Zhang Ziyi

Iron Man Full Trailer

Scarlett?

Paz Vega, Perhaps?

Today's Theme: Really Hot Women

Let's do this for Dave. I'll start things off with this one of Sienna Miller.

Catchy Vendredi

A little spring in your step on the way out for a QPAW tonight. By the way, a little jaunt down to Lafayette and environs for some washboard, beer, and gas station boudin might be an idea for the upcoming convention. Not too bad of a drive from Memphis.

Music and Lyrics

I can think of a lot of great songs with unremarkable lyrics, and I can think of a few songs with really great lyrics, but not a particularly good tune, and I am not sure a song has to have both to be good or even great, but what are your candidates for a perfect match of both? One that comes to mind is “Into My Arms” by Nick Cave, but my underdog candidate is a golden oldie:
Billy Bragg - A New England

Paging Mr. J. D. Beckerman

No doubt about it, Folk Takes Precision.

Productivity 1, Bastard 0

They must have enhanced the security blocking gammatron shield at work on our internets. I can no longer access our beloved blog at work. Cripes almighty.

Shit

Buddy Miles, the drummer in Jimi Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsys, has died at his home in Austin, Texas. He was 60.

More here and here.

I love that! Oh, I love that a lot!

I don't know what I like better: the trick shot or the commentary.

This Makes Me Laugh ... Hard

From CNN.com, in a nutshell:

A conservative radio talk-show host said that "he's had it up to here" with Sen. John McCain after the GOP presidential candidate repudiated the commentator's remarks about Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at a campaign event.

"John McCain threw me under a bus -- under the 'Straight Talk Express,' " Bill Cunningham told CNN on Tuesday, referring to McCain's campaign bus.

Cunningham, known for his flame-throwing style, repeatedly used Obama's middle name -- Hussein -- during his remarks, made as a warm-up for the audience waiting to hear McCain speak.

The radio-show host also compared Clinton unfavorably to first lady Laura Bush during the rally.

McCain, who was not onstage as Cunningham spoke, said he was told about the "disparaging remarks."

"I absolutely repudiate such comments, and again I will take responsibility -- it will never happen again. It will never happen again," he said.

Cunningham said McCain "ought to attack Democrats and quit attacking conservatives like me."

"I, for one, regret that John McCain is the nominee of the conservative party," he said.

It warms the cockles of my heart that McCain is making all these ultra-right wing assholes apoplectic. Read the entire article here.

Harder Than It Sounds

Name the worst album by your favorite artist(s). I'm still thinking ...

I'm gonna guess Joe says Dylan's Self Portrait.

Again with the Ryan Adams

Lost Highway is reissuing Whiskeytown's biggie label debut, Stranger's Almanac on March 4th. I know outside of Dave and I, you other bastards aren't huge Ryan Adams fans, but we know enough to be excited about a full disc of bonus tracks, including takes on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," JC's "I Still Miss Someone," Gram's "Luxury Liner," and "The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over" by the great True Believers, in addition to acoustic demos from the album and previously bootleg-only songs from other sessions.

Holy Grail Of Post-Pistols Output

Thank doG for the internets. Back when I was in high school, I had a documentary called D.O.A. that chronicled the first wave of punk with lots of live footage (Sex Pistols, X-ray Spex, Dead Boys, Generation X). The film is now out of print - and probably always will be - thanks to some bullshit legal wrangling.

But one of the performances was by The Rich Kids, the band that Glen Matlock put together after he got thrown out of the Pistols. They weren't together for very long and only released one album, the Mick Ronson produced Ghosts Of Princes In Towers. Over the years, I have searched off-and-on for a copy of that album, often referred to by those in the know as a "lost gem."

Fellow bastards, after twenty-something years, my search has come to an end. Interestingly, and I don't know if this is the songwriting or the production, they remind me a lot of these guys.

Ghosts is certainly worth a listen, but I'll Find The Punk and you tell me what you think. As a bonus, check out their appearance on TOTP from January, 1978. Well, not you Joe.

Ouch & Ha Ha

Somebody's got a keen eye for Whitey.

