Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Touch Me I'm Sick



This is how the people in 28 Days Later must have felt before they became a thoughtless killing machine. I haven't breathed out of my nose in 3 days, my throat feels as if someone poured molten lava down it, and the headaches, oh God the headaches. I have either the worst sinus infection in history, or I am slowly transforming into Nemesis from Resident Evil. It's still 50/50. And the drugs aren't helping. One would assume that after having pumped as many drugs into their system as I have that one would be seeing images of dragons and unicorns and preaching about how delicious the colors are. One would assume. But alas, Tylenol Cold & Sinus Severe (severe my ass) is not exactly up to the task, and it harbors no shame about it either. It taunts me, as if to smile and laugh and say "ha-ha, enjoy the snot and cough you maggot!", but it doesn't say that. It just sits there and stares, its cold dead eyes telling me it has no pity, no mercy for me. You may have won this round sinus infection, due only to the treasonous actions of my one-time ally Tylenol Cold & Sinus (Severe!), but the war is far from over.

-B
you can't leave me if I'm already gone

Monday, October 22, 2007

Cock Fight



Nothing normal ever happens to me. I can never seem to have a boring day with no interesting events taking place. Take today for instance; I was driving along, minding my own business, when I look out the right side window. What do I see? A cock fight. That's right, on a busy street connecting numerous cities, I see two roosters fighting. And this wasn't your average cock fight either, this shit was intense. I think the fate of the world may have actually been hanging in the balance. There was a dark brown one, who I can only assume is the dark lord Darth Cock, and the white one, who would naturally be Luke Cockwalker. These fucking things were battling it out for God knows what reason, probably over a girl or the World Series or the fate of the world, who knows. All I do know is that one was walking home with his head held high, the blood of his enemy still dripping from his claws (talons? how the fuck should I know), and the other was going to the morgue. Who won, I will never know, but damned if that isn't going to be on my mind all week. What else did I see on the same drive, you ask? A pick up truck full of weed whackers. No sign on the truck advertising lawn service or weed whacker repair or anything like that, just a small pick up truck with a bunch of weed whackers piled high over the roof of the cab. And I'm not talking about five or ten weed whackers either, oh no. This guy had his own little fetish going on, there may have been close to fifty of these damn things stacked high above the rest of the truck for all the world to see, as if to say "I am weed whacker king!". Why would someone need that many weed whackers? And why the hell would two roosters dual it out on Sunrise Boulevard in the parking lot of a smog station? Did they arrange this fight in advance, like two cowboys meeting in the center of town for a quick draw? This is the kind of shit I think about. Why can't I ever have a normal day?

-B
it ends in a place with no love only hate


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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Kiss The Bottle



So I just got out of the hospital, and as usual I am going to use this space as filler for the empty vacuum where I once had a soul. I have been out of the news loop for the past few days, so for today I am going to talk about how much I hate Halloween. I may even delve into how much I love crepes, but I make no promises. Halloween is essentially an excuse to give kids nightmares and cavities, give men a reason to get drunk and pretend their Master Chief and women an excuse to dress up like hookers. I hate candy too, so there is really no upside that I can see for celebrating this stupid "holiday". It's like Columbus Day to me, only instead of some white Spaniard getting lost and killing a bunch if non-white people, some white guys get drunk and give kids diabetes. Of course, those who know me will argue that I hate everything and I am really dead inside anyway, so why would I even bother to state that I hate a holiday when it should be clear that I hate all holidays. But the truth is that I don't. I like St. Patrick's day, that's a good one. And international Get-Drunk-And-Pee-On-Stuff day too, I could celebrate that all year long. But the truth is that I do hate Halloween, always have and I always will. I know I am forgetting something... oh yeah, crepes! Crepes are delicious.

