So, imagine a 21 year old Baby Huey. If you need help, imagine me with more hair on top of my head, less hair on the sides of my head, tack on about 50 lbs, and make me way drunker. Got it? There, I knew you could.

Now, time to blow your mind again. I was a frat boy in college. I'll let you wrap your brain around that. ... Ok, back to the story. My junior year of college, I didn't go anywhere for spring break. Just stuck around the house and got hella drunk nightly. The Thursday of break, four of us were sitting in the study room of the house. It was about 5:00pm, raining like a bitch, and cold as a motherfucker. All of a sudden, the power went out. We're all bitching when all of a sudden, Dominic's head popped up with a glint in his eye that I knew meant trouble.

"I'm hungry. Let's go to Canada." he blurted out.

The other three of us -- me, Hank, and John -- looked at each other like he just shat a pristine white bunny. Almost in unison, we said "We're in." I hopped in the shower and we walked out to the parking lot to choose our chariot.

We had two choices, as John and Hank were both wheels-less. We had my Ford Taurus, which ran great, had a full tank, and had plenty of leg room for the four of us, and Dominic's Chevy Celebrity. Built like a shit brickhouse. I swear to god that thing was made of wrought iron. It was still raining like a motherfucker and it was getting colder. We were afraid that the weather would get first, so we hopped into the hoopty, and we were off.

As an aside, we were all so hungry, we ate before we left Cleveland. But goddammit, we were on a road trip, and we were not to be deterred.

A lot of people are making a big hullaballoo about the Cleveland Indians games being snowed out last week, but snow in Cleveland in March and April isn't really unheard of. It's not even that uncommon. As we headed for Windsor, the rain slowly changed to sleet, and then to snow. By the time we got to Toledo, it was a full-on snowstorm. Giddy up.

We get through Detroit and to the border. The customs agent takes our IDs, and ohmygod, he was SO CANADIAN. "So, why youse guys comin to Canada, eh?" I'm driving and I'm honest, so I looked right at him and shrugged and said "we were bored?" Hank, the dumbass, chimed in "well we were hungry too." Joe Canuck looks at us and says "so you guys drove all the way from Cleveland because you were bored?" ... "yup" ... "I'm gonna have to ask you to pull over there and wait for the next available agent."

Fuck. We just wanted a beer. As we pull over Dominic's riding shotgun chanting "please tell me I took my weed out of the car please tell me I took my weed out of the car please tell me I took my weed out of the car please tell me I took my weed out of the car." Fortunately for us, he did.

At this point, it's midnight. We're in Windsor. We're in an Irish pub, drinking beer and singing Irish drinking songs in an irritatingly loud fashion. After about 90 minutes, we hopped back into the car and headed back.

1:30 am. Gridlock. In Detroit. Yee-fucking-haw. After about an hour, we're a bit south on I-75 and we see a place offering hotel rooms for $39.99. We pull off and find out that they're sold out of those single rooms, and the only thing they have left are $79.99 a night. $20 a person. Fuck that, that's not worth it. Remember that part, it's important later.

Next thing I know, I wake up with a bright light in my eyes. We're stopped. We have a spot in the parking lot of the house, since we lived in the ghetto, so I figured we were home. But no, we weren't. We were pulled over by a helpful Ohio State Highway Patrolman, who thought we should know that we were going 84 mph in a 65 mph zone. $120 ticket. That's $30 a person. Motherfucker.

At 3:45 am, we finally get to our exit on the Ohio Turnpike. "$3.55, please" says the nice old tollbooth attendant. Nobody's got any cash on 'em. You have GOT to be fucking kidding me. I fish around in my pocket and hand them a $5 Canadian bill. "That's about $3.50" ... see, currency jokes are funny AND useful. The toll booth attendant saw four road-weary dumbasses and said "fuck it, go ahead."

We got home around 4:30 am and I slept till 3:00 that afternoon. All in all, the trip was pretty mundane, but I'll be goddamned if it didn't end up being a great story.

At least Baby Huey wasn't involved in the road trip where two guys tried to drive from Cleveland to South Padre Island in a Dodge Omni.

Posted by Baby Huey at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Wow. He got it. He got them. Now what?

I want to make some money.

So started another excuse for a road trip. A couple cases of Lucky Lager and a few sheets of acid. Add in some cocaine for ourselves and we had the makings for a long weekend. Someone screamed out "road trip" and we were a go go.

Ever notice how the one who screams "road trip" the loudest is the first to pass out? That was Otis. Otis always came along on these trips.

This brings us to another lesson on drunken road trips.

The road going there is always louder than the trip home.

