MMM

This is hypnotic...

Are you're a unabashed fan of Christmas/Holiday music, but you are sick and tired of hearing the same versions of the same songs over and over and over - especially when they're suddenly interrupted 2 bars before the end with one of those annoying "K-Earth 101!! Holiday Favorites on the Radio!!!!!" shockers?

Yeah. Me too.

Well, that's all over.

Tune into my favorite internet radio station, The 1920s Radio Network.

Every holiday season they play the best in little-known Christmas gems and obscure versions of holiday classics from the early part of the 20th century. You are always sure to hear stuff you've never heard before, and it's all wonderful.

Create a nice holiday environment in your place without having to hear that damn Wham song 19 times.

I'm in Cali now visiting my family for the first time in a year (!). It's beautiful outside, but Long Beach isn't exactly a Winter Wonderland, so I need all the old-timey Christmasin' I can get!

Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times has listed the JACK Quartet's Xenakis show at Le Poisson Rouge as one of "the most memorable classical music presentations of 2008":

The Jack Quartet, an ensemble of young string players devoted to contemporary music, played the club in October. I would never have expected to see a young crowd at a downtown nightclub erupting with whoops after performances of the four hypercomplex, cutting-edge string quartets by Iannis Xenakis. But in this setting these dense and kinetic works came across to this open-minded audience as just more hip, wild, out-there contemporary music.

Awesome, boys! Unfortunately, I missed this particular show. But I, and you, can catch them at their next NYC concert on March 1st at Tenri.

Click here to hear JACK killin' some Xenakis.

Here's a nice story (with video) about a doctor who is climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro to increase awareness and funding for my medical condition, HHT.

There's more on HHT.org:

Scott is a part of a family of five generations of HHT patients, including his three children. Scott’s hope is that his climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro will help to increase the awareness of HHT. Currently, 9 out of 10 of the HHT population (68,000 US citizens) are not yet diagnosed due to widespread lack of knowledge by medical professionals and, therefore, are at risk of stroke, hemorrhage, and death.

Given Scott’s history of anemia and the presence of a pulmonary AVM, he debated whether or not to attempt this climb. “It seemed worth a try” states Scott. “The HHT Foundation and the doctors interested in this disease have done great things for people with HHT, including most of the people in my immediate family. Studies that have been performed have taught us a great deal about the natural course of the disease as well as treatment options for it.” Scott further commented.

Cool story. I definitely would not have the balls to rock Kilimanjaro, probably even if I didn't have da HHTizzle. Special Osler-Weber-Rendu props the the good doctor!

It's a snowy day in New York City, so I'm staying in for most of today. In honor of my voluntary convalescence, here's the original trailer for one of my new favorite films of all time. The Sergio Leone masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West:



I cannot recommend this film highly enough, especially for those skeptical of the "western" genre. Leone infuses the tradition with a heavy dose of classic Italian neorealism and good old late-60s grit and grime. I love it. It is the perfect example of an anti-western, so perfect in fact that it redefined the genre (in a way voiding the "anti" aspect!).

Finally. I have an RSS feed of their latest additions and having to watch films that literally noone knows (seriously, not even the directors) be added daily to the list was starting to, ya know, grind my gears or something.

But this snowy morning's list made me smile a bit. All the Back to the Futures plus Swingers. Nice.

Oh yeah, and Encino Man. Any, uh, Pauly Shore fans left out there? Brendan Fraser? Encino Man is available. Just putting that out there in case anyone wants to watch Encino Man. It's online. Netflix. Encino man is. Check it.

Now, y'all may know that I'm pretty deep in the Obama camp. I voted for him, I've written a lot about him, and I think he'll generally be a great president. But one of the major differences I have with him is the issue of gay marriage. He's against it. Let's not do the whole he's for civil unions bullshit, he's against gay marriage and that's all that matters. Well, in one of his recent hands-across-the-aisle gestures, he's invited Orange Country megachurch Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Aside from being a pastor at a megachurch - which I think is evil enough - Rick Warren is of course super anti-gay and rallied hard against Prop 8, comparing being gay to incest, polygamy, and pedophilia:



Look, I get that he's reaching out, that he's not only going to be the president of the blue half of America. I get that, I encourage it. But this is frankly a slap in the face to gay people, straight up. Picking this douche at a time during which gays are feeling increasingly persecuted across the country should be pretty insulting. One thing I'm getting the sense of with Obama: he is not afraid to take advantage of those with whom he is in good favor. Gay people by and large love Obama. He can afford to smack them around a bit to woo the fundamentalists. When it all comes down to it, he's a politician.

Ouch. This is gonna hurt:

If the authority does not receive new sources of revenue, it seems likely that the base subway fare could rise to at least $2.50, from $2, starting in June. A monthly unlimited-ride MetroCard could rise to more than $100, from $81.

There is also talk of reducing service, making express trains local, and increase tolls over the bridges. Personally, I think that drivers should bear the brunt of the costs. There are way too many cars in the city as it is, if they have to discourage a group of commuters, discourage the group that we need less of, not the group we need more of. Tolls baby. (Sorry driving friends!)

In my endless research (read: internet dickaround time) I've come across another, albeit significantly darker, Augie Rios Christmas song called Ol' Fatso.

Yeah... here's the song:

Augie Rios - Ol' Fatso.mp3

Check the lyrics, yo:

CHORUS:
Don’t care who you are Ol’ Fatso
Get those reindeer off the roof
Don’t care who you are Ol’ Fatso
Get those reindeer off the roof
No you can’t fool me because
There ain’t no Santa Claus
There ain’t no Santa Claus And I got proof.

