Things I Don't Care About:

1) Baseball

Listening to: "Mondo '77" by Looper

Pitch To Me!!!

Review: "Toxic" by Britney Spears
Score: 3.8

PJ and I roared down the highway, the top down and the radio blaring. Our destination? Hedonism. Our ticket to exhiliration? Nestled in the trunk. As soon as we reached Atlantic City, we'd pull out my dead father's wrinkled brown suitcase and get the party started. Our personal pharmacy included forty tabs of acid, a garbage bag full of weed, a detergent bottle full of yayo, a camel back of rubbing alcohol and an IV tube full of heroin. I was most worried about the acid; there is nothing worse than walking into a stop sign while high on that shit.

Before we proceed, I feel like I should introduce my associate, PJ, or Pyjama to his mother. He looks like what would happen if Tony Soprano and Jerry Garcia decided to mate. His father is a stockbroker, his mother an interior decorator when she is not picking up after his three siblings. They were "too busy" to be hippies during the 70's, and they were too old and occupied with family to participate in the drug-laced orgy that was the 80's. Nevertheless, they opted to name their child Pyjama Michael Jenkins.

He hates his parents.

The car is a rental. PJ is twenty-five, so he took care of that. Ironically, he refuses to drive, but can easily waste hours of your time explaining how sleeping in a Toyota can "give you a total respect for Asian philosophy, man." I have tried to elucidate precisely why he steadfastly resists the act of driving. Maybe he likes to think of me as his chauffeur, but more likely he just consumes too much acid. Who can focus on the road when you're busy trying to taste the yellow Ford Excursion cruising alongside you?

The DJ spits a series of tired and overused catchphrases, and before you know it, Britney Spears' ear-shattering soprano is polluting the air. PJ turns to me and murmurs something unintelligible. I turn down the radio and ask him to repeat himself:

"Dude, I'll bet she smokes."
"What?"
"You know. She smokes weed."
"You're an idiot."

He rolled his eyes and swore at me under his breath. I turned the radio back up, allowing the inane ramblings of America's Prepubescent Pop Idol to complement the keen, desperate howl of the wind. Suddenly, on my right, a bright yellow sign announced a sharp bend in the road.

Yellow - the color of danger and Marilyn Monroe's hair. I decided to ease the car through the turn. My foot slowly pressed down on the brake. Nothing happened. Slightly worried, I pushed harder. Still nothing. Panicking, I tried turning the car into a nearby edge. No response. The steering was shot as well. The bend was coming into view. In the distance, there was nothing. We were going off a cliff.

We burst through the barrier like a rocket off Cape Canaveral. For a moment, it felt like we were floating, as if we could drift slowly to safety. Then the front of the car dipped forward, and we saw the valley below. PJ shrieked; my pants felt moist. Gradually, the world rose to meet us, and still Britney's voice could be heard, an essential element in the grand comedy that our trip to Atlantic City had become.

Suddenly, it hit me. I do not have a friend named PJ, and I do not do heroin. Could this all be in my mind?

Turns out it was. Also, Britney sucks. Tune in next week when I describe my many sexual conquests and, coincidentally, review Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body". It will be awesome.

Listening to: Imagine - Dizzee Rascal

Fuck You, Art

So, on the recommendation of Pitchforkmedia.com, I recently got a hold of a few Xiu Xiu tracks off their new album Fabulous Muscles. Upon listening to it, I could only wonder if this entire album is one huge fucking joke.

"Support Our Troops Oh! (Black Angels Oh!)" is a minimalist nightmare of loud feedback, depraved, unintelligent mutterings, discordant violin swells and industrial clangings.

"Did you know you were going to shoot of-off the top of a four-year-old girl's head and look across her car seat down into her skull and see into her throat. And did you know that her dad might say to you 'Please sir, may I take her body home?' Oh wait, you totally did know that that would happen because you're a jock who's too stupid and too greedy and too unmotivated to do anything else but still be the biggest and still do whatever other people tell you to do. You did it to still be a winner."

Oh! Shocking! Political! It's a pity that these words are neither smart nor insightful. How many troops go into battle wanting to kill small children? It's a job. It's a shitty job. For many people the army is the only way to get out of their dead-end life in their poor midwestern town, to support their families. Not everyone can sit in an air-conditioned studio, mumbling meaningless statements into a microphone, and market it to idiotic, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual hipsters. Jamie Stewart, frontman of this band, isn't a genius. He's one of those mindless, robotic left-wingers, spouting faux-controversial phrases who give all the other liberals bad names.

That's what I hate about music these days. On one side of the spectrum, you have vacuous, overprocessed, glitzy drivel. On the other side, you have fucking ridiculous, discordant and affected absolute shit. I hate post-modernism. I hate experimentalism. I hate contrived intellectualism. I hate political music that doesn't have anything intelligent to say. But most of all, I hate the people who are taken in by these stupid gimmicks.

Listening to: "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix

Profiting from Sexual Frustration

As I was surfing the internet for my usual fix of porn today, I came across something truly shocking and horrifying. No, it wasn't scat. No, it wasn't transsexual furry dolphin porn. It was something much, much worse. Let me break it down for you:

I aspire to be a journalist. Stop laughing. The average entry-level journalist with a bachelor's degree earns $26,000 a year. If I worked for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, with 4 weeks unpaid leave, I would earn roughly $13.54 an hour. In contrast, a New York escort earns $200-$400 an hour.

What does this mean? It means I should drop out of college, take some Pilates classes, get a Brazilian wax, use the $80,000 I would be saving by dropping out of college to invest in some elaborate and uncomfortable lingerie and sign myself up for some good ol' fashioned whorin'. I'd be earning roughly 15x more fucking money (no pun intended) than I would be with my $120,000 liberal arts degree from my overpriced, wannabe-Ivy college.

So what if I have to have sex with a greasy, fat, balding businessman? I would be metaphorically kissing his ass in an entry-level job anyway. I might as well do it for real and earn more money that way.

Listening to: "Rippin Kittin" by Golden Boy feat. Miss Kittin

A Lighter Tone

Consider this an apology for the fact that I cannot write music reviews for my life.

Also, buy a t-shirt. It will make your life complete.

Listening to: Sunshine - Mos Def

The New Danger, Reviewed

Thank your higher power for Mos Def.

Just when it seemed like it was no longer safe to be a musical elitist and listen to Hip-Hop, the artist commonly referred to as Black Dante decided to release his long-awaited sophomore album, a confusing, edgy and brilliant piece of musicianship. If Black on Both Sides was rap's equivalent of OK Computer, then The New Danger is its Kid A, the kind of album that induces pompous music critics to cream their pants and beg for more.

Mos Def, for those of you who have been living in a bomb shelter for the past ten years, is considered to be a god of modern positive rap. His debut album, the aforementioned Black on Both Sides, brought positive rap, an established if relatively unknown commodity, into the mainstream. On the strength of that disc alone, Mos catapulted himself into the same league as established icons like Q-Tip, De La Soul and Digable Planets.

As incredible as Black on Both Sides was, however, it only served to perfect a well-established genre. Frustrated, Mos threw away the blueprint and decided to build a new mousetrap. And by mousetrap, I mean rap album.

So how exactly do you go about this? Well, in a tribute to the Roots, Mos decided to start his own live band, Black Jack Johnson. Instead of leaning on synthesizers and drum machines to provide his beats, he now has a bunch of his pals jamming behind him. Unlike other rap-rock hybrids, which were basically an excuse for the lead singer to wear his cap backwards, Black Jack Johnson construct their songs with an eye towards exploiting Mos Def's strengths as a lyricist and singer. And you know what? It works well.

That said, this is not your granddad's rap album. You love P.Diddy and his hooks? Just one track, "Sunshine", features such a concession. Like collaborations? Tough luck. Excluding the songs featuring Black Jack Johnson, there is just one duet with Minnesota, on "Grown Man Business (Fresh Vintage Bottles)". Like your beats ripped from a Top-10 production? This just isn't your day then. Most of the loops on this disc would be at home on a Dizzee Rascal album (see the track "Sex, Love, and Money") ; they are heavily steeped in orientalism and minimalist in nature, to borrow the latest sexy buzzwords.

The CD provides the artist to indulge in musical experimentalism. On "Blue Black Jack" and "Bedstuy Parade and Funeral March", Mos has fun singing the blues. "The Panties", in turn, sounds like a foray into ambient, whereas "The Begger" has a more soulful feel.

Even the more traditional, rap-oriented tracks allow him to manifest his tremendous versatility. Compare, for example, the aggressive, accented lyricism on "Zimzallabim" with the even-headed flow on "Champion Requiem", a eulogy to the rapper's many heroes and idols. Even in the uncommon musical environment that is The New Danger, Mos continues to shine as only he knows how:

And get you off that strange shit
That all of these other cats run game with
Consider this the moment that changed it

Yes, you are stunned. BOW TO YOUR SENSEI!!!

Of course, it would hardly be a Mos Def album without a few crackpot theories thrown in. "The Rape Over", a furious meditation on the current state of the industry, provides this in droves. The song "War" is far more interesting, and makes for an interesting reflection on the state of the world we live in. Mos is angry, and you would do well to step aside and let him charge right by:

Eye-level with death, even beneath radar
Eye-level with death, and she's got pretty eyes

In conclusion, give the man some money. You may not agree with his views, but this is the kind of album that only comes once a year. I mean, a meaningful hip-hop album? How can you pass up that sort of thing?

I leave you with one last rhyme:

And my work is personal, I'm a working person
I put in work, I work with purpose

Damn straight.

Listening to: Close Edge - Mos Def

Bandwagoning

Since Sanjay was allowed to unapolagetically pimp his radio show on his blog entry, I am going to do the same.

If you like any of the following: Belle & Sebastian, The Smiths, Sigur Ros, The Cure, Hot Hot Heat, Clinic, Elefant, Denali, The Faint, Ladytron, Janis Joplin, The Magnetic Fields, Zero Zero, The Thermals, The Velvet Underground, Ambulance Ltd., Interpol, Ratatat, TV on the Radio, The Walkmen, Le Tigre, The Unicorns, Nico, Moving Units, The Shins, or any music worth listening to, then do the following:

1. Thursday at 2pm, log on to http://www.wgtb923.com/webcast.htm
2. Listen to Brenda (hot Asian girl) and me (ehhh....) play you the best music ever.

You might just hear something you like. This week, I'm playing stuff from Wilco, Sondre Lerche, The Decemberists, Kings of Convenience, Cass McCombs, Damien Rice and probably some other stuff. So listen. Please? Please?

You can also IM us music requests at wgtbrequests or alternatively phone in at (202) 687-WGTB.

But if it's a shitty song, we probably won't play it. Although we did play The Stone Temple Pilots for some girl last week, so it really depends on the mood I'm in.


Listening to: "Black Milk" by Massive Attack

Bedtime Stories for Youngsters 1

Once upon a time there was an adorable fuzzy little bunny who lived with his pretty wife and little babies in the lush, verdant woods in a land far, far away from here. One day, Mr. Rabbit was on the way to see his best friend, Mr. Bear when he thought he saw a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye. He paused and sniffed the air, rearing up on his hind legs to get a better view of the blackberry bush, which was heavy with fragrant, juicy autumn berries. Tilting his head, he could faintly hear an odd rustling. Then he got his head blown clear away by a Beretta Sako 75, owned by a hunter who was taking advantage of Rabbit Season with his eight-year-old son, making sure that the boy wouldn't grow up into a sissy.

It was Miss. Robin who was witness to these unfortunate proceedings, and it fell upon her to carry the woeful tidings to Mrs. Rabbit who fell into a major depressive episode and took to her bed for eight months, leaving her oldest daughter, Hoppy to take care of the two younger children, Skippy and Bumper. By the time Mrs. Rabbit recovered from her bout with mental illness, she was 40 lbs overweight. Have you ever seen a 46 lb rabbit?

Hoppy did her best with the two younger children, giving up her precious childhood months to rearing the two ungrateful little bastards. Every morning, she would wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to forage for food for the entire family before making sure that Skippy and Bumper made it to school on time. She would pack their lunches for them, check their backpacks for the correct books and send them on their way with a kiss on the cheek and a generic-brand treat in their pockets. It was all they could afford, what with their poor dead father and sick mother, and the welfare checks so small. Money was tight.

Unbeknownst to her, Skippy and Bumper would cut class every day. Skippy would spend the day at her much-older boyfriend's burrow, helping him cook crystal meth and letting him film her having sex with his best friends. Bumper would head down to the video arcade, where he would meet with his best friends, a fieldmouse named Skullcrusher (ne Nibbles) and a ferret named Fangs (ne Slinky). Then they would head out downtown for some trouble. They always found it, too. Whenever Hoppy would ask about the scratches, the bruises and once, the lost tooth, Bumper would always tell her that he fell off the swings or the jungle gymn during recess. In reality, they were from the socks filled with bricks and the skilfully wielded chains.

One day, Bumper got into a fight with a dangerous crowd. He didn't come home that night. Or ever again. By coincidence, neither did Skippy, having overdosed on heroin. They found her body underneath a bush the next day. Her innocence, cuteness and fuzziness made the track marks running up her forelegs more shocking. Mrs. Rabbit died a few days later from an overdose of ipecac, which she had taken to in order to lose the weight she had piled on during her depression. Hoppy never recovered from that terrible week, retiring to a quiet mental facility where she lived out the rest of her days in a perfect state of catatonia, dying alone and unloved at an unfortunately young age.

The end. Sleep tight, children!

Listening to: "Misread" by Kings of Convenience

Extreme Mega Bonus American Galactic Challenge!!!

These days, every single blog worth its salt has some sort of debate drinking game posted. Naturally, as certified trend-whores, we are more than happy to follow in the footsteps of others. Gentlemen, behold my latest creation: the Bloody Murder Inconsequential Debate Drinking Game!

You will consume one sip of beer every single time:

• Bush reminds you of a monkey.
• Kerry jots something down in his Little Black Book.
• Bush talks about winning the war. Bonus sips if he accuses Kerry of flip-flopping in the same breath.
• Kerry accuses the President of being narrow-minded.
• Bush stares off into the distance, clearly wishing Kerry were some kind of marionette Karl Rove could control from behind the curtains.
• Kerry insists there is no connection between Iraq and 9/11, judiciously citing articles and quotes by administration insiders.
• Bush insists that there is a connection, because God has told him it is so.
• Kerry causes a baby to cry.

You will consume two shots of vodka every single time:

• Bush brandishes the still-beating heart of Richard Cheney and asks Kerry if he understands what he's done.
• Kerry promises to reduce the national debt by selling the White House to the Japanese.
• Bush tells us we can't handle the truth.
• Kerry mistakenly delivers half his speech in French.
• Bush predicts seas of fire and the coming of the Antichrist should Kerry be elected.
• Kerry predicts another Civil War if Bush is elected.
• Bush lists the Soviet Union as the fourth member of the Axis of Evil.
• Kerry suggests calming Palestine down with regular candy donations.
• Bush tries to pay off the moderator.
• Kerry starts singing the Marseillaise.

Special Cases:

• The French suddenly invade the country while we are all looking at the debate - down a bottle of Dom.
• The candidates actually disagree on the issue of gay marriage - make out with the nearest member of your sex.
• Dubs mentions abstinence as the best defense against pregnancy - spontaneously have unprotected sex with the person to your right.
• The War on Drugs is actually brought up as an issue - overdose on heroin.
• Bush thanks for the drugs companies for their invaluable service - overdose on Vicodin.
• Kerry mentions the vast number of people who do not benefit from proper health insurance- cackle and sip a large glass of Bourbon while wearing your finest suit.
• Kerry makes a reference to Two Americas - jump up and down while singing Public Enemy and slurping forties.

Enjoy! Happy debating!

Listening to: The End Has No End - The Strokes

Emoooooooooooo

I'll admit it. I listen to my share of shitty music. Yes, I like Britney Spears. Yes, I like N'Sync. Yes, I like Fischerspooner. Yes, I like Moby. But my deepest darkest secret, the secret I have revealed to nobody before, except for the four of you who read this blog, is this: I listen to emo. Cursive. Death Cab. Well. That's it, really.

Yuck, right? Right. But at least I'm not proud of it. I do not strut around with artfully rumpled dyed-black hair, thick-rimmed glasses, gage-piercings, pyramid belts and black Chucks with a string of random adjectives and ellipses written on them (lovelorn...lost...alone...bittersweet). I do not sit in cafes with my journal filled with doodles and nonsensical, disembodied scribblings ("His humid breath banishes the cool night air, warm against my skin, as our hands entwine and I felt a salty-sweet tear touch my lips--wordless--everything feels real, like its meant to be. Then...nothing. An apparition wafting away with my cigarette smoke as I lie here in this forgotten room--alone--nursing the frozen hollow in that spot between my ribs. I am blind in this eternal darkness. Alone, with the cold.")

Yeah. I don't claim that I'm emo. Even if I were secretly emo, I would suppress that sucker until it emerged in another form. Perhaps homicidal tendencies or some form of OCD. Anyway, back to the point, I don't claim that emo and I don't claim that I'm non-ugly either. Au contraire, to quote Rob Smith, I am "Hot, Hot, Hot!!!"

Yet, despite the fact that emo-boys and emo-girls are viewed as maladaptive, socially-inept pricks by those whose know, there are still communities of emo-people who are proud of being, well, emo and non-ugly. Granted, they tend to blog, and to cluster around a rating community on GreatestJournal called nonugly emo.

In summary, nonugly emo is a collection of pseudo-artsy (read: blurry) photos of spotty teenagers with stupid or greasy haircuts and idiotic facial expressions, who think that they're smarter than everybody else and that listen to shitty, shitty music. And by non-ugly they, apparently, mean dog-faced.

Occasionally, hot people will apply, but they will all be rejected. Examples: trendy and beautiful, porn star, preppy and cute

But the people who are accepted are mostly hideous.

In conclusion, emo blows, emo blows, emo blows, emo blows.

Listening to: "Lover I Don't Have to Love" by Bright Eyes (Not Emo, according to nonugly emo people)

That Is My Boy

My boy Kerry just pushed things forward. Ten bucks says G-Dubs cries himself to sleep at night. The East will rise again!

Listening to: Take You On a Cruise - Interpol