Otis and myself wanted to make some cash on the acid. Going through that much was pretty much impossible and the next best thing was selling it to some dumb kids on a Fourth of July weekend in Tahoe City. Those kids up there wanted it. The craved it. We just had to get it up to them and we could keep that whole damn lake high for a few hours. This would work.

So we packed up our clothes and took off in the middle of the night. Not knowing where to stay or where to go when we got there, we thought it might be a wise idea to take some sweatshirts along. You know it might get cold. Most of the cocaine and beer was gone before the sun even came up leaving us with just the acid to keep us up. Relying on strychnine to give you energy is a bad thing. It never works out and you end up smoking like three packs of cigarettes. And nothing ever looks right. That's what I hate about acid. Nothing ever looks right. It seems like it should or it could, but there is just something off. Eventually you pass out, but until then, things are just a little weird. Maybe that's why they call it a drug. Hell, I'm not here today with a "Dr." in front of my name so give a fucking break, ok?

So by the time the liquor store had opened up, things were a little wonky. I tend to turn things off when I'm on drugs so seeing the things I was seeing really didn't phase me. I was just walking down the street alone 'cept for my invisible buddy Otis and my 12 pack of Coors. Coors fucking light, no less. Hey. There was a sale at the LQ. Gimmie a break, ok? So me and Otis sat down with our 12 pack and proceeded to make friends with a few sheets of acid. Ever seen someone on acid ripping off hits of acid? Fuck those perforations on the paper. I'm not following those. This is my art. I was doing this like I was fucking that Guggenheim dude. Gimmie some Federal Funds, baby cause I am making modern art. Otis agreed with me that I had ripped off enough hits so we proceeded to the beach to finish off our beer. Otis had now moved into my stomach and was freely repelling any amount of alcohol I put into my tummy onto the crowded streets. Sheesh, it was like these people never saw an invisible character from Mayberry living inside my stomach pushing beer out of me. Otis didn't like Coors Light. Neither did I. It was vodka time. Otis liked vodka.

If you ever ate a shitload of acid and chased it with cocaine and Lucky Lager, you can kind of get where I was at. We called it "Frunk". That feeling of being on acid and liquor. Where you felt you had a shield around you where no one could touch you. Quite an awesome feeling. invincible. They could have written an after school special on me. "The Bad Kid Who Sold Acid On A Crowded Beach While Your Baby Was Cooking In The Microwave." It would have been great.

So after the vodka moved me from "talking to cars" mode to yelling at cars" mode, I figured it was about time to move some of this dope and get some cash. Maybe get a hotel and sleep this off. I didn't need to see these fireworks. It was only about 1 o'clock in the afternoon and I was swerving up and down the beach with Otis inside me talking shit to everyone I walked past. I needed a hotel room now. I needed cash now. Otis needed to leave me now. Well, not right now. He was kind of fun.

My hand shook as I pulled out the drugs and blatantly went out to sell as many as I could, as fast as I could and as quietly as I could before Otis would see what I was doing and take over the selling.

Otis found out and soon after that, the entire beach knew I was selling acid. Even deaf guys knew that if you were looking to score, that guy over there on the large rock had some drugs and apparently some sidekick named "Otis" hanging around behind him.

Needless to say, I was swamped by people. Like "Night of the Living Dead" swamped. These fuckers were all around me screaming for a few hits of this or that. Secrecy was gone as I began just tearing off hits to get these zombies off of me. Otis was counting money as I was tearing hits. Once I hit two hundred I would be out of there. That was my rule. Two hundred bucks and I would walk. Fuck the rest of the dope. I didn't need it. I just wanted enough to get a fifth of vodka and a hotel room. Otis was even starting to get paranoid. More hands came in. Otis was talking about cops. He had stopped counting money now. Telling me we had enough. Let's go find a hotel. Maybe just sleep awhile. Find a few friends and call this weekend a wash. C'mon. Let's go now. I couldn't be bothered. Still spitting up backwash of a vomit vodka mixture, I realized I was way past two hundred. Way past what I needed. People were coming over from cliffs now. Now it was a matter of time before this ended. Otis left. I needed to leave.

Another rule of thumb, when a drunken hallucination thinks that what you are doing is bad and leaves, it might be a good time to follow him.