There was a little fellow
Who just wouldn’t believe
There really was a Santa Claus
Even on Christmas Eve
And when one Christmas Eve he heard
A clatter overhead
He opened up his window wide
And this what he said:

[CHORUS]

Though Santa Claus had brought him
A big bag full of toys
Enough of Christmas presents
For a dozen little boys
Some choo choo trains and cowboys
And a whole Apache tribe
The boy looked up and said,
Oh no! I ain’t taking no bribes

[CHORUS]

Well next year Santa came around
And brought a favourite toy
To everybody but a certain
Unbelieving boy
The moral of this story
Is very sad but true
If you don’t believe in Santa Claus
He won’t believe in you

Don’t care who you are young fellow
Keep those reindeer on the roof
Don’t care who you are young fellow
Keep those reindeer on the roof
Oh you fool no-one because
There is a Santa Claus
There is a Santa Claus
And I got proof.

Yes, there is a Santa Claus
And I got proof.

Surprised this wasn't quite the hit that Donde Esta Santa Claus was?

(Found via PopArchives)

Dear friends, two years ago I lost the fight against Christmas music. I realized that resistance is futile and began collecting weird and unique versions of classic Christmas songs. Well, now I've created my own.

I just completed a cover of the classic mexploitation hit Donde Esta Santa Claus?, made famous by Augie Rios. Not to be a genre whore or anything, but the cover has elements of Yé-yé, lounge, dancehall reggae, punk, hip hop, and death metal. But yet, I try and stay true to Augie's vision.

It's a free download, so click this link to listen or right/ctrl-click to save:

Donde Esta Santa Claus?

Here's the original if you are unfortunate enough not to know this classic:



Hope you enjoy it and Snappy Holidays!

P.S. extra points to anyone who spots the Herbie Goes Bananas reference!

As long as I'm in rant-mode, I might as well rant about a pro-environmental subject, just to, ya know, be fair and balanced and everything.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. named " Wall-E," Disney/Pixar's animated film about a little robot who falls in love, the best film of 2008 on Tuesday afternoon.

Yay.

You notice I didn't say "Yay!". I'm not exactly gunning for Wall-E for the Best Picture Oscar or anything, but it's just so nice to see it win a major award, and I do hope it gets nominated in the Best Picture category in the Oscars. I know it probably won't win the top award, but here are my thoughts on why it should be considered:

Ok, so it's probably going to go to Milk, for a couple reasons. One, the Academy loves Sean Penn. Two, the Academy loves biopics. Three, the Academy wants to make up for its egregious snub of Brokeback Mountain in 2006, which was obviously politically motivated and, frankly, homophobic. (Btw, Crash? Really??) I haven't seen Milk (The Times of Harvey Milk was good though), but word around the campfire is that it is very well-made, and very Oscary. Milk FTW.

But Wall-E deserves to be in the running. The other likely Best Pic nods - Milk, Frost/Nixon, possibly The Dark Knight - are all based on nonfiction or preexisting stories. Wall-E is a genuinely original story - despite the fact that he really looks like Johnny 5 - which is something sorely lacking in film today (see my recent post on film remakes). Pixar - who I'm not usually a fan of, for the record - came up with a completely original story, not based on tired Hollywood stereotypical plot-lines (see Finding Nemo and Cars), and set it against a sharply socially-critical background. Wall-E wasn't afraid to piss some people off, and it wasn't afraid to be overtly sentimental. To me, that is the essence of courage in art. The story was built around environmental themes, they weren't added into the mix during production, and these themes were unspoken but apparent. The humans in the story were both hero and villain and - much like Hayao Miyazaki's anti-villains - they contained the capacity for good and evil inside them, Wall-E was just the unwitting catalyst of this internal struggle.

Above all, the film lacked a sense of regret. There was never a sense that the humans in the story deserved punishment for their past digressions. They came to the realization that they had fucked themselves over, and they began to build their world anew, with the added knowledge of what the consequences of said digressions are. I think it is one of the best environmental films of all time, and a great example of social activism and art in a successful fusion.

Don't you miss that golden age of film when all movies had a heaping helping of thinly-veiled upper-middle class guilt? Of course you do. Well, it looks like those days are back:

When the alien Klaatu stepped off his spaceship the first time, in 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still, he had come to warn us that man's constant warring against itself had become a threat to other civilizations and we had better stop it -- or else.

In director Scott Derrickson's respectful, perfunctory remake, Klaatu once again comes to visit us with a warning, although he's apparently been hanging out with Al Gore, since it's what we're doing to the environment that now has the extra-terrestrials wringing their hands (tentacles? pods? suction cups?)

Guh... Do we really want the days of this to come back?



(Btw, am I the only one who had a thing for Linka?)

This kinda shit ruined the ending of The Abyss, it probably ruined this (although probably already dead in the water) remake, and it will ruin countless more works of art by promoting the mandatory fusion of social responsibility and art. Fuck that. Social activism and art can coexist, but forcing your art to be activist or forcing your activism to be artsy usually creates sucky art and ineffective activism.

And PS, has anyone else noticed that this guilt-in-art trend always tends to coincide with economic recession? Interesting.

From Imeem.com:

Travis Barker's "Jockin' Jay-Z" remix is rumored to be the last project he worked on before surviving a tragic plane crash back in September. The end result is a monster remix with huge drums and grungy electric guitars. Put this on your playlist today.

Wait, what? "The last project he worked on before surviving a tragic plane crash"?? Who in the world gives a fuck about that? I mean, I get that they are milking his near-death experience, but is this gonna be a thing now? Shia Lebouf acted out this scene from his latest John Grisham adaption just before he almost drank a glassful of spoiled milk? Tina Yuthers did this infomercial just before almost opening the driver door of her Geo Prism to oncoming traffic?