The Proximity Effect

I postulated a theorem today and after careful examination, I think it holds up:

=

It's uncanny on several levels, really. The gall, the aloofness, the overbearing arrogance, and most of all, the constant comedy gold flowing from their ever-spewing blow holes.

By the way, favorite Mayor Quimby quote:

Can't we have one meeting that doesn't end with us digging up a corpse?

And what the hell, favorite Blagojevich quote:

I've been criticized for this, but I'm not comparing myself to Dr. King or Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi, but I tried to reach in to history and imagine some inspiring figures that would have gone through something like I was going through for sustenance and inspiration.

Word.

America Agrees: Guy Fieri Is Still A Douche

I would like to thank certified douche bag Guy Fieri for being the inspiration for Bazookaluca's most viewed and sought-after post ever: No More Mr. Douche Guy.

Day after day, through his various vexatious Food Network shows and truly terrible T.G.I. Friday's commercials, people all across America are directly exposed to Mr. Fieri's douche-baggery and as a result, feel compelled to commiserate about it with other like-minded souls on the internet.

More often than not, they end up within these sympathetic pages.

And I am proud to offer sanctuary to these protectors of good taste for whom Googling the phrase "guy fieri douche" brings temporary relief and the reassurance that it's still not socially acceptable to wear your sunglasses so casually on the back of your head without suffering severe repercussions.

So thanks, Guy, for directing traffic to my site. I don't profit from it financially, per se, but I sleep a lot better at night knowing I'm not alone.

I am not alone.

Albums That You Should Own, But Perhaps Don't (And In That Case, You Soon Will): Q And Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep

Q And Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep

Q And Not U is my second-favorite band on Dischord Records (the first one being a band whose name starts with an "F" and ends in "ugazi".) But don't let that sour your milk --the boys in Q And Not U made a mark all their own on the post-hardcore punk scene.

Their 2000 debut, No Kill No Beep Beep (produced and engineered by Fugazi's own Ian MacKaye and Inner Ear Studio owner Don Zientara), saw much action back in my days behind the record store counter and there's no reason it can't be your soundtrack to enliven otherwise mindless and menial tasks.

From their inception, Q And Not U had the reputation of getting notoriously stiff indie rockers to loosen up and get down with more upbeat and danceable numbers than their Dischord brethren. Their use of rapid rhythms and catchy singsong lyrics got the crowds moving from their usual shoegazing stance to freaking-the-fuck-out mode in mere seconds.

They also routinely used hand claps in their songs, and fuck if I know a better way to get people moving than hand claps (save a cowbell, perhaps.)

All the songs on No Kill are laudable. "Line In The Sand" stutter steps to a rousing coda, "Hooray For Humans" is pure unbridled energy, "Kiss Distinctly American" is sublime with all its Slint-y goodness, and the main guitar riff in "The More I Get The More I Want" thoroughly suits its title.

Q And Not U followed No Kill No Beep Beep with two equally as engaging albums, 2002's Different Damage and 2004's Power before finally breaking up in 2005. Their catalog is perennially in my rotation.

Enjoy:

See Also: ATYSOBPDAITCYSW: The Label!

I'm The Man Buying Stocks On The Day Of The Crash

Hey, do you know what's really interesting about the recent financial crisis?

All the corporate suicides!

There's been a bunch of 'em recently. CEO's, investment bankers and hedge fund managers all over the world are committing hara-kiri like nobody's business. One nutty blogger even has a running tally of mortgage-related suicides in the US and it's currently up to seventy two (although I'm not sure when he started counting or what his criteria is.)

Technology hasn't helped the trend either. According to the Financial Times, in mid-October, at the peak of the financial crisis, the phrase “suicide methods” suddenly rose to a multi-year high on Google Trends, which tracks how often words or phrases have been searched on Google. Some people have gone as far as calling it an epidemic.

Yes, by all accounts, it's a hard knock life right now for the stinking rich. So much pressure at those ridiculously high-paying jobs! I don't envy them at all.

The following are some of the more notorious suicides that caught my eye:

-Back in September, Kirk Stephenson, the CEO of private equity house Olivant, jumped in front of a speeding train at a rail station west of London because the value of his company's stake in banking giant UBS went down 20% from £950million to £770million (that's British Pound Sterlings signs, kiddies) and apparently he couldn't handle the stress that went along with that type of loss. He was married and had an eight year old son. I guess he must've not been thinking about them when he made the decision to leap onto the tracks.

