My Loony Bun is Fine Benny Lava! Blogger on the other hand. . . just looney

Hey guys- there may be a break in uploading music files, because as it turns out (or at least I'm pretty sure) Blogger didn't just randomly eat my post- I believe they flagged it for the music file; the file was also deleted over at Divshare, so I'm trying to figure out what's going on. No actual notices were given. Granted, it was a new release- specifically the new James Bond instrumental, but it seems like more than a few people-- and some amazing blogs that actually can claim to stimulate purchasing of music-- on Blogspot are having this problem, including Berkeley Place which got dinged on a post full of indie artists who had given their permission, Setting the Woods on Fire has been having trouble and may be retiring (?!?) (also, read his thoughts on the matter- as always, very well expressed), and many others. . . and I'm wondering if that's why Giant Robots Make Me Nervous has been MIA? (Which would be a fucking crime-- Does anybody know?!) Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out a way to sort this out/get around this, so stick around, I'll do my best to keep posting regularly- the alternative is to link to pages featuring other's files (ie Skreemr), but we'll see. I'd rather not post a link to a link and have Blogger (or whoever) follow it and kill it there.

For now, enjoy "Benny Lava"-- this guy has taken what some Bollywood lyrics sound like and subtitled a vid with them. As if the video itself wasn't funny enough. Enjoy :)

That Wacky Wacky Cold War

US Pilot Ordered to Shoot Down UFO

LONDON (Reuters) - Two U.S. fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside during the Cold War, according to secret files made public Monday.

One pilot said he was seconds away from firing 24 rockets at the object, which moved erratically and gave a radar reading like "a flying aircraft carrier."

The pilot, Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, said it spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 7,600 mph.

After the alert, a shadowy figure told Torres he must never talk about the incident and he duly kept silent for more than 30 years [read more. . .]

• Screeching Weasel ~ I Believe in UFOs
• And don't watch this South Park episode, my God.
  

heh.

[Original picture]

Request! Illegal Tender EP

• Louis XIV ~ Illegal Tender EP [sharebee]
• Buy

The Real Dilemma AND the Eternal Question

Are Fred Perry shirts sold on eBay for $20 and shipped from Thailand real Fred Perry shirts?

Whtie Kids Aren't Hyphy & Hipster Girl Vids

Ah ha, so I missed that a video for one of my favorite MC Lars songs, "White Kids Aren't Hyphy," was released, from what I can tell, in this past May's podcast. As always, fun and cheeky. Check it out!

This is the vid for "Hipster Girl." As you guys know, I hate them more than I hate six dollar PBRs. I'm with MC Lars on how L train girls (yes! It is on the L train that I first saw one of those nasty people who wear glass frames without lenses!) make no sense and how fixed gear bikes make no sense (no seriously, they don't-- until this year I thought that kind of bike was the kind of bike you learned how to ride a bike with because that's the kind of bike I had when I was a kid- I just said bike a lot, huh-) anyway, though it's unclear how Lars feels about them-- love em but don't get them?-- they're hot but they suck so I'll get with them anyway? (oh boys)-- contempt validates them?-- if you hate the things he's pointing out, you can cast your own shadow on the video (as I did) and consider it all insults. Yay negativity! And ps- after the fadeout, if you hate that fucking song from Donnie Darko as much as I do, stop the video.

Mid-October

Hey guys, it's been a busy week and shaping into a long night: midterms, helping friends move large Coke machines up Mt Doom stairs, more midterms, Dodgers not doing to hot (but it's only the 3rd inning! I have faith!), BLOGGER EATING MY POSTS BOO BLOGGER, and more midterms and papers. . . but I just wanted to stop by a moment and say 1) I will be responding to comments and requests as soon as I get a breather this weekend (so stick around for some Louis XIV goodness) and 2) this is the best thing I have read all week- maybe all month- after, of course, your comments:

"Loving" Bonobos Seen Killing, Eating Other Primates

"The second I read this, I thought: Oh good, finally!" said primatologist Elizabeth Lonsdorf of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

I have to agree with Lonsdorf on that sentiment (though my reaction was "bhahahaaa" or something of that ilk), and she expresses, I think, the general opinion of all of us who did not trust those hippie-dippy love monkeys: "Bonobos being so peaceful never sat well with me," said Lonsdorf, who was not involved with the study.