#71 Being the only white person around

This concept ties heavily into post #7 Diversity and post #19 Traveling, but is important that you fully understand how white people view authenticity and experience.

In most situations, white people are very comforted by seeing their own kind. However, when they are eating at a new ethnic restaurant or traveling to a foreign nation, nothing spoils their fun more than seeing another white person.

Many white people will look into the window of an ethnic restaurant to see if there are other white people in there. It is determined to be an acceptable restaurant if the white people in there are accompanied by ethnic friends. But if there is a table occupied entirely by white people, it is deemed unacceptable.

The arrival of the “other white people” to either restaurants or vacation spots instantly means that lines will grow, authenticity will be lost, and the euphoria of being a cultural pioneer will be over.

Being aware of this can be extremely valuable in your efforts to gain the trust of white friends and co-workers. If you bring a white person to an ethnic restaurant and another white person (or group of white people) shows up, you can lose all respect and trust that you have worked so hard to acquire. Do your best to find a table with a divider, or ask the waiter to put future white people out of sight.

Note: This does not apply to night clubs.

Read lots more about yourselves here.

Coen Brothers Redux

Following up on an earlier post about the Coen Brothers, there is an interesting article by Devid Denby here about their body of work thus far. He is quite critical of a couple of films I really liked (Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink) but I have to say a number of his points hit home, at least about Miller's Crossing. He is very appreciative, on the other hand, of Raising Arizona, Fargo, and The Big Lebowski, the latter two of which he considers to be their finest work. Of The Big Lebowski, he remarks, pleasingly, that "It offers a persistent 'no' to the hard-pressing American 'yes.'"

One revelation (at least to me) is that both brothers supposedly have acknowledged that they have never read the Odyssey, which suggests, that the announcement at the beginning of Oh Brother Where Art Thou that it was based on that particular epic may have been a bit of a canard, much like the "Based on a true story" graphic at the start of Fargo. Although it has been a couple of decades since I read the Odyssey, I did not notice any particularly significant link between the epic and the movie (which I thought quite poor), and wondered at the time if I was just being a bit thick. Perhaps I will from now on ask anyone who remarks knowingly about the Odyssey connection just what it is about travels and travails of poor Odysseus that he or she saw in the movie. . .

One word of warning -- the discussion of No Country for Old Men at the end of the article contains an unfortunate spoiler for anyone who, like me, has yet to see the movie because his wife won't go see it.

Anne Bacheley

This is a pleasantly low-budget video by a French singer named Anne Bacheley. Her website is well worth checking out – at this link one can stream her latest CD, and download most of the songs off her charming (and less “produced”) first album, which I like better. I’ve always said something good would come out of France one day.

Oops

Hello, Frank..

Interesting article on Donnie Darko, one of the most often watched disks on my shelf. (That is, I watch the movie encoded on it, I don't stare at the physical disk.)

"More impressive still, he evokes the life of a late-'80s adolescent with a tone that hovers somewhere between nostalgia and dread. It's very hard, especially when the soundtrack is this irresistible, to revisit a period without making it seem like facile "I Love The '80s" nostalgia."

One of my favorite lines:

New Girl: "Donnie Darko? Your name makes you sound like a superhero or something."

Donnie: "What makes you think I'm not one?"

New Orleans Roundup

Our trip to New Orleans was great. A future Bastardos Convention most certainly must take place in the Crescent City. Here are a couple of highlights:



A picture perfect meal at Port o' Call. Andrew knows what I'm talking about.



Breakfast at Cafe Du Monde.



Adam, Paul, and Fat Dave after shots of Jaeger at Balcony Bar.



.... and crawfish at Paul and Tama's the night before we left. Food, food, food. Drink, drink, drink. Recover, recover, recover.

Ever wondered what 'Toxic' would sound like if covered by a Franco-Israeli pianist?

Then search no more friends:

Warrantless Wiretapping Explained..

Hope you're all having safe and snugly weekends.

Parole Tide!

No-one does abuse like Alabamites. News story here. Honorable mention here.

Catchy Friday

My Kids

Of course I try to love them all equally, but I sometimes suspect the blonde one is not really mine.

