Et Tu, Adriana?

Yet more evidence that there is no god, nor any justice in the world, presented itself this week as reports came out that Brazilian supermodel and bazookaluca celebrity girlfriend, Adriana Lima, secretly wed perennial NBA bench-warmer, Marko Jarić (a.k.a. Player To Be Named Later) on Valentine's Day.

Besides being a clear sign from Adriana that our pretend relationship is over (she could have at least called, or even texted me... it hurts so bad to have to hear it from the tabloids), this union is wrong on many, many, many levels.

First of all, look at her, in all of her smokey, über-hotness:
Now look at his goofy ass pretending to play defense:There's an obvious disproportion of beauty and talent within this matrimonial union. She's one of the top paid underwear models on earth (a feat that requires oodles of talent, I'm sure.) He , on the other hand, averages 1.7 points and 1 rebound per game for one of the worst teams in the league and is probably mere days from being cut (as in, fired, not "cut" cut, although, I do carry a knife on me...)

And this might just be pure speculation on my part, but I think there's now enough visual evidence to prove once and for all that he's one of the Goons from Plunder Island in the Popeye cartoons:
Sure, you might have fooled the world's hottest girl and three NBA team (as well as three other European teams —this guy has been involved in more trades than the NASDAQ) into thinking you're some sort of basketball player, but I'm onto you, Marko.

Watch it.

Albums That You Should Own, But Perhaps Don't (And In That Case, You Soon Will): Ugly Casanova - Sharpen Your Teeth

Ugly Casanova - Sharpen Your Teeth

Let me start by saying that Ugly Casanova's Sharpen Your Teeth is basically a Modest Mouse record. The fact that Isaac Brock works with a new set of back-up players (members of Califone, Red Red Meat, The Black Heart Procession and Holopaw) makes little sonic difference in the end. Yes, the songs are a bit more stripped down and experimental and there's less electric guitars clanking away, but the sound itself is inherent of Brock.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Actually, it's quite the contrary. Isaac Brock has unmistakable idiosyncrasies, both vocally and to his instrumental approach, and that very distinction is the mark of an original artist. He can't help but sound, well, like himself.

However, what makes this record perhaps more intriguing than your average Modest Mouse outing is the juxtaposition of Brock's eccentric vocal mannerisms with John Orth's restrained and smooth whispers. The Holopaw singer contributes his vocals to four songs, including some of the highlights, "Barnacles", "Spilled Milk Factory", "Cat Faces" and "Hotcha Girls". The ladder being my favorite track off of Sharpen Your Teeth. It's lyrics are simultaneously gorgeous and austere, devastating and therapeutic; effortlessly disentangling complex subject matters with simple sentiments.

Other tracks, like "Pacifico", foreshadow the work of bands like Mugison and Man Man while paying ample respect to the prominent Brock influence — the immortally relevant godfather of musical beatnikism, Tom Waits. "Barnacles" and "Things I Don't Remember" could have fit in comfortably on The Moon & Antarctica (understandingly so, since they date to about the same time.) "Cat Faces" is stunning despite its simplicity of arrangement and execution. Sharpen Your Teeth's only misstep (a small one, at that) is "Ice On The Sheets" which is a bit musically monotonous and at times, even vocally obnoxious. But overall, the album is really enjoyable.

This album reminds me, like so many others, of working nights by myself at the record store. In between the infrequent drizzling in of customers, I would step out to smoke cigarettes, propping the door open and cranking the stereo loud so that I could hear the music outside. In the summer, the humid Nashville air weighed down every puff and drag of smoke, making each subsequent sighing exhale that much more relieving.

I hope you find it just as enjoyable:

See Also: ATYSOBPDAITCYSW: The Label!

Musings On Brokencyde: The Worst MySpace Band Ever

Part of my workday revolves around gathering MySpace Music data --a tedious and painstaking task, largely due to the considerable number of dubious "artists" represented on the site whose music and images I have to endure during my research.

A couple of months ago, I happened upon a band called Brokencyde (they write it "brokeNCYDE", but I'm not going to comply with such silliness). After a little examination, I informed my coworkers that, with all certainty, I had found the worst, most offensive band on MySpace ever (no small feat, let me assure you). They agreed.

Ever since then, Brokencyde has been a constant topic of discussion/ridicule/disgust in my office and, seemingly, in every other facet of my life as well. They have practically consumed my every waking thought and hours upon hours of my time that I will never get back. Today, as I happened on their profile again while working, I realized that I had spent more time thinking and listening to Brokencyde than most bands I actually like.

But no more. It ends today. I am using this blog as a means of closure and by paying them forward to you, I am exorcising these demons from my person once and for all. Just consider me little Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist and you, my friend, are about to be Father Karras.

And trust me, you'll want to throw yourself out the window too after you watch Brokencyde's video for a song called "Freaxxx":



I know, right. There's no words to describe what you just saw.

Well, let's let British commentator Warren Ellis do the talking. He calls Brokencyde's "Freaxxx" music video "a near-perfect snapshot of everything that’s shit about this point in the culture."

Well put.

But perhaps August Brown of the Los Angeles Times sums up Brokencyde best by quipping:

"[Brokencyde] has done for MySpace emo what some think Soulja Boy did for hip-hop: turn their career into a kind of macro-performance art that exists so far beyond the tropes of irony and sincerity that to ask 'are they kidding?' is like trying to peel an onion to get to a perceived central core that, in the end, does not exist and renders all attempts to reassemble the pieces futile."

Couldn't have said it better myself...

As For The Blandness...

Dear readers (all three of you),

I'm sure you've noticed by now that this site is looking rather bland these days as far as the layout is concerned (hopefully not the content too). Rest assured that I am working on a new layout and it will be unveiled as soon as it is functional. As for now, you'll just have to bask in the austere beauty of black print on white background.