Songs That I Secretly Like so don't tell anyone

• My Drive Thru ~ NERD ft Julian Casablancas & Santogold

[link is to listen & download via Skreemr; right click & save] This was used for the new batch of Converse promos, and you can check out the vid here on Youtube. Why is it a guilty pleasure? Not sure, and it's not the song itself-- which is excellent-- but everything about me is saying it is. Maybe it's the overwhelming hipster cred that smacks you across the face. This song is the equivalent of that guy on the L wearing skinny gray jeans, colorful high-tops, art-rim glasses (WITH NO LENSES, douchebag) and a thin striped scarf. Maybe it's cos I still don't like that Julian Casablancas. Maybe it's because I need a new pair of Converse and I can't face facts. Maybe it's cos I don't like the direction the company is trying to go in. But goddamnit, it's danceable and catchy, even with those Julian Casablancas whingeing portions.

• Beat Your Heart Out ~ The Distillers

Sorry, Tim.

How We Feel About the New Clint Eastwood Movie

Jeffrey Donovan! In 1920s clothing!

Life Just Keeps Getting Better

Ever sit around and think things like, what are some of the most awesome things in the world? Ketchup. . . Bruce Campbell. . . United States Presidents. . . free delivery. . . Ben Templesmith. . .

Well wait for it folks, because somebody out there has combined two of the above and given us. . . BEN TEMPLESMITH doing US PRESIDENTS.

Just try to complain about that. And then watch some real & true facts about George Washington. Like how he'll save children. Just not the British children.

What I Did This Summer Vol II: Epic Road Trip

[click for more photos]

San Francisco to LA to Vegas to El Paso to Austin to Houston to New Orleans to Atlanta to Baltimore to NYC in a 1998 Nissan Altima and 12 tanks of gas and 1 speeding ticket. 3 people from SF to LA via SLO, 4 people from LA to Houston, 5 Houston to NOLA, 3 people from NOLA to NYC.

I'm the one who got the speeding ticket. Guess what the speed limit is in NC? 65. Guess the speed of traffic? 85. Guess who had the only CA license plates in radar gun-shot? Guess who broke out the drug-sniffing dogs like it was a big deal.

• Caught by the Fuzz by Supergrass

YOUR Berlin Wall

If you can't tell by the resumed posting, then the amount of times I've checked my facebook should tell you that I'm back at school and not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So in that vein. . . check this out; everything about it is perfect and high-fucken-larious:

See the rest of the list, What the World Would Look Like If the Other Side Won the War, and more, at Cracked.com. As the lists there are the latest on my internet addictions list (you guys are still #1 though), I'll be posting more links in the future.

Speaking of silly. . . my new favorite silly Onion headline: Members of Twisted Sister Now Willing to Take It. Excerpt:

"I acknowledge that we promised not to take it anymore, but things change. The world is a different place today, and with that in mind, we would like to go on record as saying that, starting right now, we are going to take it," read a statement released by the band's lead singer, Dee Snider. "To clarify, we would still prefer not to take it, but as of now, taking it is an option that we would be open to. That is all."

Read & listen: Nabokov's "The Vane Sisters" & Girl in a Coma's "Sybil Vane Was Ill"

Nabokov's second to last short story, published in 1951. Features a device Nabokov said could "only be tried once in a thousand years of fiction." A fantastically unreliable narrator, word games, seances, planchettes, wacky women, and a paragraph to pay attention to:

     Speaking  of  old men, one should add that sometimes these
posthumous auspices and interventions were  in  the  nature  of
parody.  Cynthia  had  been on friendly terms with an eccentric
librarian called Porlock who in the last  years  of  his  dusty
life  had  been  engaged  in examining old books for miraculous
misprints such as the substitution of l for the second h
in the word "hither." Contrary to Cynthia, he cared nothing for
the thrill of obscure predictions; all he sought was the  freak
itself, the chance that mimics choice, the flaw that looks like
a  flower;  and  Cynthia,  a  much  more  perverse  amateur  of
misshapen or illicitly connected words, puns,  logogriphs,  and
so  on, had helped the poor crank to pursue a quest that in the
light of the example  she  cited  struck  me  as  statistically
insane.  Anyway, she said, on the third day after his death she
was reading a magazine and had just  come  across  a  quotation
from  an  imperishable  poem  (that  she,  with  other gullible
readers, believed to have been really composed in a dream) when
it dawned upon her that "Alph"' was a prophetic sequence of the
initial letters of Anna Livia Plurabelle (another sacred  river
running  through,  or  rather  around, yet another fake dream),
while the additional h  modestly  stood,  as  a  private
signpost,  for the word that had so hypnotized Mr. Porlock. And
I wish I could recollect that novel or  short  story  (by  some
contemporary  writer,  I  believe)  in  which,  unknown  to its
author, the first letters of the words in  its  last  paragraph
formed,  as  deciphered  by  Cynthia,  a  message from his dead
mother.

