Happy Birthday Matt!

I signed Dave up for a root canal (with song!)

Peek Inside Tesla's Robotic Factory

Nerdgasm!

Asiana Pilots Names...

This is hysterical!!!

Tastefully Nude Friday

"America is maybe the most unhealthy nation in the world because they live on crap,” Player said. “They’ve got the best food in the world, the best farmers and the best food but they live on crap. When [British chef] Jamie Oliver went to America he went to areas where children never had cabbage or broccoli or spinach or vegetables in their life. People giving their children a soft drink and a doughnut to go to school. No wonder academically they’re affected."

77 year old South African golfer Gary Player is lettin' us have it! I think the crystal meth keeps Joe and Dave pretty lean, but the rest of us have to work for it. What's your summer workout regimen?

I submit...

I know you name-checked the 'Mats in your post, Dave, but I just want to point out my admiration for Mr. Stinson's solo and band work (Bash 'n Pop, Perfect) outside of those other big bands. Some honkers, but every album he's done has had at least 2 or 3 perfect songs.

New Series: Artists We Love (?): Springsteen

New series: post an artist and everyone else weighs in with their relative love/disdain for said artist. Our feelings on Dylan, the Replacements, Morrissey, and others are well documented. Let's try some more. Rate the artist on your personal scale of 1-10 and explain why they merit that position. Overrated? Underrated? Let's get some musical dialog going people! I'll start.

I didn't like Springsteen at the height of his 80s popularity. Not enough shredding solos or punk rock aggression for me. He seemed like old people music when I was 18. To me, lyrical depth was exemplified by Roger Waters, not Bruce Springsteen. At some point in the mid 90s, that began to change.

I picked up Nebraska in a bargain bin somewhere and suddenly figured this guy out. I think I had to be older to understand some of the stories and some of the characters. I worked back to The River and Darkness on the Edge of Town and those three remain my favorites although I am a huge fan of his post 2000 work as well. I have a lot of time for The Rising and Magic especially. As I get older, longevity in the business becomes more and more admirable to me. If you're skeptical of The Boss' songwriting prowess, I highly recommend The Promise, a double album set of outtakes from the Darkness sessions. He's got some serious Motown and Tin Pan Alley chops.

If you'd like to hear anything you don't have For The Posterity of it, let me know. I think I've got most all of it save one or two 90s efforts.

Scale: 9/10

Nothing Can Hurt Me II: Spanking For Jebus

"You don’t have to be a Christian to practice domestic discipline, although many of its practitioners say they believe that domestic discipline goes hand in hand with their faith. Specifics of the practice vary by couple, though CDDers all seem to follow a few basic principles. Foremost, that the Bible commands a husband to be the head of the household, and the wife must submit to him, in every way, or face painful chastisement.

From an article I read recently.

Joe, as Special Bastard Liaison to the Pope, where do you stand on this? Should Bachelor Dave bring it up with his fiancé?

Nothing Can Hurt Me

Available on iTunes starting TODAY.

Trouble for Morrissey in Egypt

I haven't been following the news all that closely, but I keep hearing that the Egyptians are having all these protests against Morrissey.  Enormous crowds, people have been hurt and even killed.  To our Egyptian followers, I say, "Hey look, I don't like the guy either, but enough's enough already.  It's just not worth all this."  

Shit

Jim Kelly.

We got in trouble at the Vatican

The trip with our students was pretty awesome and fairly hassle free (excepting one emergency room visit, a minor jellyfish sting, stomachs having bad reactions to foreign food, and an embarrassing trip I had to make to a pharmacy to buy feminine supplies). Above is my portion of the group. We saw the Prado and Royal Palace in Madrid (where I found awesome pints for one euro), the beach, Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia and Las Rambla in Barcelona, took an overnight ship journey across to Rome, and while there saw the Coliseum, Forum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, etc. At the Vatican some of our group got fussed at and our tour guide was fined because some kids sat on the steps outside the Sistine Chapel. Hopefully the Pope was not personally notified. To be honest, I could have stayed a few more days. If you so desire, you can check out all the pics on FB, which is a social networking sight some of you may have heard of. Cue Chuck Berry's 'Back in the USA'...

Shit

Alan Myers, classic lineup DEVO drummer. Fuck cancer.