I saw a friend in the crowd and handed him the sad remnants of the hits. Tiny tore of pieces of a once mighty sheet. Dropping them on the beach. Walking for an exit. I passed a friend who was getting arrested. Screaming something about freedom of mayonnaise or something like that. I wisely ignored him and headed straight for the liquor store. Purchased two packs of smokes and a handle of "Winner's Cup" vodka. Crumpled up dollar bills flowed out of my pockets as I pushed "what was close" to the cashier. Cracked the handle and spit out "the regulator". This was what I wanted. That cold medicine flavor burned down my throat as instantly a calm cool wave washed over me and sat me down on the asphalt. The cars weren't talking shit anymore. No one was in my stomach. That cigarette was sweet.

Otis peeked out around the corner and smiled at me. He had cash. He pointed to my pocket filled with 20's and pointed out a vacancy sign. Our work was done here.

As the sun was starting to set, I sat out on the porch of my room and watched all the kids pour down to the beach. Otis lit a smoke and sat beside me. We both looked at each other and started singing "Groove is in the Heart" by DeeLite as loud as we could. Otis was a good friend. He always seemed to do what was right. Our travels together did not end for many years to come.

But that is a different story for a different day. - T

Editor's Picks Archives

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

I’ve always said that this was a heartbreak town. The first time I lived here, I lost a wife, a life I didn’t want much to do with and a very, very cool kitten. All within the space of a couple of weeks. And, for the most part, that’s how things seem to run around here. For a few weeks or months, you’re living high. “Sky’s the limit, Ma…” and you feel unstoppable. Then the rug comes out from under you and the next thing you know you’re penniless and broken. That’s one of the beautiful things about this town. You may be destitute and desperate… but there’s nowhere to go but up. It’s almost as if Philadelphia only exists to remind us that there is Hope in the world. Because, believe me, if we didn’t have Hope in this town, no one in their right mind would live here.

Sport in Philly works the exact same way. More often than not I have seen a team fumble in the pre-season, only to come out strong and sure of them selves as they start to gel and coalesce into something that the media will always describe as “Unstoppable” or “A Legacy in the Making”. And they’ll play great ball until their sudden, and quite inevitable, loss. And that’s what always gets me. In this town, it’s never a series of small missteps that lead up to the sudden crushing defeat. It always comes down to one game or one stupid thing that sends the entire season into a tailspin.

According to the old(er) bastards around here, there was a time when being a Philadelphia sports fan wasn’t a life long lesson in getting your hopes up only to suffer a crushing defeat. Most of the city simply believes that we’ve just had a string of bad luck that somehow managed to last for 23 years or so. There are a few stalwarts, however, that believe something entirely different. They believe, it’s a curse.

For most of this grand city’s life, we had a few simple rules. Don’t say “Wop” in South Philly. Never, ever get into a debate about who has the finest cheesesteaks with your best friend. There is not and never will be a 14th St. And you shall not build a building that stands taller than Billy Penn. You see, old Bill stands atop City Hall, gazing down upon the City he worked so long and hard to develop and build. It was his reward, you see, for his years of dedication that he would be allowed to look out upon his city every day and survey his handiwork.

All that changed in 1987. Liberty One (one of the taller structures in the city) was finally completed. Liberty One stands a full four hundred or so feet taller than Old Bill and ever since, there’s been a steady decline in our glorious team’s track records. It’s almost like Mr. Penn is taking this personally and taking it out on our beloved sports teams (There’s a fantastic movie available that covers this whole theory in a little more detail.).

The Fightin’ Phils have been in a steady decline for years, the Flyers are officially the worst team in the NHL and even the almighty A.I. can’t save the Sixers from taking an early playoff vacation. Hell, my beloved Eagles fought like titans this past year, after Donovan McNabb got dropped like sack of potatoes. And they made the playoffs. Once the town rallied around Jeff Garcia, for a few weeks, we had something to look forward to. A new QB, an new excitement for the team and suddenly we’re winning games. Did we win the Big Game ? Or even the playoffs ? Aw, hell no.

But really, did you think we were going to ?

--F

Posted by thefinn at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Technically, it's still hockey season. My team is still in it! They just have to win their last two games against two teams they really have no business beating and Toronto has to beat Montreal and then the Islanders are in the playoffs!!! Which just means that we've prolonged the misery by a week or two because they just don't have what it takes (a starting goalie without a concussion) to get out of the first round.

So let's talk baseball instead. Let's talk Yankee baseball.

Now, I'm not delusional. I can see where this season is headed already. I'm going to be frustrated for a while. Maybe a little angry. After a while I'll just stop caring and start counting the days til NFL training camp opens. Eventually the pennant race will heat up, the playoffs will come around and I will do the obligatory Yankee fan hand wringing thing but fact is, I've stopped giving a shit about baseball. I stopped bleeding Yankee blue. Maybe it started back when Clemens became a Yankee. Maybe it started when my favorite players started bleeding from the team. Maybe it's because I just can't bring myself to like A-Rod. Maybe I just lost some of the attention span I need to watch four hours of men scratching their balls. I need action. I need excitement. If you want to keep my attention, it's gonna take more than seven foul tips in a row. It's gonna take something like a goalie getting a concussion.