• Online text avail. here.
• Wikipedia tells you what's up with this story [*spoilers*]
  
• And download and listen to Girl In A Coma's "Sybil Vane Was Ill"

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance OST

Yeong-wook Jo's theme is based around Vivaldi's "Ah ch'infelice sempre," which you can listen to here, and sticking with this, the score is heavily baroque influenced. Several tracks are adapted from Vivaldi concertos, and set into the context of the entire frantic, swirling, delicate score, the darkness and tragedy of the movie is perfectly conveyed. The only off-track will be based on personal taste, and that's if you don't like creepy little kids, which track 12 features. Also adapted into the score is a fabulous, typically disgustingly virtuoustic Paganini Caprice, as if we all had crazy weird syndrome fingers. You can watch Jascha Heifetz play the original track here. Check out the mad left hand pizzacato around 3:50.

If you haven't seen the film yet, I certainly recommend it. Lady Vengeance is the third of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance Trilogy, and I am sorry to say I'm still working on getting a moment to sit down and watch Oldboy, which is purported to be the best of the three. Lady Vengeance follows the main character as she leaves prison and takes her revenge on those who sent her there. Sounds like a predictable plot, but the movie takes a peculiar turn at the end when our protagonist, Lee Geum-ja, discovers that the man she has been following is more than he seems, and she begins to involve others who have been hurt by him in her plot. The film is beautifully shot, which made watching it on Youtube frustrating, so I'd definitely recommend grabbing a good quality version to experience the colors and movements and scenes that make this lush, visually exciting film. You can check out the trailer here.

• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance by Yeong-wook Jo, OST
  
• Buy from Amazon

Paul Newman is Dead

And a lot of what was good about this world is gone from it. Paul Newman was a movie icon, an American icon, a great actor, completely badass, was married to the same woman for 50 years, a true philanthropist who went beyond your usual Hollywood $10,000 per natural disaster and whose foundation will continue to give and whose camps will continue to improve lives, and a gorgeous and graceful human being. If you have a chance, read this excellent Vanity Fair article on Mr Newman.

Here's the statement issued by Newman's Own Foundation:

Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one's life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.

An exceptional example is the legacy of Newman's Own. What started as something of a joke in the basement of his home, turned into a highly-respected, multi-million-dollar-a-year food company. And true to form, he shared this good fortune by donating all the profits and royalties he earned to thousands of charities around the world, a total which now exceeds $250 million.

While his philanthropic interests and donations were wide-ranging, he was especially committed to the thousands of children with life-threatening conditions served by the Hole in the Wall Camps, which he helped start over 20 years ago. He saw the Camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain and isolation of their conditions, kick back and raise a little hell. Today, there are 11 Camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam. Through the Camps, well over 135,000 children have had the chance to experience what childhood was meant to be.

In Paul's words: "I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it."

Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humor, and humanness. His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much.

We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person.

I just ran out and bought some Newman's Own lemonade (pink!) and I was not-quite-surprised to see that Morton Williams was down to the last 5 or 6 cartons on the shelf. You can watch some of his movies on-demand at Amazon. And now all the guys on my wall (behind my desk) are dead.

Decency seems to have come easily to Mr. Newman himself, as evidenced by his philanthropic and political endeavors, which never devolved into self-promotion. It was easy to take his intelligence for granted as well as his talent, which survived even the occasional misstep. At the end of “The Drowning Pool,” a woman wistfully tells Mr. Newman, I wish you’d stay a while. I know how she feels. [Manohla Dargis]

Some thoughts after surfing people.com

i. I have a people.com newsfeed on my google homepage. Yes. I suck. But. . .

1. Thanks to the dearth of the word "Transplants" in the articles about Travis Barker on that site and elsewhere, here's your fun and games for tonight: tell me your 5 favorite Transplants songs. Go!

(in no real order, click for files)

• Gangsters and Thugs [Haunted Cities]
• DJ DJ [s/t]
• California Babylon [s/t]
• Doomsday [Haunted Cities]
• Romper Stomper [s/t]

Buy Haunted Cities & s/t.

