Cool Shit 3/6

A look at the varied career of Beck - one of my favorite artists. I wish I could hear his most recent release, but since it is simply sheet music and not actually recorded, I will have to simply want and never have. Unless he does indeed record it one day.

While a list boasting the "50 best albums you've never heard," is absurd, it's almost delightfully absurd. Delightful in the fact that while it's boasting an impossibility, it still manages to uncover some cool things, and let you enjoy new treasures.

Tom Sizemore has been in a lot of movies, and has worked with a lot of great directors. A lot.

Existing movies you will probably never see. The Day the Clown Cried is still one of my favorite go-to punchlines.

Most petitions people start are stupid. But not this one. Can I get a toot toot?

Having a bad day, feel a little stressed? Sit back and enjoy this beautiful time lapse of Lake Hallstatt in Austria.

'The Lake' from geoff tompkinson on Vimeo.

Links of Interest 7/9

What? No Addams Family? What is this, amateur hour?

Beck interviews Tom Waits. Yeah, as weird as you might think.

A breakdown of the sexual fantasies R. Kelly would like, based on his new album.

Plan on winning the lottery soon? Here’s a few tips of what you should do.

Don’t be these people when you fly on a plane.

Interview with Jason Bateman.

An argument that Ghostbusters is the best movie ever made?

Baseball players’ superstitions.

The ethics of affecting climate change can hit very close to home.

No, really, where are all the women at?

Links of Interest 6/25

A look at the life of author J.G. Ballard.

One day the fossil fuels will dry up; what do we do then?

The kidnapping and escape of a journalist.

Note to aspiring newspaper people looking to ignite a spark in your subscriber base. Do not promise buried treasure.

R.Kelly’s latest – free.

Become a famous chef, get the sex.

The strange story of the FOX show/potential series/mistake Virtuality.

What happened to Asian cinema in America?

Becoming a minimalist – and liking it.

An interview with Harvey Weinstein.

2008 Links in Review - PART III

The hits keep coming. 2008 had a lot of cool stuff in it! Star Wars, True Romance, album covers and Cuban baseball. It's all here.

For Part 1, go here.
For Part 2, go here.

Check out the links on the flip side!



Cool article about True Romance talking with the people who made and starred in True Romance.

People leaving things (and then others finding them) in libraries and other places have always fascinated me. Here's an article written by one of those people (the finder of things).

Occasionally, I'll get bummed out about humanity, thinking how stupid everyone really is. And then I'll find something on the Internet that's completely creative and my spirits will soar - for 11 or so seconds, before I realize most people are still stupid. But still.

So much bad and awful news has recently come out about our government. Here's a cool story about the good it does - on a large and small scale, seeking out soldiers who have disappeared in war.

I do like to educate when I can. Be prepared for a disaster.

What if the large Hadron collider in Switzerland was just public relations propaganda so that no one found out about these experiments?

Just imagine what Star Wars could have been...

I'm glad R. Kelly was found innocent. Not because I actually think he was (if you looked at the evidence you would see it's amazing he got off) but because he's now free to be more insane.

These are awesome (and work safe) photos of phone sex operators. If this doesn't capture the vibe of that job perfectly, I don't think anything ever will.

One of my favorite articles of 2008. It starts out about a federal case against a guy accused of smuggling people out of Cuba, but goes into the sport of baseball in Cuba,

Yes, there are still more coming.

Podcast 10.009 Recap -- Pics, Vids, Links, and More!

After more aborted beginnings than a Planned Parenthood yard sale, The Popcorn Trick finally started spurting digital chatter into your collective podholes. To ease us back into things, we tackled some broad topics and even a few topics about broads.

Intro:

10+ days after the Popcorn Trick and most of their fanbase attended the Drive-By Truckers show, we kicked off the show with a live recording from that show, as captured in this video:

In case you haven't already, you can check out Goose's review of the show and my treatise on what it meant for the future of the Truckers.

