6, 2008

Who Watches the Watchmen?


Behold!

If you beheld, you'd see the on-screen personas of characters from Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' super fantastic graphic novel Watchmen. I don't know how many of my loyal readers have read Watchmen, but seeing these makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
If you haven't read this monumental work of comic book greatness, let me inform you as to the characters which you beheld (if you did truly behold):
1. The Comedian: He's a super-cynical, almost evil dude yet he's one of the good guys. After his days as a masked superhero, he spends time working as a mercenary in Vietnam. You may notice the smiley face button on his right shoulder. This becomes a very significant symbol in the Watchmen mythos.
He's played by some dude from Grey's Anatomy.
2. The Nite Owl: He's kind of like Batman, if Batman wasn't a multi-billionaire. He's got a thing for nocturnal animals and is really good with gadgets. His character in the book is the stalwart good guy who is all about punishing evil.
He's played by Patrick Wilson, who was the creepy pedophile in Hard Candy.
3. Ozymandias: He's a super-smart, super-strong dude who has a man-crush on Alexander the Great. He's managed to turn his name and image into a very lucrative brand name. Does he kinda give you the creeps? Don't worry. That's natural.
He's played by Matthew Goode, who was the snooty brother-in-law from Matchpoint. But I think that he should be played by this guy.
4. Rorschach: This guy is a very unstable sociopath. He hates criminals and evildoers a lot, and expresses this by breaking their fingers when they don't cooperate. Yet, he's got a strange sense of nobility around him as he's one of the only people who knows what's really going on.
He's played by some freaky-looking bald guy.
5. The Silk Spectre: She has reluctantly taken up the mantle of Silk Spectre from her mom, who kinda pushed her into it the way some moms push daughters into ballet lessons. She's also married to Dr. Manhattan (who is unfortunately not pictured, but is going to be played by Billy Crudup), but since he's kind of like an omnipresent atomic bomb, she's not getting much joy out of it.
She's played by some chick from The Heartbreak Kid

If you haven't read this sweet graphic novel, you should. You have exactly one year before the movie comes out, so get crackin'!

Mar 4, 2008

Laser Tagged

While I'm waiting for my clothes to dry so I can go to sleep, I do believe that I will take part in the tagging that has been swiffering the nation. But unlike my older yet dimwitted brother, I will keep my list at 8 things.

8 Things You May Not Know About Me

1. I have vomited into a drinking fountain.
2. I have never gotten a speeding ticket.
3. In my spare time, I try to write terribly geeky horror/sci-fi tales.
4. I secretly love the following songs: "Lucky Star" by Madonna, "Sunrise" by Norah Jones, "Life in a Northern Town" by Dream Academy, and "Big Country" by Big Country.
5. Despite being a huge movie geek, I've never seen any of the "Godfather" movies.
6. I recently met Bill Allred of X96's Radio From Hell Show.
7. I've never broken a bone.
8. I once spent a night wandering around Oslo, Norway (the same night of the Nobel Prizes, actually) with a Welsh dude and a fratboy from Oregon while waiting for a delayed train.

Excellent. I just heard the telltale buzz of a dryer that has since stopped drying. Now, I must sleep.