Categories: Science Posted on December 29, 2010 By: Roy
In my previous post I discussed four criteria which make up the ideal romantic partner. Of course, because I was describing an ideal, I was also describing an impossibility. In my eyes a dream girl/guy would be very funny, extremely attractive, have genius-level intelligence and be as loyal as a lark. In reality, candidates are bound to fall short in at least one of those categories, usually at least two. I fall short in all four.
But hold the phone! My goal is not to discourage people! As Built to Spill’s first album’s title told us: There Is Nothing Wrong With Love! What is wrong is having ridiculous expectations. In this second part, I am going to reveal my second system of romantic qualification: S.A.F.E. (again, this took about 4 minutes of development and is undoubtedly flawed). The S.A.F.E system outlines my qualifications for what constitutes an appropriate partner to pursue romantically. While the F.A.I.L standards will only end in disaster, the S.A.F.E criteria should lead you to a happy and healthy relationship. Let’s begin:
Categories: How-To Posted on December 10, 2010 By: Roy
You know what?
If I said that really condescendingly it would be a good insult, but if I say it with a smile it sounds like I am about to tell you something, and I am! There is one thing I like to do before I sit down to write blogs. Nope, guess again, I like to put on some groovy tunes! Well, hey, let’s get real: it’s about a week into December and from what I can remember I am getting weak in the knees with anticipation. Am I anticipating the antifreeze? No! I’m anticipating the poinsettias, mistletoe, wreaths, ivy, holly and evergreens! As I began this blog I put on one of my all time favorite Christmas songs: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
Go ahead and press play there, it makes a good background track.
Categories: Review Posted on August 13, 2009 By: DJ
After leaving the job that actually pays for this site to exist last Thursday, I headed directly to Sayreville, NJ. When I parked my car I noticed two things: a dude with a mullet playing football with a dude wearing a leather vest and a massive pickup truck spray painted black and white camo. I had accidentally set the clock in my DeLorean to 1988. No biggie, though – I always pack extra plutonium. When the locals were finished asking me about the weird clothes I was wearing (a plastic bag and a massive sombrero) and the strange music I was listening to (Lady GaGa), the primative natives showed me the way to the nearest place of worship. It just so happened that at Starland Ballroom, guest reverend Nuno Bettencourt would be performing exorcisms and fretboard masturbation for all in a spectacular display of oxymoronicism.
So with the swagger of a pre-cancer Swayze, I made my way in to the venue. I made it just in time, too. I got a spot right next to a drunk version of this and on the opposite side of the stage from Nuno. Oh well, at least Pat Badger knows how to kick it on stage right. They opened with Decadence Dance and played four songs in all before getting all acoustic on us – the just-mentioned-in-this-sentence “Decadence Dance,” It (‘s a Monster),” “Star” (from the latest album), “Rest in Peace” and the technically astounding “Play With Me.” I’m convinced Nuno plays faster live than on record, but I have no desire to go about trying to prove this theory.
I’d hit that.
After physically exhausting everyone in the room, Extreme decided to lull us into a completely false sense of security by pulling out the acoustics and lowering the lights. With a pre-recorded backing track, Pat and new drummer Kevin ‘kFigg’ Figueiredo (Gary Cherone had to go figure out what his next sequence of poses and weird dances would be) Nuno laid down the fucking law with “Midnight Express.” What happened next puzzled, confused and downright pissed me off. They played “More Than Words.” of course. To be honest, Extreme not playing “More than Words” is like Dream Theater not playing “Pull Me Under.” Wait. That’s exactly what happened when I saw Dream Theater, and not only was I not upset that they skipped that dud, but I had a better time because of it.
But, just playing the song is not the part that upset me. What upset me was that the audience, like a collection of retarded automatons who actually didn’t listen to Extreme except for the year and a half they were prominently featured on MTV, pulled out their cameras and recoded videos of the completely and utterly unspectacular performance of the marginally-better-than-awful song. To me, that would be like lighting your friend’s face on fire and only recording your other friends reactions. What’s the point?
Would you rather have this:
Or this:
As a memory of your Extreme Experience?
The rest of the set was of course insanely awesome. The closer is embeded above – I wish they had played all of “He-man Woman Hater”, but I guess I’ll take a Michael Jackson cover instead.
Then Ratt took the stage. Remember a few years ago when they made a huge deal about Stephen Pearcy re-joining the band and kicking the more talented Jizzy Pearl to the curb? No? Well, they did that a few years back and man, let me tell you what a good decision that was… The ravaged old man came out onstage looking like a cross between a washed-up WWE wretsler and a piece of chewed up leather. To say he strutted around would be an over statement. He kinda just walked around semi-singing. Alright, he sounded way better than the first time I saw him at Rocklahoma a few years ago, but he was still a shell of his former self.
Warren DeMartini was hardly in better shape. He really looked like heroin-era Lou Reed. And he was wearing a full flack jacket in a 100+ degree club. He also faked his lip sync-ing. He would walk up to the mic and move his mouth like a puppet instead of forming words. Weird. Also, the playing just wasn’t that great. It seemed that the whole band adhered to the motto of “We’re not as good as Extreme so let’s just play louder and have a bigger lighting rig). Where’s Juan Croucier when you need him?