2. Clay Aiken is gay. The reaction from fans has been one of "surprise and support." Somebody is going to hafta explain to me the whole 'surprising' part of this.

lesson is. . .

getting a little stir crazy here on a sunday night.

gotham. (anybody else get any pictures of last week's full moon? pretty sweet.)

this is my verandaah. . . it's a foot wide. it's used to hold my cheapass leaky candles and one of my temp roomie's cigarette butts. (luckies.)

you speakerboxxx guys! and certainly no love below! rose.

and in the end, gary cooper made me do it. like ken said, if gary says so, it's on.

ok. back to work. happy sunday kids!

Gary Cooper Likes What We Like

Sorta. Because if I have the choice (and the cash), I'll be drinking something other than PBR. But it's GARY COOPER for chrissakes. If he tells me to do it. . . I'm kinda 110% there.

[Full view]

[Full view]

Note the packaging up there. This ad is from 1937, before Luckies "went to war" in 1942 and stopped using green on their packaging. While this was pitched as a patriotic step to save the copper claimed to be used in the green dye (actually chromium), it was really an effort to update the design and, among other things, appeal to the ladies.

For more info on Luckies going to war, check out this article. For more Gary Cooper endorsement goodness, go here. Vintage ads galore.

And- watch Mr Deeds Goes to Town in parts on Youtube, also starring the ultra fabulous Jean Arthur. And don't take my word for it. Some guy named Graham Greene kinda likes it, too--

Mr. Deeds is Capra's best film (it is on quite a different intellectual level from the spirited and delightful It Happened One Night), and that means it is a comedy quite unmatched on the screen. For Capra has what Lubitsch, the witty playboy, has not: a sense of responsibility, and what Clair, whimsical, poetic, a little precious and a la mode, has not, a kinship with his audience, a sense of common life, a morality: he has what even Chaplin has not, complete mastery of his medium, and that medium the sound film, not the film with sound attached to it.... I do not think anyone can watch Mr. Deeds for long without being aware of a technician as great as Lang employed on a theme which profoundly moves him: the theme of goodness and simplicity manhandled in a deeply selfish and brutal world.

What I Did This Summer Vol I: Europe

This summer I was lucky enough to be able to go to NUI Galway for a creative writing course, so I spent a month in Galway (really great place), then a weekend in Cong at a hostel where they played THIS every night hells yeah, a day in Dublin (heads up: Dublin airport, not so hot for sleeping over as there is an announcement every five minutes: please do not leave your bag unattended or we will DESTROY it), down to Italy with family friends in an AC-less flat for a week, then up into France for some solo backpacking (or rather, rollerbagging) to visit the D-Day beaches: recommendation- if you only have a few days, the musuem/guided tours are definitely worth the price. Guess what isn't? The Eurail Pass. Fuckers. Learned some valuable lessons, too. Use the duty free store for epic cowboy/Mexican showers. Bring shawls whilst in Italy if you wanna get in the churches. Stay up all night before your flight and you will pass the fuck out for your transatlantic like a sorority girl who left her drink at the bar when she went to take a pee-pee. All told, exceeding exhausting, fun, and I think I'll stay in the US for awhile, which I did to the nth degree two days after I got back on an EPIC road trip, so stay tuned for Vol II. xoxo b

Ireland (Galway, Cong AKA Inisfree!, Inishbofin, Spiddal)

Normandy et Amiens

Italy (Padua, Venice)

London

And please!, tell me about your epic/wacky/wackadoo/lame/sweet summers!

Zero. Coke Zero.

hello kind hearts > coronets. we're back up and running, hopefully consistently, hopefully magnificently. i'll be doing the age-old slideshow of what the hell i've been up to (don't worry, it'll be short.) i'm on my way out but i had a great urge to post something in the normal swing o' things, so here's your dose of I went to Pitchfork so you didn't hafta! for. . .

. . . a bit of the new Jack White Bond theme via Coke Zero. You can watch it at the Coke Ads blog- it's what you'd expect, your typical Bond opening ("a homage to the Bond movie franchise's highly stylised pre-credit sequences," they say), but with Coke! Zero!

The song actual does sound like Jack White meets Bond-- White Stripes chords meets jazzy, cocky Bond orchestration. Jack White's pissed that this is the way the world is hearing his song, and I guess I can't blame him since Coke Zero isn't exactly my Coke of choice. But don't listen to me, I prefer Diet (with a lime, please.) Enjoy & see you soon!

• Quantum of Solace Coke Zero Promo