-B
I kiss the bottle, I should've been kissing you


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Monday, October 15, 2007

Karma Police



Trumping the digital download realm by removing the middlemen all together, Radiohead has decided to allow fans to download their new album In Rainbows for whatever price they choose to pay. Want to pay $20 (the websites is in British Pounds) for the new record? Go for it. Want to pay $0.00? That's OK too. The band is only releasing the digital download through their website, but they are also releasing a collector's box edition that includes a free digital download of the album, plus other tracks, the CD's booklet and artwork and other bonus material as well. Now this may seem like a bold move, but think about it logically for a second and you will see that this could in fact turn out to be the best career move (or the worst) they have ever made. Bands nowadays make the majority of their money from touring and licensing agreements and sponsorships. The artist is always the last to get paid from the record company. But by taking other outlets like iTunes and brick retail stores out of the equation, they can control the pricing (or let the fans choose). And surprisingly enough, early figures show that Radiohead fans are indeed choosing to pay for the record than to download it for free, some even paying more than the CD might cost in a retail store or as a digital download from one of the many online music vendors. Now does this mean that other artists will follow suit? I doubt it (and it certainly won't be Metallica who does). However, you may remember that the Offspring did something like this back in the nineties, when they allowed their hit single "Pretty Fly For A White Guy" to be downloaded for free. It ended up becoming the most downloaded song of 1998, also contributing to Americana becoming the third biggest selling album of that year. What Radiohead is doing is essentially an extension of that experiment, although in a much broader sense. How will the album eventually do? Well, it's Radiohead, so I am guessing that even if they do lose money on the album (and I don't think they will) they will more than make up for it by touring. It is interesting to see how this works out though and, more importantly, what this does for the future of music.

-B
you're turning into something you are not


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Monday, October 08, 2007

Into The Wild




If you are looking for a new record to play on those end-of-summer nights, the kind that make you just want to relax with some iced tea or a glass of wine or maybe some cocaine, and that new Avenged Sevenfold album hasn't been leaked online yet, may I suggest the Eddie Vedder soundtrack Into the Wild? For fans of Pearl Jam, it's an Eddie Vedder CD so you probably already own it. For the not-fans-of-Pearl-Jam, allow me to reinforce that this is not a PJ record. Vedder invokes his inner Neil Young and brings some laid back tunes that, while lacking the harder edge of PJ, contain the loose acoustic feel of their later stuff without goin' for broke. The new radio friendly single "Hard Sun" is easily the best tune on here, but there's still some really good stuff here to be heard. "Setting Forth" and "Rise" display the natures-last-walk feel that the movie conveys, and while it doesn't exactly make me want to throw away all my shit and hit the Alaskan wildlife, it does kind of make me want to go camping, which is more than I can say for the last pick-a-name-and-add-blood-to-it emo album that came out. Check it out here for further listening and give it a chance; in the words of Stephen King, it grows on you.

Also recently released is the new Foo Fighters record, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. A good record, with "Long Road to Ruin" easily being one of there finest moments, Echoes... seems to collaborate a mix of all their previous records rather than create its own theme. It works for the most part, but after a few listens you kind of get tired of trying to figure out which record that particular song should have been on. The songs stand up great on their own, but don't work so well as an album. It's deifnitely worth the ten bucks you would normally spend on a pitcher of beer, and it's definitely better than One By One, but if your looking for the heavy Foo Fighters (In Your Honor, disc 1) or the soft Foo Fighters (Skin and Bones), or the best Foo Fighters (The Colour and the Shape), you'll find only traces of it here. I would give it a solid 6. Yeah, 6 is good.

-B
once I dug an early grave to find a better land


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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Jukebox Hero



I am convinced that the music gods hate me and enjoy watching me suffer. Allow me to paint you a picture; I walk in to a bar/club/whorehouse, and there is some jukebox staple blasting through the over-amplified speakers (usually Def Leppard or country). There are maybe fifteen people in the joint. So I meander up, place a few bucks in the machine, and select random music to listen to, seeing as how I can only take so much metal/country/Johnny Cash. Now this is where it gets interesting; I will always hear one song I play, and it is always Candlebox's "Far Behind" (damn that's creepy). It doesn't matter if that was the first, fifth, or last song I chose, the jukebox apparently has its own agenda and it heavily relies on hearing Candlebox right now. And that's it. After "Far Behind", there will be silence for a good solid five minutes, until someone else goes up and plays No Doubt or God forbid, hip-hop. When do I hear my songs? Four fucking hours later, also known as closing time. For some reason I am forced to listen to every God damn hip-hop song that I am nowhere near cool enough to listen to, much less now who the "artist" is, or awful country songs about the dudes dog, woman, truck, God, the U.S.A., or a combination of them all. All the while, someone somewhere is laughing at me and making the jukebox play "Friends In Low Places" a second or third time. Why does the weirdest shit always happen to me?

-B
long road to ruin there in your eyes


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