Thanks for reading, and as always, you light up my life (yes, like the song.)

-bazookaluca

Hacked Road Signs Warn Of Nazi Zombies, Velociraptors And The British

I love these hacked traffic signs that keep popping up all over the country.

If hackers chose to spend more time creating witty signs and less time trying to redirect my browser to porn sites, it would all be fine and dandy by me.

But alas, they don't, and so I've yet to see any of these signs on my own streets of Atlanta.

However, I do ride the train a lot, so I guess I'm not putting myself in the best possible position to be exposed to them.

All I know is that they're pretty damn funny.

So what if they cause an accident or two or twelve... who cares? They are far more interesting than most art installations I've seen, and great art always requires a bit of sacrifice.

Maybe what I really like about this form of post-modern e-vandalism is the hope of a not-too-distant future when signs like this will be a legitimate last minute warning against imminent doom.

It fulfills my deepest apocalyptic fantasies of the collapse of society as we know it.

And that's good shit.

Whether it's rabid velociraptors or brain-starved, Nazi zombies --which, by the way, who would have thought that zombies had the mental capacity and the will to organize around an ultra-nationalistic, racist, right-wing ideology (but then again, there's the GOP...)-- I don't care, just make it happen soon and make it severe enough to count for something.

I've got all this pent-up survivalist instincts just aching to get out and the older I get, the less likely it is that I'll be able to survive the first wave of attacks.

I've seen far too many zombie "movies" (or as I like to call them, "multimedia prophecies") to know what happens to people who are not in their prime physical and intellectual shape when the shit goes down.

Oh yes, there's no zombie wasteland for old men.

Then again, all signs don't have to forecast certain doom. They can also remind us of things once forgotten, but instantly recognized, such as this favorite of mine:
Or they might warn us from never mistaking old foes for new allies, because history always repeats:
Whatever it is, keep 'em coming, hackers*.


*by the way, whenever I say hackers, I think of these guys here to the right.

Gosh, I guess I've never thought about it, but their only crime WAS curiosity. So true.

Oh, yeah. And terrible. fashion. sense.

The Sons Of His Opponents Wish That He Was Their Dad

Happy President's Day.

Indie Rock Guitar Hero Showdown: Mascis, Martsch or Malkmus?

Have you ever wondered who would win in a three-way guitar-lick-off between J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.), Doug Martsch (Built To Spill) and Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, SM & the Jicks)?

I sure have. I think about it daily. Maybe hourly. Maybe even bi-hourly.

Some have told me that this is a fruitless, inconsequential pursuit and even an outright waste of time.

And perhaps they're right, but do they have to be such jerks about it?

I mean, my inquiry is simply born out of my desire to witness the clash of these indie-rock guitar titans live and in person. It would be quite the revelation.

Sadly, I am left to simply speculate on the outcome, as this musical duel is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. Not to mention that the awesomeness ramifications of such an event have yet to be quantified by modern science, and could very well prove catastrophic to us mere mortals.

For now, all I can do is listen to the music that has been handed down to me and sit in wonderment, like a doe-eyed, bastard child of destiny, about the possibilities of who should be crowned Indie-Rock Guitar King.

Join me, won't you please:

By the way, if all you're getting from the player above is 30 second clips, do yourself a favor and get an imeem account. It's free and then you'll be able to listen to whole tracks. What have you got to lose?

The F#@k You Say?

I've always had a good relationship with swear words.

I think I learned at a young age that there are appropriate situations to use them without being rude or vulgar and that they carry a certain weight and gravitas that other words perhaps do not. They have such impact on speech; angry is angrier, enthusiasm is more enthusiastic, risqué is riskier, and funny is funnier with swear words.

They're all just so fucking versatile.

So versatile, in fact, that they make up about 75% of the dialogue in Martin Scorsese movies as evidenced here:


and here:

And if you're patient as fuck, you can try and make it through all the swears you've been missing on The Sopranos if you've only seen it on A&E (good luck, it's over 27 fucking minutes long):

And what the fuck, here's some fucking more for your fucking pleasure:





Okay, I think I need to fucking wash my fucking mouth out with fucking soap now.

I feel dirty.

The High Price Of Death

If you have ever wondered how much it would cost in US dollars to build the Death Star for real, and I know you have, someone has done the math work for you.

Taking in consideration the materials, labor and transportation costs, construction of the artificial planet/massively destructive laser death cannon has been estimated at a mere:

$15,602,022,489,829,821,422,840,226.94 (that's 15.6 septillion dollars for those of you who value brevity.)

There's currently not enough money in the world to bankroll this lofty civic project, but it's worth saving up for. Just think of all the fun we could have with it. It almost seems reasonable that it would be a bit pricey by how much bang we would get for our buck. Plus, most of the cost is in the transportation of materials to space so if we can get that figure down, it'll be waaaay cheaper. Good thing they're already working on that space elevator.

I'll happily put 20 bucks in to start a fund.

First order of business for the Death Star* will be to blow up that dwarf bastard child of the solar system, Pluto, into oblivion. Take that, you diminutive abomination!

*We might want to work on a new, less ominous name for this project to increase marketing opportunities.

Roostery Pokeys

Roostery Pokeys [roo-ster-ee poh-kees] -noun

1. the fleshy growth or crest on top of the head of gallinaceous birds, generally larger on males than on females; also known as a cockscomb.

2. the kind of trapezoidal, often abstract, but usually hi-larious, mindfuck language contortion that Adrienne routinely conjures up from her darling head to describe otherwise mundane items. In this case, a prominent feature on the head of a rooster that may, or may not be pokey, but certainly, is always roostery.

Origin: 2009; Adrienne's genius mind; see rooster, poke