But you know, poor guy, he had to do it. Do you expected him to downgrade to a 200 foot yacht with just ONE measly helicopter?!? Fuck that. Once you get accustomed to a certain lifestyle, it's hard to go back. It was best to leap in front of that speeding train. It was courageous, really.

-A few months later, two days before Christmas in New York, Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, was found dead at his desk, both wrists slashed and a bottle of pills nearby. Apparently, the esteemed monsieur told the cleaning staff at his office that he wanted them out by 7pm so that he could work late, then locked the door and placed a waste paper basket under his desk to catch the blue blood flowing from his open wrists (how considerate of him.) Security staff found him the next morning, still sitting at his desk, with a box-cutter on the floor beside him.

The guy's fortune was the definition of "old money", as his relatives had been ennobled by France's King Louis XIV after bankrolling his reign --some of them even got guillotined for it back at the height of the French Revolution. Apparently not enough of 'em, though.

M. de la Villehuchet had lost $1.4billion of his family's money in the notorious Bernard Madoff scam. When it became obvious to him that the money lost in the Ponzi scheme was unrecoverable, he chose to end it all rather than face life being just mildly wealthy. How noble of him.

-In more recent news, the body of Chicago real estate mogul Steven L. Good was found in his Jaguar (pronounced "Jag-yu-wahr", of course) just this Monday, dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. His firm was responsible for more than 45,000 properties sold for over $10billion in sales, but I guess he couldn't handle the pressure of the real estate bubble bursting. Maybe he wasn't much of a saver.

-And the very following day, German billionaire Adolf Merckle, jumped in front of a train in the town of Blaubeuren in southwestern Germany after his holding company, VEM Vermoegensverwaltung (phew, thank god for cut & paste) ran up a significant amount of debt. His personal net worth at the time of his death was estimated at around $9.2billion, down from a previous estimate of $12.8billion. That extra $3.6billion really made a difference, huh?

Oh sure. You might think I'm a jerk for making jokes about these people's misfortunes, but I don't feel any sympathy for these materialistic pricks, none whatsoever. If they measured their self worth by their bank accounts and couldn't go on living because of a slight dip (or even a huge one), then fuck 'em. They were probably doing more harm than good in the world. I'm not hating, I'm just saying that there's way more people in the world that are deserving of some pity than these greedy bastards.

And can someone explain what is up with all the death-by-train suicides? What are these rich motherfuckers doing at the train station? Shouldn't they be jumping from their private jets into molten gold pools while strangling themselves with diamond-encrusted choke chains? That's what I'd do with my billions. Because, you know, there's only so much shit you can buy before getting bored --at some point you gotta get creative.

All of this just reminds me of this video, courtesy of the Onion:

A Hastily Thrown Together Best Of 2008 List

Since I spent the better part of December internet-less while in France and Italy, I never really got around to making my yearly best-of list. So here, in rushed fifteen-minute-late fashion, is my list of all the things that made 2008 better (or at least more interesting, anyway.)

Enjoy, and feel free to chime in with any comments.

Best Albums Released In 2008 (in alphabetical order)

-Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
-Counting Crows, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
-The Dears, Missiles
-Dr. Dog, Fate
-Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
-The Kills, Midnight Boom
-Metallica, Death Magnetic
-My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges
-Okkervil River, The Stand Ins
-The Streets, Everything Is Borrowed
-TV On The Radio, Dear Science

In a year of great singles, these albums were great all the way through. But my favorite one had to be Okkervil River's The Stand Ins; it's the most rewarding listening experience I had all year and one that I'll keep revisiting for a long time to come. Dr. Dog's Fate came in at a close second.

Best Reissues, Soundtracks & Compilations

-Juno Motion Picture Soundtrack (all right, it came out on Xmas 2007, but that's close enough for me)
-Mission Of Burma, Horrible Truth About Burma/Signal, Calls, And Marches/Vs. (Remastered)
-Mogwai, Young Team (Deluxe Edition)
-Pavement, Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition
-The Replacements, Entire Catalog (Remastered And Expanded)
-The Smiths, The Sound of the Smiths
-Sonic Youth, Hits Are For Squares

Good Albums, But Not Up To Par To Previous Achievements (try harder next time, please)

-Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs
-The Magnetic Fields, Distortion
-Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Cardinology (all right, it was a rushed compilation culled from an aborted box set, but still....very uncohesive)
-Sun Kil Moon, April (maybe I was just never in the mood for it)
-The Walkmen, You & Me (get your voice under control, dude. It was all right for the first four albums, but now it's just getting annoying)

Most Overrated Album

-Girl Talk, Feed The Animals (fun, but c'mon.....it's still just an extended mash-up)

Biggest Gamble

-Kanye West, 808's And Heartbreak (It really wasn't that good, but I appreciate you trying, Kanye. Now please go back to making party anthems.)