My Kids

I (Heart) DBT

Man, I loves me some Drive-by Truckers. I picked up the new album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark this weekend and it hasn't left my CD player since. I don't know if you bastards go for this kind of thing, but they're one of my favorites, mostly due to having seen them live a few times.

Hilites for me are a couple of the Cooley compositions, "3 Dimes Down" and "Self Destructive Zones," and Patterson Hood's "The Righteous Path," and "That Man I Shot" (one of two "anti-war" songs by him on the album). I missed their last album, but would have to say this ranks up with their best, even if it could stand to be three or four songs shorter. If you're interested in other earlier stuff, let me know. This one is For The Peterbilts.

I'm planning on heading over to Asheville at the end of March to see them. Live, they are full-speed ahead, and their audience loves 'em. They're playing in Memphis on the 14th, but I don't think I can make it over.

A nice Pitchfork interview suggests they may do a tour with the Hold Steady. Be still my beating heart.

My Kids

Joe, Mike, Jay: start counting your money . . .

An article in today's Wall Street Journal begins thusly:

Videogamers have long played for points, kills or just plain bragging rights. But with the emergence of Internet middlemen, more gamers are wagering for prize money.

Gamers at WorldGaming.com can challenge players to videogames played online, such as Halo 3, background. The players wager on the outcome.
Today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Toronto-based WorldGaming Inc. will begin accepting test users for WorldGaming.com, a site that allows players of popular Xbox and PlayStation console games to challenge other gamers to "tournaments" and bet on the outcome.

Have at it, chaps!

Fascinating NPR Segment

Driving home last night, I caught a little bit of NPR's Fresh Air. Terry Gross was interviewing a very thoughtful, soft-spoken guy named Bart Erhman about his new book. I was hooked as soon as I heard what it was about.

From NPR's website:

It's one of the oldest faith questions: If there's an all-powerful and loving God, why do human beings suffer?

In his latest book, religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman wrestles with that question — and with the implications of the often-contradictory answers he finds. In God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer, Ehrman meditates upon how the Bible explains human suffering, why he finds the explanations unconvincing, and why he gave up on being a Christian.

Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus and more than a dozen other books, chairs the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The entire piece is about 45 minutes, but I think you'll enjoy it. You can listen to it here.

Kinky!

Interesting short piece in this week's New Yorker about Ray Davies. The passage below caught my eye:

On Seventy-second Street, he stopped in front of the venerable old Tip Top shoe store. “I used to buy my stage shoes here,” he said. “They were girls’ shoes. Chrissie Evert, the tennis player, had a really great line that had a blue star on the side. I got the biggest size they had.”

My New Favorite

Marilyn, Lindsay, and That Thing About Your Pants

Maybe she'll sing 'Happy Birthday' to Obama.

The 40 Most Inappropriate Children's Book Covers

Contributed by Cracked readers. Some are funnier than most.

Check it here.

Uh Oh

Dave, what exactly did you get up to this weekend?

BATON ROUGE, La. -- LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux was suspended indefinitely for an unspecified violation of team rules, leaving his status unclear for the start of spring practice Feb. 29.

Memphis Hoops Part Deux!

Saturday's game just got even better Joe. Enjoy!

Catchy Friday, Part Deux

Cat Power - Jukebox

Feline Tonal Power. Good album. I had a hard time with her older stuff, but the past couple albums have been great. This one is mostly covers. Very nice.

Now This is a Great Album Cover!

This is the cover of Throw Me A Statue's album, Moonbeams. I've listened to a couple of cuts over on Aquarium Drunkard, and am less turned on by the music. Of course, how could you not be?

An Immodest Proposal

Gentlemen, I think we should try to think of a way we could pull off the first annual Bastard Bash.

Some possible scenarios:

1) Dave and Joe drive to Washington D.C. together. Jay and Mike fly/drive/hitchhike. We get a cheap hotel in Silver Springs or something and count on Andy to put together an itinerary of fellowship, fun, and gin.

2) We congregate in Memphis, home of two esteemed members. Those of us traveling kick Lurker out of his own home and take over. Ribs are eaten, the P & H is visited and Huey's burgers are ingested. Perhaps a AAA ballgame is seen and Beale Street is scoffed at, but visited nonetheless.

3) Everyone travels to the Ryan Adams birthplace of Jacksonville, NC. Joe also happens to live there. We get a crappy beach hotel and admire beautiful sunsets while writing haiku on cocktail napkins.

So, all of those ideas are excellent you say? Then when shall we do this? I'm open to any and all suggestions. I'm free from May 20 to about June 15. Discuss.

Robert Frank, William Eggleston & My Dad

Here's a damn good photo my dad took when I was about a year old. The composition is a little off, but I like the use of yellow and the story that the photo implies. That's my mom sitting in the background and my paternal grandmother standing beside her.

Just digging through some old files and wanted to share.

Catchy Friday

I've always said something good would come out of Scandinavia one of these days. Chalk one up for the optimists!

My Sad Kitchen

So, we're just finishing up the first week of our kitchen renovation. Everything has been crammed into the dining room, and boy does it look like shit. The contractor says we're looking at three more weeks, and although I was skeptical at first, they are moving right along at a nice clip.

Next week, we run a gas line for the new cooktop, drywall the holes and get some tile on our naked concrete floor. Pray for Mojo.

New Orleans Bound

If I don't check in for the next few days its because we'll be in New Orleans for a wedding this weekend and a couple of days of play afterwards. Not that you bastards would have noticed anyway. I'm extra excited because its been a year (the longest stretch since Katrina) since I've been there. Looking forward to some crawfish, public drunkeness and sharing the streets with basketball players (look it up Jay).
Lurker, you're in charge while I'm gone.

Whoa

Mike, just take a deep breath and try not to panic.

Oh Baby

What summer movies are you bastards looking forward to?

Here's my shortlist:

1) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2) Iron Man

3) The Incredible Hulk

4) Hellboy II

5) WALL-E

The $39 Experiment

This guy decided to use a roll of stamps (back when they were .39) and send out 100 letters to different companies asking for free stuff. His amusing letters and the chart of his successes is interesting to look at. I think he ended up with over $200 worth of free stuff for his $39 investment. Worth a look.

A Request

For consistency, please make sure your default image settings for the blargh are set as above. (C'mon, don't be bigger bastards than you already are ...)

Unadvisable Science Experiments

How to create plasma from a beer bottle in a microwave. Man, I love shit like this.

The Arcade Fire, the Music Video, and You

I caught the Arcade Fire in Austin and it was a great high-energy, symphonic show. I wasn't that crazy about either of the albums, but that's probably because I'm an old fart and lack the intelligence to listen to any song longer than 2:50.

They've got two great videos, though. Both are interactive, with the second, 'Black Mirror' being not only a kick ass video, but also a chance to toggle different sounds, meaning you can listen to the song with only the vocals, or with the drum tracks removed, or any other combination you choose.

Waste some time with Neon Bible here, and Black Mirror here.

Happy Valentine's Day

Big names in this year's recruiting class

With the loss of Early Doucet to the NFL draft, LSU is looking dangerously thin in the All-American Player Name stakes this year, although recent commitments Cordian Hagans, Chancey Aghayere, and Rockey Duplessis, are all expected to contribute next season. Next year’s recruiting class looks to be a bumber crop, though, with Abrecus Martinez, Ky’Var Bolden, Darrington Sentimore, Shavodrick Beaver, and my personal favorite Barkevious Mingo, all on LSU’s radar. Geaux Tigers!

Canadian Humor

An old college friend living in Ontario has me hooked on this crazy, low-budget Canadian sit-com called Trailer Park Boys. This Ricky character often gets words wrong in some really insightful ways. One encouraging thing I've taken away from watching this is that rednecks are alike no matter where you go.

Sons and Daughters

You may recognize this guitar from a Catchy Friday post a while back. Anyway, the new Sons and Daughters album is now out, and is even better than expected. And this time around I have spotted that they are playing in DC before it actually happens. BTW, Dave, they are playing in your neck of the woods also: March 18, at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro. Free The People!

Shit

John Alvin, designer of an amazing collection of movie posters, passed away last week.