I used to love baseball. I used to plan my schedule around Yankee games. In fact, there was a time when a single swing of the bat could end up being one of the greatest moments of my life.

Yes, I've just got to tell this story.

October, 1978. Junior year at my Catholic high school. Because the kids in my school came from all over Long Island, we would often stay after school, hanging out in the front lobby or the grass by the side of the parking lot instead of asking our parents to drive us all over creation.

The previous August I had a sweet sixteen party, one of those dress-up, dancing affairs where we played nothing but Who records and my friends got in trouble for pouring vodka into the pitchers of soda.

Those drunken friends, Kevin, Tim and Chris, had chipped in to buy me a wonderful birthday present: a portable radio. Keep in mind this was in the days before boom boxes. This radio was small, had no cassette player or 8-track player, just an AM/FM radio, which was all I wanted. Their intention in getting me this particular present was so I wouldn't rush home after school during the baseball playoffs - I could stay after and hang out with them and listen to the games (which used to be played in the afternoon) on my portable radio.

On October 8th of that year, there was a one-playoff game for the AL East title. Yankees. Red Sox. Fenway. This is what baseball was all about. This is the stuff that rivalries are made of.

I listened to most of the game in front of the school while everyone else was smoking or starting fights or whatever it was we did in those days. I held the radio up to my ear and did a play-by-play for everyone who was interested. As the game wore on the tension grew, everyone gathered around me on the lawn and I turned the volume up. And then the late bus came. I had to leave them all there, not knowing what was happening.

My school district didn't give us private school kids our own yellow buses. We had passes that allowed us to take the public buses for free. So for the four miles home, I had a bus full of commuters gathered around my seat, crossing their fingers and praying.

The moment happened when I got off at my stop. It was a 1/4 mile walk to my house, down one straight road. I had the radio up to my ear again as Dent came up to bat. My heart was beating fast, my nerves were tingling. I went into a half-run, hoping that I could make it to my house - which I could see all the way at the end of the block - before anything great happened. And there was no doubt in my mind, I felt it in every nerve in my body, that something grand was about to happen.

The only reason the Yanks left Dent in to hit in the seventh inning of a game they were losing 2-0 was because they were out of spare infielders.

Before his home run, Dent fouled a ball off his foot, hopping around in pain and asking the trainer to come out and take a look. After walking around a bit, Dent decided he was OK and went back into the box.

Mickey Rivers was on deck, and the Yanks leadoff hitter had been closely observing Dent the entire time. While most everyone in Fenway Park was watching Dent grimace in pain, Rivers noticed that the bat Dent was using was the same one that Rivers had used earlier in the game and Rivers knew the bat was cracked. He grabbed a bat-boy and sent him to the plate with the bat he was holding, and Dent took the new lumber despite being in the middle of an at-bat.

And then it happened. Dent swung at a Torrez fastball. It was going, going, gone. A three run homer. I don't even remember the call of the play on the radio because I was whooping it up, all by myself on the sidewalk. I heard the happy roar of a man coming from inside the house I was passing. I was literally jumping in the air. I broke into a sprint and ran the rest of the way home, where my mother, who was the source of all things Yankees for me, was standing in the kitchen, waiting for me. High fives all around. The Yankees went on to win, 5-4.

"Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it! It's a home run! A three-run homer by Bucky Dent! And the Yankees now lead by a score of 3-2!" - Bill White

And that is how Bucky Dent came to be known around Boston as Bucky Fucking Dent.

Michele may get tired of the Yankees and baseball, but will never tire of goading Red Sox fans into insult-a-thons.

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (14) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

The editors are covering music this week, and we all get to pick whatever the hell we want to pick. This is pretty cool, being able to do whatever the hell I want to do. I’ve got two picks for this. The first one is a band that I never hear people talk about anymore, and I wish they did. The second one is a band that people continue to talk about, and I wish they wouldn’t.

Anybody remember Killdozer? Man, what a great band. I loved that band. I grew up in a small town and it was hard to get their albums, but I managed to get my hands on a couple. I don’t have either of them now, both are long lost to parties or theft. I managed to download their first album a while ago….. most of their work is out of print, and some of their original albums go for hundreds of dollars on ebay and shit. I’m not into that at all. I’ll wait for them to be re-released at a decent price and I’ll keep trolling for them online in the meantime.