Biggest Cause For A Collective Sigh Of Relief

-Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy finally came out, it wasn't particularly good, but at least we can all just move on already. Especially Axl.

Best Singles Released In 2008

-"Gamma Ray" by Beck
-"Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" by Beyoncé
-"Something Is Not Right With Me" by Cold War Kids
-"Violet Hill" by Coldplay
-"See It" by Colour Revolt
-"Get-Well-Cards" by Conor Oberst
-"Los Angeles" by Counting Crows
-"Basso Profundo" by Devotchka
-"Jodi" by The Dodos
-"Hang On" by Dr. Dog
-"Veneration" by Elizabeth Grace
-"Ragged Wood" by Fleet Foxes
-"Foux Du Fafa" by Flight Of The Conchords
-"Sequestered In Memphis" by The Hold Steady
-"Come On Over (Turn Me On)" by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
-"Acid Tongue" by Jenny Lewis*
-"What U Gonna Do" by Jim Noir
-"Heartless" by Kanye West
-"Cheap And Cheerful" by The Kills
-"Sex On Fire" by Kings Of Leon
-"A Milli" by Lil' Wayne
-"All Nightmare Long" by Metallica
-"Highly Suspicious" by My Morning Jacket
-"For Our Elegant Caste" by Of Montreal
-"Lost Coastlines" by Okkervil River
-"Machine Gun" by Portishead
-"Gettin' Up" by Q-Tip
-"Living Well Is The Best Revenge" by R.E.M.
-"Five On The Five" by The Raconteurs
-"Aly, Walk With Me" by The Raveonettes
-"Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" by She & Him
-"Gobbledigook" by Sigur Rós
-"Gardenia" by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
-"I Love You More (Than You Like Me)" the Streets
-"Swagga Like Us" by T.I., Kanye West, Jay Z & Lil' Wayne
-"Stork And Owl" by TV On The Radio
-"A Punk" by Vampire Weekend

*How good was the song "Acid Tongue" by Jenny Lewis, you ask? Let me tell you. It was so good that one day I listened to it five times back to back, and I never do that. What can I say, she makes me do weird things.

Best Display Of Racism In Song

-"Arab Money" by Busta Rhymes (and that dance is kinda lazy, too)

Best Saturday Night Live Digital Short Which, Incidentally, Also Describes My Reaction To Listening To Jenny Lewis' "Acid Tongue"

-"Jizz In My Pants" by The Lonely Island

Best Concert

-Tom Waits, July 5th, at the Fabulous Fox Theater in Atlanta.

Sure, I went to a few other shows this year, but this one was the only one that mattered. I've said it before and I'll say it again --he's a national treasure and should be treated as such. He's also probably the coolest motherfucker on the planet. And his band fucking kills live.

Best Live Use Of An All Star Tambourine Choir

-Rebecca Loebe, May 6th, 2008, at Smith's Old Bar in Atlanta (I might be a little biased).

Best Movies

-Cloverfield
-The Dark Knight
-Iron Man
-Juno
-No Country For Old Men
-Quantum Of Solace
-Religulous
-There Will Be Blood (also starring my favorite actor)
-Tropic Thunder
-Wall-E

Movies I Suspect Would Be On The Preceding List Had I Actually Seen Them

-The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
-Milk
-Rachael Getting Married
-In Bruges
-Son Of Rambow
-Gran Torino
-Slumdog Millionaire
-Synecdoche, New York (maybe?!? I heard mixed things)
-The Wrestler

Best Movie To See Before Spending The Night At A Strange House Where Strange Things Might Happen

