Westerberg on Writing

From a recent New York Times Opinonator column.

Jay, How's Your Meat?

Anyone else ready for IN VITRO BURGERS this summer? Dave which beer goes best with that?

Let's Be Safe Out There

Happy Memorial Day Weekend bastards! And a fond bye to The Office.

Also it's Bob Dylan's Birthday, a high holy day around these parts. Everyone speaks in an adenoidal whine today. No exceptions.

Sweet Sweet Sacrilege

From Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster on Parks and Rec.

A blast from the grungy past

UPDATE: The tracks have now been remastered and are in a folder called 'Bowling Shoes'. They sound much better sonically (no background noise; clearer bass and vox).

Cast your minds back to 1991: We were young, wild, and free. Except for Lurker who was already a tax adjuster for the municipality and Matt who was seeing 'Little Shop of Horrors' for the fifteenth time and dreaming of becoming a dentist. But I digress.

In the wilds of the Inland Empire, four lads gathered at Wagner recording studios in Spokane to record the follow up to their local hit album Andy's Warehouse. During the year or two since that jangly influenced album, the musical landscape had altered. While Nevermind had not yet been unleashed on the public, the sounds from Seattle were definitely influencing these fellows. They released a single from this session which charted in the top twenty in Seattle's premier music rag The Rocket for several weeks. Anticipation for the album ran high...and then nothing happened.

Internal acrimony and all the usual tired rock and roll cliches split the group up and the album that was recorded remained unreleased. In fact, only one shitty cassette tape was known to be in existence for the past 20+ years. Guitarist Jamie Frost unearthed the master tapes one day and took them to a friend with a vintage analog recording studio. He had the weird console required to play these antiquated tapes and convert them to digital glory. For Those Partner Bastards who are interested, see what all the fuss was about. The drums are amazing.

Shit

Trevor Bolder, bassist and Spider From Mars, dead at 62. The Big C.

'Tis Friday, Bitches!

Anybody got anything catchy?

Learn Guitar With David Brent

Greenboy: Prescription for Death

This surreal lost Dragnet episode was made by Frank Conniff of Mystery Science Theater and former Mr Show and Chris Rock Show writer Mike Upchurch as a presentation pilot for Adult Swim. They’ve digitally inserted popular alt-comedians into the 1967 cop show Dragnet, and turned it into a story about bad cops trying to eradicate a powerful strain of medical marijuana. It’s technically stunning, exceeding Forrest Gump and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid in both ambition and outcome, while being produced in a living room for only $200.00.

Into Darkness

Paramount’s bid to draw in more foreign ticket buyers even extended to casting decisions and the script, which turns on a more terrestrial story. "Into Darkness" finds the Enterprise crew called back home, where a terror force has infiltrated the Starfleet organization.
"The team has really been in the weeds, so to speak, going country by country and looking at every possible opportunity," Brad Grey, Paramount’s chairman, said of the studio’s marketers in particular. "On a profit level, focusing on your shareholders, this is now how detailed you have to be on pictures of this scope and scale."

Praise be. I was beginning to worry that all my films weren't focus-tested in Asian markets.

Shit

Visual effects legend Ray Harryhausen.

Bastard Field Trip!

It's the event Joe's been waiting for his entire life: the ABBA Museum is finally OPEN.

And before you laugh, just remember that members of both Elvis Costello & The Attractions and The Sex Pistols have admitted to ripping them off.

Oh Hi Mark

The Room is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made. (See above clip for proof.) Now, one of the actors, Greg Sestero, has written a book about the experience. The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made won't be out until October, but boy, does is sound like a fun read.

It's Cinco De Punko!

Feliz dia, muchachos.

Happy Star Wars Day!

May The Fourth Be With You. Try not to think of poor plot and casting possibilities for Star Wars VII: A Bastard's World.

See You There!*

*Unless you're NOT one of the lucky bastards going to Black Keys / Flaming Lips tonight.