Really crunchy, crunchy music. They did some original work and some covers. Yeah, a lot of covers. A lot of covers that you wouldn’t expect; everything from Madonna to Conway Twitty to Joan Baez and beyond. I really liked their version of One Tin Soldier by Joan Baez. Like everything else they did, loud and distorted and crunchy as fuck. The singer kind of yell-growled his way through every song. Really quite a talent, don’t you know.

They also covered Don McLean’s American Pie. Now, I fucking hate that song, that’s up there with Piano Man and Paradise By The Dashboard Lights. It’s been overdone and it’s been killed by drunks at parties way too many times for me to ever get any kind of enjoyment at all out of it. Unless they’re covering it. Then I love it and I sing along like a drunk at a frat party. They massacre that song, they kill it, and they do it in perfect time.

Holy shit I hated those parties in high school where the only music anybody played was shit like that… Shitty classic rock of the shittiest variety. Fuckin air guitar experts everywhere. Jesus. Anyway.

You know who I fucking hate? You know who I really hate? They suck, they suck, they are Bon Jovi and they suck. Yeah, I know, easy target. Right? Well somebody fucking likes them. Now, I would never pick on anyone for liking any kind of music. I feel it’s purely subjective and that whole “your favourite band sucks” mentality only makes people miss out on good music. But, although I believe your simply visiting this site indicates a level of intelligence beyond that of the most advanced Bon Jovi fan, maybe one of you here today is a fan and maybe I can help you. Because I am not picking on you. You just need to understand how shitty a band Bon Jovi is.

I am not picking on you. I am not looking down on you.

You like them as a guilty pleasure, you say? Well that’s fine, but you need to be sure that you are being honest with yourself about it.

I almost feel silly, taking up this time and space to blather about it. It’s too easy to talk about how you hate a band, and it’s too cool, and Bon Jovi – again – is too easy a target. I mean holy fuck, those lyrics. Moon and June, rain and pain type lyrics. I want to be just as close as the holy ghost is. We're living on love they call it living in sin, oh whoa. Bon Jovi is the musical equivalent of a semi attractive blonde girl in her early twenties, fresh out of school and into her entry level office job, driving a brand new shitty Cavalier convertible that's painted bright yellow, and she thinks she's the shit because she's a grown up and driving a sporty new car that she's paying for herself. And people keep falling for this girl called Bon Jovi. But you have to understand how far back this goes for me.

I remember being a kid, about, oh, eleven or twelve years old. It was late on a Friday or Saturday night and I was watching videos. It was a lot better back in the 80’s; the videos had more imagination to them and there was a better mix of music styles in the average video show. MTV was still a baby, I think it was around by then, and a lot of television stations had programs that only played videos because the demand was so high. Public television had this show called The Beat. It was out of Detroit and they played a lot of metal, and a little bit of punk – and any punk back then was a lot. I loved that show. I came on at about 12:30 and went for two hours. It was the shit. Of course, they played their share of crap too.

So anyway, this one night I’m watching The Beat, eating a bowl of popcorn and probably thinking about Lita Ford’s tits or something, and this video comes on. This band I never heard of, but the guy introducing them says they’re a great hard rockin’ band, so I pay attention. It’s this band called Bon Jovi, and the song is called Runaway. And the boys all have perms and are mugging for the camera and wearing silky scarves and shit. And the music sucks the dirtiest ass in town, man, it’s a rotten song. I was repulsed by it. I mean shit, they had just played the video for Freewheel Burning, and they’re playing this now. The fuck?

And I remember, distinctly, like it was yesterday….. I remember saying to myself, “Thank God these guys suck and I’ll never have to listen to them again. Nobody’s going to like this.”

And I’ve been eating those bitter fucking words for over twenty years now. The classic rock station in my town, which used to actually be a good classic rock station (if you heard Hendrix it wasn’t necessarily Purple Haze, if you heard Zep it wasn’t necessarily Stairway, etc), now plays Bon Jovi. Because it’s classic rock now. So yeah, I’m a little spiteful.

It can't be that I don't understand how good they actually are. That's got to be wrong. Right?

Fuck me. I wish I had spent more time talking about Killdozer.

Posted by Dan Greene at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

The theme for this weekend's editor's picks is just a general theme of music.

One of my favorite zombie movies is Shaun of the Dead. There's a great scene in that movie where Shaun and Ed try to destroy the zombies by throwing records at them.

Which begs the questions: If your life was at stake, what records (or CDs) from your collection would you throw at zombies to save yourself?