Only 170 Days!

Can't wait for this one. Was quite won over by The Hobbit, in spite of my whiny apprehension.

Shit

Richard Matheson.

Google him, ya bastards.

That Good Old Summer Slowdown

Shit

51.

Bane Outtakes

I laughed.

Late to the party

I gather these have been out there on the interwebs for a while, but better late than never if you haven't seen them.  The badmotherfucker video is quite remarkable.

http://vimeo.com/user5393374/badmotherfucker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BKQ6nINAeq8

Sharing The Love

My recent acquisition of a Record Store Day copy of the Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me soundtrack came with a Dropcard code. Feel The Power of Big Star's pop I say. Feel it!

The Ugly American

I'm off to Europe with 35 teenagers. It's been nice. See you in the next life.

The Making Of The Shining

The most important post in our history

We've used this space to announce births, celebrations, and achievements. But now this has happened. 'Nuff said. Except there's also this.

Yup

“When you’re twenty-one, life is a roadmap. It’s only when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect you’ve been looking at the map upside down, and not until you’re forty are you entirely sure. By the time you’re sixty, take it from me, you’re fucking lost.”

- Stephen King, Joyland

Tommy Speaks

Incredible interview with Tommy on podcast here. Stop what you're doing and listen. Now.

What is this an ad for?

This played on network TV during prime time last night.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños El Dave!

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
You're oooooooooold, bastard
Happy Birthday to you

Trouble Will Find Me

Feeling happy?  Let the National help you Find The Pain to get through the day.  Don't like the National?  Go fuck youself.  

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.

Hey, You Guys!

We're over on G+!

True Facts...

I just wanted to take a moment to share with you bastards some of the animals that I have encountered during my world travels. Hilarity ensues... Seriously these are worth your time. Funny.

In this first video we see how Grand Pubah Eric got his nickname at around 1:52...

I actually saw these fuckers in Komodo...

This next little guy was an inhabitant of the island I visited on my most recent trip to Indonesia. funny video...




this is a good one too...

Shit and Double Shit

If you haven't read his autobiography, do yourself a favor and do so immediately.

Building A Human

More found-footage hilarity from Peter Serafinowicz.

I'll Take Bands That Don't Exist for $1000 Alex...

How Many Sequels Is Too Many?

Anyone up for this nonsense? Expectations at rock bottom after Spiderman 3 and Dark Knight Rises.

Shit

Isn't 4/20 Some Kind of Holiday?

Oh, yeah! Record Store Day! Sadly I spent all my money on weed, so I won't be getting anything. How 'bout ya'll?

Catchy Friday

I think we could all use something positive and inclusive today.
Also how awesome that David Brent is making videos again.

Bombing Suspects

Posted to the FBI's site earlier today. You've probably already seen it, but what the hell.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers...

This is why Jay works at Fed Ex...

What He Said

Note inexplicable bastard running technique: eyes closed, arms in.

Wonderful event, a privilege to have done it. May a resilient Boston rock on.









[Stock photo of Boston-loving Bastard circa 2008]

The First Honest Cable Company

Happy Tax Day, citizens. Anyone else feel like your monthly cable bill should be a write-off?

Face Melting Friday

 I've completely fucking worn this song out over the last few days. Band is Life Coach. Song's called Fireball. I'll be watching the Masters at a titty bar if you need me. Happy Friday, Bastards. Happy. Fucking. Friday.

Great Ebert Story (or is it a Siskel story?)

I've got a mean case of the Friday f.offs.  If you share the affliction and aren't doing something important like healing sick children, then enjoy. 

Odenkirk.

Hey, Jay

Siskel & Ebert Bicker

I saw this years ago and was reminded of it by Eric's post. However you remember Ebert, don't ever think of him as having been cuddly.

Shit?

 Let's let Elvis have the last word.

Shit

"I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine... Mad's parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin—of the way a movie might look original on the outside, while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe."

Be sure to enjoy 50 Harshest Roger Ebert Movie Review Quotes.

I can't quite get his less-than-glowing reviews of Blue Velvet, (especially given that he co-wrote the screenplay for Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) and A Clockwork Orange.

But that may be just me -- I tend to like the worst artist about 100 times more than the best critic. Fuck Pitchfork and whatnot.