(Here’s where a video would be, but I couldn’t find one from this particular show, so it would be cheating if I posted something).
Long story short, I stayed for three songs and left. I didn’t want to ruin my Extreme show.
After what felt like three months without a post we’re back with a killer interview. To celebrate completing school my girl and I went on one of the most metal tears ever. My last day of class was 5/6/09 and I capped it with an extreme performance by GWAR at the Chance in Poughkeepsie then after a night of debauchery with Frank we were off to NYC. On Friday, we caugh the No Fear Energy Music Tour with Lamb of God, As I Lay Dying (who definitely deserve a new found respect from me), Children of Bodom (who only played three songs – Alexi “Avian Bone Syndrome” Laiho destroyed his shoulder and couldn’t perform) and God Forbid. On Sunday we were able to see Mastodon perform Crack the Skye at the Williamsburgh Theater in Brooklyn – if you have the opportunity, you have to go.
But Saturday is truly the important night right now. I had the opportunity to sit down with Protest the Hero guitarist Tim Millar and got a great interview. Tim was a great guy and the staff at the Blender Theater was one of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Being in the midst of the most metal weekend I’ve ever had, I didn’t have too much time to prepare so please bear with the interview as I stumble through the first few questions. Also worth noting is the fact that Roy coming to the interview wasn’t ever even an option, so I don’t know why I felt it necessary to say he “pussed out.” I’m a horrible friend. Below is the interview and a flash gallery. After the jump is another gallery if you have trouble with this one and a transcription of some of the highlights.
Hello internet world, its me, your American Hero with another movie review. This time I’m soder and ready to rip the shizzle out of one of the worst movies of all-time. So hold onto your keyboards as I go off on this terrible movie.
So I get to the theatre a little outside San Jose to see The Knowing. I knew very little about the movie except that it was about the end of the world and one of my favorite actors, Nicolas Cage, was in it. So I was pretty amped up for this movie and ready for Nicky boi to put an end to the end of the world. So after buying my ticket at the great price of 4.50!…unheard of in San Jose…I got some popcorn and a little so-derrr pop and headed into the theatre.
In recent months, two metal shows have been created by less-than-qualified individuals. First, the TalkingMetal,com clowns were given a show on Fuse. My loathing for that podcast and its snore inducing hosts cannot be put into words, so I’ve avoided it like the plague. Second, is Eddie Trunk‘s new VH1 Classic outfit That Metal Show (co-hosted by comedian Jim Florentine and some guy named Don Jamieson). To give you an idea of how little attention this show warrants, it has been on now since December 6th, 2008 and the date I’m writing this is April 5th, 2009. I know I really shouldn’t expect much from VH1 Classic or anything Eddie Trunk ever does, but when a show comes out and it’s called “That Metal Show,” there is an immense amount of curiosity.
When I started this website, I planned on keeping things relatively metal, but honestly, I just can’t do as good a job as some others. My dedication is ultimately to myself and my ego, so following other people’s careers for a career just couldn’t work for me. Luckily, the word “metal” does not appear in the URL or our tagline (anymore) so I kinda side stepped that completely after a few months of miserable failure. However, if I were, a metal blogger, writer, podcaster, or just a hardcore fan, I would be absolutely insulted that this is what I’ve been handed as “metal on TV.”
I’ll begin by giving you Wikipedia’s description of the episode I watched, which was apparently episode three of season two. Season one had seven whole episodes (Power Rangers’ first season had 65, so the term “season” apparently doesn’t mean shit). Here it is:
They begin the episode by discussing music in the digital age and the differences between listening to an album and downloading songs off of iTunes. They welcome out Nuno Bettencourt and Gary Cherone (who enters through the audience). They discuss several things including the reasons that Extreme is coming back now and how it was following David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar in Van Halen. Don and Jim revisit the “Van Halen TV” bit and go to London for “Motorhead TV.” Eddie got two and a half out of four in “Stump the Trunk.” The pick of the weeks were Danko Jones by Jim, The Binges by Don, and Richie Kotzen by Eddie. They discuss “Whatever Happened to”. The “Throwdown” is “Which is the meaner album: Slayer’s Reign in Blood or Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power. Gary, Nuno, Jim, and Don choose Pantera and Eddie chooses Slayer.
Literally that was it. I took notes throughout and that’s kinda what they look like. You could read that and come away with just as much knowledge as you did going in. But, I’m not here to recap, I’m here to criticize and insult, so without further ado…
Categories: Sports! Posted on February 26, 2009 By: Roy
I like to dance, so sue me!!!!!!
Hahaha, I’m sorry, that first line just cracked me up. But seriously folks, I do; I do love to dance. Dancing is my natural passion. In fact, if I were to have my own Vitamin Water it would have only two ingredients: passion fruit and dancing…and water. It wouldn’t taste very good, but it would sum up my feelings on dancing very well. When I hear music, my body naturally wants to move. I wiggle and jiggle, I bop and be. Do I follow many dancing conventions? No, of course not. Do I flail, air-hump and turn my body into a human gyroscope? Yes. Yes, I do. I know I busted a move (or two, LOL) this weekend, but I’m beginning to think my techniques are being subtly mocked. Are those fun-loving party people laughing with me? Or are those ugly, prudish, boneheads laughing at me? Let’s figure it out:
