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Mastodon’s “Leviathan”: The Perfect Album for the Beach this Summer

HELLO VIETNAM!!!

I hope you all have been enjoying this gorgeous sunny, summer weather. I know that, at least here on Long Island, it is really starting to warm up. Finally that comfortable outdoor weather that everyone longs for all year!! Anyway, if you’re like me, warm weather means it’s beach time!! It’s time to load up the woody with inner tubes, shave the snow cone ice and oil up those biceps… we’re going to the beach!!!

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Sun, Sun, Sun!!!

Now while at the beach it’s imperative that you have everything set up so you are ready to relax to the max. That means proper attire: wet suit, flippers, goggles, snorkel, swimmies and peg-leg. It also means proper snacks: hot pretzels, fondu, fresca, grape twizzler pull-n-peels, a bottle of ether and a rag. But most importantly it means having the right music to listen to while you relax to the max.

And if you still haven’t found the right songs for the summer, you have come to the right place. I have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to music and I have found the perfect beach album for the summer: Mastodon’s 2004 release “Leviathan.” I picked up this vinyl last week and did not hesitate to put it on during my ride to the shore this past weekend. It was the most fun I’ve had next to the ocean in years, let me tell you why:

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If your day at the beach isn’t this exciting you are fucking it up.

I woke up early Saturday morning (I wanted to beat the beach rush). The cooler was loaded to the brim with Bud Light Red Onion and, of course, grape Twizzler Pull-n-Peels. I unwrapped the “Leviathan” vinyl, the sun shining on my skin, and set it gently on my car’s record player. I did a quick preliminary squirt of sun-screen, stepped into my flip-flops, set the needle on the record and listened to the happy-go-lucky sounds of the first track ring out as I drove off for a day of fun in the sun:

I think that someone is trying to kill me
Infecting my blood and destroying my mind

Now I realize this is not your typical beach music (let’s say that Jack Johnson or Red Hot Chili Pepper singles are typical beach music), but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. I mean if you really listen to the album you’ll see that it’s about fishing, and what is more nautical than fishing? Answer: nothing. Better answer: the ocean. I know that “Leviathan” and Mastodon in general can be a little, let’s say…sandy?…but that did not stop them from making a terrific album for metal-heads, surfer dudes and sea critters alike. Also I know whales aren’t fish, but please – I’m just trying to relax here.

It was a little after nine in the morning, but already the sun was glaring. I opted to just roll down the windows, rather than use the A/C. It was totally worth it. The fresh air, the sweet smell of hibiscus in bloom and the sun, the shining glorious sun!! The lyrics, “I am completely immersed in darkness As I turn my body away from the sun” blazed just as brightly from the stereo and my face was all smiles.

I arrived at the beach in exactly three minutes and forty-nine seconds, removed my portable record player and carried it to the beach as the second track of the album came on “I Am Ahab.” Another fishing reference!!! So beachy!!! The first lyrics are so, so true: there is “a magic in the water that attracts all men”…the magic of boogie boarding!!!  Yay!! In a full wet-suit and with a mouth full of grape Twizzler Pull-n-Peel, I grabbed my boogie board and hit the surf.. The water was cool and refreshing and the next song, “Seabeast,” was the perfect soundtrack for when I started to drown.

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This is what DJ looks like during the groove in “The Last Baron

An undertow was pulling me, my boogie board and my purple-colored Twizzler-tongue down to Davy Jones’ locker. I was a little scared, but also kind of just digging the song. The gentle lap of the guitar, the pitter-patter of the kick drum. So beach-y, so aqua-rific. Within inches of my life I started to think about how great the word “aqua-rific” is and made a mental note to include the made-up word in my next blog post. Mission accomplished.

With my last breath extinguishing itself in my lungs, I was somewhat saddened that I would soon be no more, but I was also fairly content that I died after having such a great day at the beach. Also, one of my favorite tracks on the album, “Island,” was coming on next….but wait at these depths the music was fading away?! I needed to hear the next song!! I thought, “Oh well, I guess I should at least try to survive…” And so I did. With the giggling tom-toms a-poundin’ and the wavy screams a-screamin’ I made it to the surface and washed ashore beside an orange Italian eating an orange Italian ice. I raised my head to comment on the hilarity, but then I passed out because I had almost drowned.

I woke up around noon, half buried in the sand, and burnt to a crisp. Not from the sun, but because tracks 5, 6, 7 and 8 had melted my face. I crawled my way over to my blanket just as the summerjam tune “Hearts Alive” came on. Glad to be alive myself, I looked around the now-crowded beach and thought about just how terrific this album was for the sand-swept scene. I started to relax on my towel, but had trouble moving my newly burnt arms. I felt almost as immobile as Brent Hinds did after his brain hemorrhaged. ZING!!! As the song began to soar as high as the seagulls and banner-trailing planes, I looked at the children digging in the sand and thought of drummer Brann Dailor trying to dig up his dead sister while tripping on acid. ZING!!! I looked at the lifeguard stand and could imagine Queequeg climbing it like a crow’s nest. NOT REALLY A JOKE!!! I saw a young lady sucking on a popsicle like it was a harpoon. JOKE?? I saw a young albino boy devour a man’s leg.  LIKE MOBY DICK!!! Yes, I thought, “Leviathan” is the perfect album for the summer.