My list:

• Metallica - ReLoad (CD) - obligatory
  
• Huey Lewis and the News - Sports (vinyl) i think everyone my age once owned this album and then later denounced it
  
• Hootie and the Blowfish, Cracked Rear View (CD) - I have no idea how this got in my house, really.
  
• Loverboy - Get Lucky (vinyl) you would think even the zombies would run from this one
  
• Yes - Yessongs - What was deep and genius while under the influence of acid and the 1970's in general is long, boring and pretentious now. Plus, it's a double album. Two zombies for the price of one.
  
• Any VanHagar CD. Yes they are in my house. They belong to my son. He doesn't like them, he's just a bit OCD and needs to have complete collections. But I'm sure when i came down to 5150 or him, he'd choose killing the undead.
  
• Meatloaf - Bat out of Hell - It's about time this one got lost.
  
• Any "12 inch extended dance remix" of any new wave song I own on vinyl.
  

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Earworms. God, I hate those horrible hell-spawned bitch goddesses. No, not the bugs, you twits. Those songs. The melodies. The riffs. Those things that just get stuck in your head and won't. get. out. I'm more susceptible to these than most people I know.

There are a few of them that are particularly bad for me.

Pantera - Domination

Whenever I hear the first riff of that song, I'm fucked. I can't get that song out of my head for days. It's already been there for like 2 weeks. I can't help it. It's. So. Fucking. Catchy. I'm not even that big a Pantera fan.

In Flames - Zombie, Inc.

Like most of my earworms, it's not even the whole song. I could handle that. This is like when Cartman hears any part of "Come Sail Away" he has to sing the whole thing. Yeah. This particular earworm is the breakdown about 2:20 into the song. I will back up and listen to this part of the song over and over. The rest of the song is mediocre, but that solo is beautiful. It's haunting.

Strapping Young Lad - You Suck

"Even your girlfriend fuckin sucks!" "Hell yeah, she fuckin sucks!" How can you argue with lyrics like that. It's 3 minutes of fun heavy stuff, and it never ceases to amaze me how fast Gene Hoglan can drum, despite the fact that he's like 400 lbs.

Peter Mulvey - If Love is Not Enough

I love some music that isn't metal, and Mulvey's definitely my favorite non-metal artist. The song is so good I'm just going to post the lyrics. Go find it. It'll be worth your while, but be careful ... you may be trapped.

How many should haves, how many should have nots
How many I wish we hads lie between us?
For two basically well intentioned people it seems to me Our failures just demean us
Is it lack of self regard?
It should not be this hard
I want to know, I want to know, I want to know

If love is not enough then what's enough? can you hear me?
I'm sick of the burns I've got on my body from all the perfectly good loves exploding near me
What else can I say? what else can I say?
If love is not enough then we will go on loving anyway

Now, you gotta know how to get rid of them. The first move is tricky, and can cause you significant pain, but it's very effective. Simply start singing a more irritating / catchy song, and you will be clear of the demon in no time, but you may be possessed by the new hell in exchange. You can also try getting it stuck in someone else's head, but you need a few things to happen, specifically:

1) someone who is susceptible to earworms
2) someone who knows the offending song
3) someone weaker than you, cause you may get your ass beat.

At this point, my brain has completely shut down, so I'll challenge you all. I dare you to get a song stuck in my head. I DARE YOU. And I'll be honest, and tell you if you succeed.

Baby Huey will probably regret that challenge later.

Posted by Baby Huey at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

The title is from the book. The opening line in the movie is:

“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs; that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milk Bar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.”

A Clockwork Orange. A bit of the old ultraviolence. This is one of my favourite movies of all, and I love the way it starts. In the Korova Milk Bar, the camera focused on Alex’s face, slowly panning back to reveal him and his friends, the security guards, the other customers, the décor of the place. The whole place feels sinister, and it's more than just the presence of Alex and the boys.

Within a minute or so, you see what they get up to. Beating up a helpless old drunk. And the night’s still young! So much damage to cause.

And you know, the others are right. Best opening lines to a movie is a hard one. Only one other came to mind, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You know, John Larroquette’s intro. That’s a pretty good one. But A Clockwork Orange has that music playing, that ominous atmosphere. Bad shit is going to happen tonight.

So what do you have? What are some of the opening lines you love?

-Dan

Posted by Dan Greene at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Ok, so this week's editor's pick of "greatest opening lines to a movie" was my idea, I think. I regret it. This was fucking hard! There are so many great lines at the beginning of movies, but not the ACTUAL beginning. Lines like:

• "I was born a poor black child"
• The Shitty Beetles? Are they any good?
• On my command, unleash hell!