 

As the music faded, we seamlessly rejoined the light banter our fans have come to know and envy. And we totally didn't have a better opening segment deleted due to technical difficulties, in case you were wondering.

The Best

5 months between podcasts, and we both went with something fresh in our memories for our respective The Bests.

I kicked things off recounting a late-night trip to an apparently legendary jazz club north of Harlem (not really Upper West Side as I initially though) called St. Nick's Pub (also this). Drinks were shared, stories told, business cards swapped, sandwiches made, and other people laid.

An exterior shot:

A little Latin flavor:

Not great video, but this is a decent approximation of what I remember in terms of music and visibility:

Jayne Kennedy's daughter doing some jazz vocals:

After trying to sow seeds of distrust between me and my alleged girlfriend, Goose went on to detail his The Best. You can't go wrong with the mad genius that is R. Kelly. Especially on The Popcorn Trick.

This is Kels' latest video, or as it some day may be known, Exhibit A:

A little taste of the brilliance of Trapped in the Closet:

And then,this:

Musical Interlude

We kept it broad, and directly in Goose's wheelhouse by going with songs that have horns in them. All of them, in some form or another can be listened to via this here thing:

podcast 10

Other stuff:

• Good Onion article (mentioned by me in a deleted scene) about songs nearly ruined by saxophone.
• Marah doing Can't Hardly Wait (sans horns):
  
• Fathead has a reunion show 1/24/09 at the North Star
• More info on the Elephant 6 collective, which includes one of Goose's choices (Neutral Milk Hotel)
  • Wiki entry
  • A guy involved with Elephant 6 shuffles through his iPod (AV Club's Random Rules)
• Neutral Milk Hotel
  • Weird MS Paint video for an NMH song:
  • NMH's Jeff Mangum doing Holland, 1945:
• Beck doing "Debra" live
• Trailer for documentary (Dig!) about the Dandy Warhols & the Brian Jonestown Massacre:
• Spiritualized

  • Live version of "Come Together" from earlier this year :
  • John Prine's "Sam Stone", which had a few lyrics borrowed for "Come Together"
    
• Phil Collins

  • I couldn't find any clips of him acting, but here's what he looked like when he was on Miami Vice and what he sounded like when he was singing songs from Buster:
    
    
    
    

Underrated Hotties

We kept it broad, this time going with the vague concept of "Underrated Hot Chicks". Whether it was someone well known but under-lusted-after or someone who is obviously hot, but less famous, these are some of the people we would love to handcuff to our mental radiator.

• Angela from the Office
  • 
• Christa Miller
  • 
    
• Maura Tierney
  • 
  • 
• Jordana Brewster (DEBS - other chick)
  • 
    
• Jill Ritchie (from D.E.B.S, Arrested Development, and being Kid Rock's sister)
  • 
• Cobie Smulders
  • 
• Jenny Lewis
  • 
    
• Michelle Obama
  • 
  • 
• Mary Steenburgen
  • 
  • 
  • Slightly NSFW striptease vid
• Diane Kruger
  • 
• Dana Delaney
  • 
  • NSFW Sex Scene

Enjoy!

The Good...the Bad...the Beautiful #30

THE GOOD:



Good to see the man who directed arguably the greatest movie ever made got work later in life. THe couple sitting at the table with him deserve Oscars themselves for being able to keep a straight face through the entire thing.

Bad and Beautiful on the flip side...



THE BAD:



Who doesn't love the Final Countdown? Possibly me after watching this buffoon butcher it.

THE BEAUTIFUL:



Just when you think R. Kelly has run out of ideas, he hits you with something that defies words. No matter what I say, I can't do this justice. Oh, and a language warning. R.Kelly likes to keep it real, and in doing so, he has to use some pretty raw language. You've been warned.

Links of Interest 6/9

Legos were probably my favorite toy growing up, so I'm a little disappointed in myself for not coming up with this awesome idea myself.

I love thinking about and debating things like this. I'm pretty sure, if I were to accidentally be transported to 1000 A.D. I would not only be able to survive, but also thrive. And now, with this thread going on, there's no stopping me.