By the way, I’m just kidding…Twizzler never made a grape flavored pull-n-peel.

STAYED TUNED FOR MY NEXT SUMMER MUSIC REVIEWS:
“Blood Mountain” the Perfect Album for a Day of Family-Hiking!!
AND
“Crack the Skye” the Perfect Album for Your Flight to Disney!!

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Music Is My ___________

So, the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review caused quite a stir the other day. What the fuck was this asshat thinking? You don’t fly a 747 over a city which had its two biggest towers destroyed by passenger planes just seven and a half years ago. Apparently, Air Force One was out of commission and government officials needed to take pics of lower Manhattan. The plane was escorted by a pair of F-16s. The question isn’t why Barack Obama needed to be there instead of just letting the F-16s do all the work and not upset idiots in the city. No, the question here is do the British actually use the word “areoplane” over airplane?

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“Sexting Rules” – District Attorney George Skumanick, Jr.

If you aren’t an alarmist FoxNews viewer, you’re probably not familiar with the term “sexting.” Clearly, I am. Sexting is the awful play on words that describes when one individual, by their own choosing, takes a naked picture of themself and sends it to someone else via SMS (Short Message Service). The solution to this scourge? Giving the sweet naked pics to this guy. What kills me about the following quote is the use of the sentence structure to create a scene which resembles that of a real job and attorney should be doing, like reviewing photos of the scene of a murder, rape, minor traffic violation, etc.:

Photos of their semi-nude or scantily clad teenage daughters were stacked before him. Mr. Skumanick said the images had been discovered on cellphones confiscated at the local high school.

I can’t believe this is really an issue parents (or anyone) is shocked by. It’s 2009 – could you dolts really be so naive to think your kids aren’t using every piece of technology almost exclusively for personal sexual gratification?

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The first text ever.

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I’m Turning Into Kid Rock: A Photo-journey of My Shockingly Fast Descent Into Hillbillydom

There is a ton of evidence stacking up against me and it’s high time I acknowledge it. I’m becoming a piece of white trash human garbage. In the four years since I’ve left High School, I have absolutely let the semi-freedom of college destroy me as a person. While, I’m very comfortable with the latest incarnation of me, I think it’s important to look back at where I came from.

Here’s the earliest picture of me on Facebook:

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Look at this sweet boy with his girlfriend enjoying a delicious lollipop after a day at the mall. Oh, look he has a Metallica cap on. You bought it where? Hot Topic? Precious.

I dare you to follow the jump and keep reading.

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Movie Reviews With Your American Hero Peter Paul Marsh III: The Knowing

petey.jpg 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.

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Sweat Lodge: A Review

This past weekend my good friend Luke sent me a wake up call, asking if I would like to go with him to a sweet lodge. I thought to myself, “Yikes, this is going to severely interfere with my Saturday afternoon calisthenics routine down by the sound,” but then I thought “Aw heck, I’ll go anyway. After all, this sweet lodge sounds pretty sweet.” Twenty minutes and an orange later, I was in Luke’s hotrod, on my way to the sweet lodge. Little did I know, I was in for one of the sweatiest days of my life.

Why was my day sweat-drenched? It all comes down to a simple mis-communication. I thought that Luke, who has a very strong and noticeable Staten Island accent, said SWEET lodge, but in reality he had said SWEAT lodge. Though the difference here is only one letter (that letter being A) the implications are significant. What did I expect? I imagined a lovely gingerbread house, with candy cane gutters, a twizzler garden hose and a gumball compost pile out back. I pictured a nice little candy lodge, something straight out of Hansel and Gretel. Well, the experience was like Hansel and Gretel…in the sense that I felt trapped in an oven for two hours.

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Movie Reviews With Your (Very Drunk) American Hero Peter Paul Marsh III: 12 Rounds

12 ROUNDS starring the WWE superstar JOHN “ YOU CAN’t SEE ME!” Cena
By the American Hero, Peter P. Marsh dah third

petey.jpg Alrighty internet people I went to this movie absolutely wasted and I snuk booze into the threate and I am wasted while writing this, just for the record. Well anywho, not a well ur drink from,… a little word play I have noticed Roy likes to do…by the way love Roy’s entries….oh boy this is gonna be a long entry. OKAY people, I have to say 12 rounds was action packed, maybe too action packed!?! The entire film keeps you on the edge of ur seat but never gives you sense of, what’s the word, I’m getting a little writers block with a Mutombo wave of the finger, lets just say that the movie just all action and no understanding, if that makes any sense.

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