However, there's only one that just screams "BEST EVER" to me.

"Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - there's a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place so darned interestin'. See, they call Los Angeles the "City Of Angels"; but I didn't find it to be that, exactly. But I'll allow it as there are some nice folks there. 'Course I ain't never been to London, and I ain't never seen France. And I ain't never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I'll tell you what - after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I'm about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin' as you'd seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin' like the good Lord gypped me. Now this here story I'm about to unfold took place in the early '90s - just about the time of our conflict with Sad'm and the I-raqis. I only mention it because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced it enough."

How much more can I say? This is the most awesome introduction to any movie, ever. Look at it this way. Ever heard of The Big Lebowski drinking game? You drink every time they say "Dude," "Man," or "Lebowski." Let's assume that one "drink" is one fluid ounce. In the course of this opening monologue, you'd finish a beer and a half. This monologue can't be much more than one or two minutes long. And it just sets the tone for the entire movie.

As I'm writing this, a Dunkin Donuts commercial came on featuring a voiceover by none other than Walter Sobcheck himself, John Goodman. And as he's hawking donuts or coffee or whatever the fuck they're selling, I can't help but imagine him asking if we'd ever heard of a place called Vietnam.

I dunno, that's just one dude's opinion of the greatest opening to a movie ever. What's your favorite?

-Baby Huey

Posted by Baby Huey at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

This weekend's editors' picks was the brainchild of yet another interesting board meeting at FTTW headquarters.

Ok, it was an email thread between the editors. And we stole the idea from another one of our writers. But it was a good one!

Best opening lines to a movie.

Now, I know the other editors will probably pick more than one and I was tempted by Apocalypse Now and The Jerk and Fear and Loathing, but those who know me well will not be at all surprised by what I ended up choosing. For there can be only one great opening line. And it is not spoken.

Let it be written:

A long time ago....in a galaxy far away....

For a person who grew reading both fairy tales and science fiction, that was a line that sucked me in immediately. What followed in that opening crawl was more than enough to whet my appetite. But when that Star Destroyer swallowed up the scene to really start the movie.....I was hooked.

Maybe that's not so much an opening line as an opening sequence, but it was the "long time ago" thing that really sucked me in.

Many, many years later, my kids got hooked in by the same line (I had to read it out loud to them every time we watched the movie). My son memorized the whole thing and anytime I asked him "what do you want to do today?" he would say "Restore freedom to the galaxy!"

His inherited Star Wars obsession was cute til he peed in his Millennium Falcon.

Got a favorite opening line?

M

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

I've never seen that Actor's Studio show. I hear it sucks though. Word gets around.

1. What is your favorite word?
Food. It almost always means something good.
2. What is your least favorite word?
Guesstimate. Just fucking pick one and move on.
3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?
Peace and quiet and solitude would work just fine for all three of those.
4. What turns you off?
Confusion, wounds that ooze things besides blood.
5. What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck is king. Nothing retains such offensiveness and force to the general population, and it’s versatile too.
6. What sound or noise do you love?
Really loud thunderstorms.
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Techno. I just can’t.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Organic soy farming would be both exciting and lucrative.
9. What profession would you not like to do?
Stripper.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Welcome to Heaven, good job down there. Here you go, light this up.

And I don't know where the hell these questions came from, but they're our Ten Quick Questions.

1. Who are you?
Dan
2. Zombies - undead monstrosity or the next logical step in human evolution ?
Undead monstrosity, God love ‘em. The oncoming plague will be a part of evolution, but I don’t think it’s the next step. If anyone survives, they’ll be part of the next step. But, you know, it wouldn’t bother me that much to be wrong either.
3. Young Elvis or Fat Elvis?
A fat deranged Elvis is sad. A young Elvis would likely share his drugs.
4. If you were a superhero, what would your name be?
I would want to see what the papers called me.
5. You are the last man on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the human race, whether you like it or not. Your choice of potential mates is between Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Super Girl or Hilary Clinton. Which one do you choose?
Wonder Woman would know what to do.
6. What was your first car?
A crappy 96 protege
7. If you were going to show me around your city/town, where's the first place you would take me?
The cellar of my house, and I would tell people that you never showed up.
8. What's the last album you bought?
The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema
9. Do you have an arch enemy? Would you like one?
No and no, I don’t have the time to waste.
10. What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your teenage years?
Finding Self-Esteem Through Chronic Masturbation (a documentary).

Come on now, don't be shy about it, get to work and give us some answers. Don't you want in on this?