From the Times:

John Alvin, who created memorable images for movie posters, billboards and advertisements, including the two fingers touching above the Earth’s surface for “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” died on Wednesday at his home in Rhinebeck, N.Y. He was 59.

His collection of posters, seen here, is nothing short of amazing.

Whoop Whoop! Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert! Whoop Whoop!

Lucas is milking the cow a bit more:

NEW YORK (AP) — "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," an animated film, will open Aug. 15 in theaters throughout North America, followed by the debut of a television series this fall.

Jay, just take a deep breath and try not to panic.

Who's in the Moog for Catchy Pop?

Enjoy this, I sure am. Here's their list of influences on MySpace: "Beach Boys, Beatles, the Sonics, the Kinks, David Bowie, Ramones, the Clash, the Smiths, Blur, Weezer, the Strokes, Moving Units, Muse, the Libertines." It will have you Hungary for more. Huh-huh.

I Know This Sounds Crazy ...

But the more I look at that little guy, the more familiar he seems ...

Weird.

Only in India...

This is just too strange.

The fine art of cross-examination

No reason why Dave might suddenly need a lawyer, but, just in case, I recommend this chap.

You Can Thank Me Later

Here's a blog that has an amazing number of mp3s for you music collecting bastards. Don't be put off by some of the strange selections on the main page; scroll down a ways and look at the alphabetical archives on the right hand side. A treasure trove for looking for that 'one' song of a band that you like. I have spent hours on this site, and the fruit of my labors is inspiring. Have fun, and don't forget your families.

Guess Who?

Is it possible? Here's Frances Bean Cobain, aged 15.

Shredded To A Pulp: Steve Vai

From Wired:

Earlier this week, YouTube pulled the plug on funnyman and media artist Santeri Ojala, whose hilarious and popular "shredding" videos poke fun at the world's great guitar players.

Fucking hilarious. The full story - and many more videos - are here.

This Perfect World

I may have blogged about this album before, but I've never Felt Thoroughly Plastered about it, so here goes:

Freedy Johnston literally sold his family farm in the midwest to move to the big bad NYC and follow his musical aspirations. After a couple of well-reviewed albums on indie labels, he signed to Elektra, got a modest budget, and made this classic album in 1994. I was working at a record store in Jackson, MS, and a couple of my co-workers hipped me to this album. It pretty much didnt' leave the player for 7 or 8 months.

You'll probably recognize 'Bad Reputation' as it and the title track were used in the movie 'Kingpin' (helping to give that slapstick kitchen-sink comedy its dark undertone). All of the songs play out like little Raymond Carver character studies set to some of the most insanely catchy melodies ever. Check out 'Evie's Tears' and its follow-up 'Evie's Garden' and you'll see what I mean. The story tells so much, but leaves so much for you to imagine. Butch Vig of Nirvana, Garbage, and Young Fresh Fellows fame showed that as a producer he could handle clean emotive pop as well as he handled big rawk. Graham Maby from Joe Jackson's classic lineup plays bass and Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Lounge Lizards, Elvis Costello) turns in his usual clean and quirky guitar stylings.

Johnston's commercial fortunes have waned. I'm not sure what he's up to now. The last album I have is 'Right Between the Promises', a good, if not great, release from a few years ago on another indie label. Still, this album holds up as one of the highlights of the 90s for me.

Where's Mike? I'll Tell You

On Wednesday evening, Mike had emergency surgery for a hernia. The procedure went well, but he'll be recovering for several weeks.

I told him powerlifting was a terrible new hobby, but he just doesn't listen.

Tamiflu 1, Flu 0

Tamiflu is a wonder drug. I felt crappy Wednesday, but Thursday morning I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a hearse. I've never, NEVER been that sick before. I got my son to school and then slept an additional 5 hours, then off and on the rest of the day. If I sat down, I fell asleep. I mean, fucking scary sick. My head throbbed, I was dizzy and weak, breathing was painful, I had a fever of 101 ...

After another full night of sleep and two Tamiflu capsules, I felt just regular sick. No fever today, just congested and slightly out of it. I tell ya, it's a miracle.

Anybody else have similar Tamiflu experiences?