-The Strangers

Best Television Programs

-Entourage: Season 5 (HBO)
-Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO)
-True Blood: Season 1 (HBO)
-Weeds: Season 4 (Showtime)
-Dexter: Season 3 (Showtime)
-30 Rock: Season 2&3 (NBC)
-The Office: Seasons 4&5 (NBC)
-Survivor: Gabon (CBS)
-The Daily Show With John Stewart (Comedy Central)
-The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
-It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Season 4 (FX)
-No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (Travel Channel)
-The Soup (E!)
-Top Gear (BBC)
-IFC Media Project (IFC)
-Pardon The Interruption (ESPN)
-Top Chef: Season 4 (Bravo)
-Attack Of The Show (G4)

My Celebrity Girlfriends

-Padma Lakshmi
-Mary-Louise Parker
-Tina Fey
-Kaitlin Olson
-Olivia Munn
-Heidi Klum
-Selma Blair
-Katy Perry
-Jenny Lewis
-Adriana Lima

My Celebrity Boyfriends (a few, just to be fair)

-Jon Stewart
-Anthony Bourdain
-Charlie Day
-Conan O'Brien
-Stephen Colbert

Wow, I guess I really like a guy who can make me laugh.....

Best Blogs

-The Big Picture
-Boing Boing
-Daily Kos
-Defamer
-Engrish
-Garfield Minus Garfield
-Gawker
-Gizmodo
-Idolator
-Jezebel
-Passive Aggressive Notes
-PostSecret
-Sleeveface
-The Superficial
-Tuesday Morning Quarterback
-Wonkette

Best Blogs By People I Actually Know

-Black Century
-Caren Explains It All
-Cole's Rambletown
-Fear Of Arthropods (although lately, Julia's busier with Paste:Local Atlanta)
-grandweerachael
-Insert Witty Pop Culture Reference Here
-Isle Of Everything
-More Adventurous (tsk, tsk....hasn't been updated in a while)
-The Stace Place

Best Way To Keep Your Out Of Town Fans Engaged

-The Tennessee Titans start 10-0 and ultimately end the season at an NFL best 13-3 (Now, let's make some waves in the playoffs, please).

Best Reason To Move Along In Your Naturalization Process

-America shocks the hell out of itself (and me) by electing a competent, cool headed man as president instead of an old curmudgeonly grouch and a dangerously wacky dingbat for once. Congratulations, America. We'll make something out of you still.


All right, that ought to do it. My psychologically pleasing urge to list things is over for now. See you in about a year.

What Bazookaluca Has Been Watching Ad Nauseum So Far This Week

Over the course of the past two days, I've probably invested two hours of my life watching the following two videos over and over again. One is so juvenile that it's, huh, PREMATURE (sorry, couldn't help it) and the other hurts progress in racial relations and glorifies ugly stereotypes nearly as much as anything Sean Hannity routinely says.

Enjoy:

Acqua Alta A Venezia

Venice is flooding right now, and while acqua alta (high water) is a regular occurrence in this most unique city built on sandbanks, this particular flood is the worst in at least 20 years. There's a great photo collection from this latest calamity at The Big Picture, which highlights the laid back attitude of the citizens who have learned to take it all in stride and go on with their daily routines. I found these next couple of pics to be particularly comical:

A group of men having an aperitivo in waders.

A flooded pastry shop, open for business as usual.

Check out the entire collection at The Big Picture.

Review: Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

I've now listened to this album enough that I can share some of my thoughts with you. I'm not going to go all Chuck Klosterman on it because, well, just read his review if you want his trademarked obsessive psycho-analysis.

As for me, here we go, track by track:

"Chinese Democracy" - Really long fade in. Waaay too long. But after that, this song is all right. Axl's vocals still have some bite to them. The Buckethead guitar solo, punctuated by whammy pedal squeals, stands out. Not melodic like something Slash would do, but technically impressive nonetheless.

"Shackler's Revenge" - Whoa, holy crap. This song is just awful, every single second of it. Sounds like some shit they would play on modern rock radio, but way more dated. What's up with the drum loop? And that chorus?!? Truly dreadful.

"Better" - Along the same vein as the last track. The guitar tones are really bad. The lyrics and phrasing sound like late-era James Hetfield. Not good. This is the second single off the album??? It figures.

"Street Of Dreams" - Journey power ballad, all the way. Wow, Steve Perry could definitely rock this shit. Very dated production and overall arrangement. Like, pre-original-GN'R, 1978 dated. How'd that happen?

"If The World" - Very 007, could easily be in the opening credits. Funky wah-wah riffs throughout, melodic strings and snaky bass line. Hell, even a flamenco guitar solo thrown in for good measure. The lyrics are James Bond-ian in theme as well: "If the world would end today, all the dreams we had would just drift away." Was this a throwaway from the 1999 soundtrack to The World Is Not Enough? Perhaps. Another one from left field in this incongruous pastiche of an album.