R.I.P. Mr Ebert. For telling us how bad The Village was:

"To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

Dormarion

Feeling Telekinetically Psychokenetic?  New Telekinesis record should help with that.  Sorry, red flexidisc is for vinyl afficianados only.

State Religion: Cock-Blocked!

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.
SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

Pretty sure someone in the North Carolina state legislature was paving the way for "Church of Dave" to become the rule of the land. Story here.

Perhaps Dave will enlighten us as to how the above bill was thwarted. Or maybe he should just move to Nashville. We're all progressive & shit.

Friday Friday.

My bracket's busted (thank you Hoosiers), so I'll be doing escalator helicopters all weekend. Cheers!

Shit

Don Payne, writer for the Simpsons, has died. 48 years old. Sigh......

Be The First Bastard On Mars!

I'm joking, not sure anyone here meets the criteria:

"Applicants need to be at least 18 years of age, have a deep sense of purpose, willingness to build and maintain healthy relationships, the capacity for self-reflection and ability to trust. They must be resilient, adaptable, curious, creative and resourceful."

Also you don't get to come back.
Also you have to star in a reality TV show.

Thug Kitchen

Great website. Bon appetit.

A Pilgrimage

I had the day off and decided to go find Chris Bell's grave site. Oddly moving, I must say.

Reviews You Can Use.

Johnny Rotten reviews the Katy Perry movie.  He doesn't hate it as much as you would think.  Yes, I have seen the movie.

*BARF*

The Seventies really were that bad, weren't they?

Go Zags!! and such

With decidedly mediocre years from UT and FSU, I fully expect you bastards on the Gonzaga bandwagon. At least until they get unceremoniously bounced in the second round. Someone tell Dave the Saints aren't playing, he needs to get with his Spokanoid heritage.

Above design a Poobah original, by the way. Let's hope it goes viral and as many as 5-10 people see it.

Now this is an investment I can get behind . . .

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1732077870/the-tapit-cap-the-beer-growlers-best-friend

Rampant Imperial IPA

I am both repulsed and aroused.

Anybody tried this one?

The Conclave

[L-R: Radioactive Man, Rorschach, Ra's Al Ghul, Keyser Söze]

At an undisclosed location, the principals of the Bastard hierarchy ('the Conclave') met for sober intellectual discussion. So be it stated herewith:

(1)The Scrotum Initiative continues to go well.
(2) Suggested theme "A Teetotaler's Wedding" for upcoming Bastard nuptials was shot down in committee.
(3) Traveling piggyback is an effective means of conveyance and implies nothing about one's sexuality.
(4) White trash dive bar provides perfect contrast to iconic Australian noir auteur.
(5) Lurker: next pitcher is on you.

Gifts For The Lapsed Catholic In Your Life

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye prayer candles!

Eric, get yours here.

Bonus Friday

Catchy Friday

Postal Service Auditions

"I think we both hate bass, so let's just get this over with."

Any Dog Lovers In The House?

This is absolutely adorable.

I'm-a the Pope-a!

Get More: ,

Let's hope the new Pontiff brings some much-needed slapstick to the papacy.

Pope Francis I

Let the talking mule jokes begin. 

(Poobah, I hope you had $20 on Jorge's nose.) 

N-D-T! N-D-T!!

I've been watching lots of Neil deGrasse Tyson on the youtubes.

Google+ Experiment

Hey bastards, I've been playing with Google+ again for the last week or so, and they've really made some noticeable improvements over the last couple of years. I was initially thinking of it as a blog replacement, but maybe G+ could be our blog away from blog. (Quick posts or comments directed only to your Bastards circle, for example.) Just spit balling, but tell me what you think.

One obvious advantage to using it is that it's much easier to post something of interest - especially from a mobile device. Another is that only we could see it.

Thoughts?

Djesus!

Controversial SNL sketch.

Walking Dead, 1995 Style

Yes, some joker with too much time and talent made Walking Dead opening credits, 1995 style.

Ambassador The Worm Will See You Now

"There is nobody at the CIA who can tell you more personally about Kim Jong-un than Dennis Rodman, and that in itself is scary."

- Col. Steve Ganyard USMC (Ret.), Former Deputy Asst Secretary of State

Wasn't this a South Park episode?

I'd Watch This