I just like how this viewer gives us some access to our Milky Way. Awesome tool if you like the astronomy.

I'm having a hard time trying to find a silver lining in the R. Kelly trail for Mr. Kelly. Not 100% sure invoking the Wayans' classic "Wee Man" is going to get you off. Seriously though, I don't believe his defense attorneys have the right strategy...though I don't have a great strategy either. Maybe simply showing Trapped in the Closet a couple of times would suggest to the jury that no man with that level of genius should be locked up. Feel free to suggest your own R. Kelly defense in the comments.

Jeez, Lou - now I won't be able to hear you waxing poetically about the "truth about music" anymore, since someone dared to ask whether you were making any money on something. I'm crushed.

Links of Interest 6/5

Oh yeah, this is easy to follow. Of the three science ideas here, the last one is obviously the head scratcher. I have enough trouble with one dimension of time, and now people want to add another one? Could you imagine the time loop possibilities on Lost if that happened? Please feel free to explain it all to me if you happen to be a quantum physicist looking for the top 25 80s tv show theme songs. Or if you just want to show that you're smarter than me.

I don't know, it seems to me that R. Kelly might be in a decent amount of trouble. I can only hope he gets acquitted so he can continue to make the world's greatest music.

I love Wired's jab at the end of the article. So subtle, yet so spot on.

Ok, I understand that this was a bike race, and not the common roads around my town, but I'll take this moment to rail against the etiquette of cyclists in general (Cue stereotyping)...I don't know if there's a more elitist group out there than cyclists. Screaming about their right of way, yet barely pausing to obey traffic laws themselves, the double standard they have created goes by largely ignored. And what's with the tight clothes? I understand if you're in a bike race, but if you're just out for a stroll, loose clothing creates more drag which in turn makes it harder to cycle which in turn gives you more of a workout. Am I missing something?

Links of Interest 5/22

I think they got #1 right. And that's good. Not sure I'm thrilled with the Bridget Jones joke, but I'll forgive it. Not a lot of kung fu representation though.

After reading this, I love what Zappos is doing. Weeding out people who just need a job, they're looking for people who want to work there.

While reading this I went back and forth between who I thought was more ridiculous, the author or Disney. I'm still having a hard time making up my mind.

I will do everything possible to bring you updates of the R. Kelly trial, something that should be larger than the OJ Simpson trial.

Links of Interest 5/19

Ok, so I chuckled at some of these responses to get out of jury duty for the R. Kelly case, but isn't this a slippery slope we're creating in society? Hey, no one likes jury duty, but isn't our responsibility? To make up stupid excuses to get out of it only belittles our jury based system, which in turn hurts us all. We shouldn't be allowed to complain about the system if we're not willing to take part in it when required. Ok, that's enough sermonizing.

This link is making the Internet rounds, so I figured I would add. While I disagree with the ranking of the top 21, I'm pretty sure they at least got the right group. Strange that two of them may or may not have committed their crimes in a coal mine.

I'm sure that if the private sector is tracking us by our cell phones, than the government has been doing it for much longer, and have much more nefarious devices and technology in place by now to keep us all in check.

I loved (and still do) Arrested Development, so I'm cautiously optimistic about this new series. Not thrilled it's a cartoon (I'm just not much of a cartoon guy) but I'll still give it the benefit of the doubt.

Where to begin? Point Break holds a special place in my heart. Yes, I know it's silly, implausible, ludicrous, and nonsensical, but it has it's charm. News of a sequel hits me with dread though. Sure, a good sequel can be made, but Hollywood doesn't seem to want to spend money to ensure these things, especially for movies made 15 years prior. While I have hopes since they mention Bodhi, (which suggests they at least have the first movie in their minds), I'm not sure how I feel about the rest of this article. I only can hope they play it straight, and don't give us another Roadhouse 2 (which does have one of the greatest lines uttered in movie history; sadly that doesn't make up for the rest of it).