"There Was A Time" - Reminds me a bit of "Estranged" off of Use Your Illusion, mostly because of the bloated production. Choirs, orchestras, suites, bombast, extended solo, the works. Video featuring Axl being rescued from a suicide attempt by dolphins will surely follow shortly.

"Catcher In The Rye" - Another song directed at Axl-haters. I can't help but think that EVERY lyric on this album is directed at Axl's ex-bandmates, his critics and anyone who's ever thought about saying anything bad about him. The line, "If I thought that I was crazy, I guess I'd have more fun" pretty much says it all about his self awareness.

"Scraped" - Pardon my metaphor, but the vocal scats in the beginning of this song are the gayest thing since gay sex. Otherwise, the song isn't too bad. It has a cascading guitar riff in the verses that reminds me of old GN'R, although it lacks the swagger that often went along with the old lineup.

"Riad N' The Bedouins" - This is probably the closest this album comes to sounding like the old, punky GN'R songs. Well, except for the chorus, which is a bit weak. In fact, that's what's missing from this album --the dangerous element. It lacks the toughness that the band once oozed. And of course that's because, well, it's not the same band. Duff, Izzy and Slash ain't in this bitch no mo', and their punk rock bluntness is sorely missed here.

"Sorry" - Yet ANOTHER song directed at haters. I can picture Axl singing this song to a life-size cutout of Slash in the vocal booth before totally losing his shit and fiercely attacking it, berserker-style. Get over it already, Axl. Is there anything more pathetic than a petty and paltry middle aged man (with cornrows, no less)?

"I.R.S." - This song epitomizes Chinese Democracy's biggest fault: it's completely unfocused. Songs aren't songs; instead, they're what happens to songs after the writer spends way too much time tinkering with them. Arrangements get overworked, the instrumentation gets erratic and, ultimately, the songs suffocate under their own weight. Transitions that should feel natural instead seem convoluted. A mess.

"Madagascar" - This song has Martin Luther King Jr. sound clips in the middle of it. Why? I have no fucking clue. Except maybe that Axl didn't think the list of names in the credits wasn't long enough already. Too bad he couldn't get Morgan Freeman to do the narration between tracks, that would have classed up the credits even more.

"This I Love" - Perhaps it should have been called, "This Is The Love Ballad" because that's exactly what it is. Is it about Stephanie Seymour? Probably. Is there a song on this album that ISN'T about someone in Axl's past? No. It's really pathetic.

"Prostitute" - Ah, the album closer. Not a bad song, it's definitely better than most of the songs that precede it. It ends with a calming symphonic suite, presumably the sound in Axl's head as the 12-year process of creating this goddam album is finally over and now he can go back to doing whatever crazy people in Los Angeles do. Something tells me that frequent trips to the Scientology Center are in his near future.

---

So, overall, Chinese Democracy sounds exactly like I figured it would sound --a collection of songs written and recorded under the authoritarian tutelage of Axl Rose over the span of 12 years, trying to be passed off as a cohesive album by an unmistakable, legendary band.

That, it is not.

And aside from the first song, it doesn't even have anything to do with China. Or Democracy. It, actually, has more to do with an American Dictatorship (which is how Slash described the state of Guns N' Roses shortly after quitting back in 1996), and Axl is the artistic despot in question --taking absolute credit and conclusively, absolute blame for all his maxims.

Is it bad?

Not particularly. It has its moments.

Is it good?

It's not going to be on my year's best list, but I'm sure to some, it may very well be good.

Was it worth the hype, the endless speculation, the multimillion-dollar studio tab, the legendary "will it ever be unleashed on the eagerly waiting masses" status?

Of course not. What album could have met those kinds of expectations? I'm just glad it finally came out so we can all just move on already. Especially Axl, I can't imagine what kind of bat-shit-crazy rollercoaster ride it's been for him. Although he did choose to keep the name Guns N' Roses alive, so perhaps he deserves the massive responsibility and expectations that came with it.

And he will certainly benefit greatly (as in, media attention and sales) from this project even though, as I see it, most great albums transcend the artists who write and perform them, prompting the question:

If this album wasn't being released under the name of Guns N' Roses, would we care about it at all?

Probably not.