- Dan

Posted by Dan Greene at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

I like it when Editor's Picks get decided without me. This decision on what to write about is so much easier when I don't get to decide. "Here Turtle. Write about this," is much easier than actually having to think of a topic. My brain is not wired that way. That is why I think I would make a good communist. Think about it. I don't like to work, I like vodka, and Dr. Zhivago is one of my favorite movies.

Comarade Turtle has a good ring to it, too.

So this list is dedicated to the proletariat.

1. What is your favorite word?

It changes daily. That is one thing with me. I have a new favorite word each week. This week it seems to be the way Ludacris says "Glove" in that Little Lisa song.

After you hear the song and the way it just pops out of his mouth, you too will be saying anything with the letters "gl" in it just the way Ludacris wants us to say them.

And then Ludicris will have won.

2. What is your least favorite word?

Any word that uses three or more syllables to describe something that really only requires one.

Let me give you an example.

I have to defecate vs I have to shit in the rabbit hole.

Clearly in this example, defecate is a poor choice of a word and thusly must feel my wrath.

3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?

The smell of the rain coming in on a cold night. I have no idea why it makes me breathe in so deep. I look around and just smile.

It only happens about once or twice a year, but when it happens, it is like liquid cocaine.

4. What turns you off?

People who don't respect others. Pretty simple. Well, not really. It gets pretty deep but I think the bottom line is people who can't say "thank you."

Don't know why that pisses me off so much, but it does.

5. What is your favorite curse word?

Son of a bitch followed closely by the all important god dammit. I guess if the phrase "that's all fucked up" or "the fuck is the matter with you" can be included, they are on the top of my list.

6. What sound or noise do you love?

The city. Not like jackhammers or that kind of shit. Just city noises. Cars, people talking, random gunshots and those funky dancehall beats.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?

Silence. Lest my brain start talking and lord knows, that ain't no good. Last time it started talking to me, I built some sort of small cage with wheels on it hooked up to a car battery.

I'm not sure what it was for, but I am assuming I was going to be either torturing some cats or getting into the white slave trade business.

Whatever is was going to be....bad juju was sure to follow.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Crabbing!!

I want to be a crabber!

For the record, next year when all you nay-sayers come to me asking to borrow some of my $100,000 I made while I was crabbing, you can all kiss my ass seven ways to Satan cause I crabbed for Satan and you didn't!

I crab for Satan!!

And so I shall!

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Fluffer.

'Nuff said.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

You can drink again.

And now for our Ten Quick Questions. I'm not really sure which ones I like better, but in all reality, does it really matter?

1. Who are you?

The Wizard.

Or anything that ends in "ard" for that matter.

Bastard. Retard. Dullard.

You get the picture.

2. Zombies - undead monstrosity or the next logical step in human evolution?

The next generation in babysitters.

See, thinking like this is the kind of shit that gets me in trouble. Some stupid little kid is gonna go ahead and get her ass bit by my "Zombie Mommies"(c) and then her momma is going to sue me and I'll end up like Naven in The Jerk with just a Thermos and a bunch of black relatives.

Meh.

At least I'll get to fuck Bernadette Peters and that ain't so bad.

Maybe she could tell me about all the cool things that happened at Studio 54.

3. Young Elvis or Fat Elvis?

Can we mix these last two questions up? Cause I like Zombie Elvis. That would be cool. You could hire him for like weddings or birthdays or whatever things those Jewish people celebrate are.

4. If you were a superhero, what would your name be?

Tampon Boy!!! I would have the ability to expand to nearly three times my original size! Protect the world from unwanted drips and I would get to live in a pussy!

5. You are the last man on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the human race, whether you like it or not. Your choice of potential mates is between Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Super Girl or Wilma Flintstone. Which one do you choose?

Super Girl.

Cause she looks like she is under 16.

And I'm into that.

6. What was your first car?

A short bus.

7. If you were going to show me around your city/town, where's the first place you would take me?

Well, I would take you to see the Amityville horror house but seeing as I have lived here for fucking five months and no one has shown it to me, good luck seeing it, motherfucker. Here is the local Taco Bell instead.

8. What's the last album you bought?

I don't buy albums. They buy me.

9. Do you have an arch enemy? Would you like one?

The Easter Bunny.

Ask Michele.

She knows what that bastard did to me last year.

10. What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your teenage years?

I Wonder If This Will Get Me High, Part 2

It would have to star Mr. Patrick Swayze and someone from Little House on the Prairie. Guess it doesn't matter which one. Hell, give the role to Alison Arngrim. She's not doing much but dinner theater nowadays and for actors, dinner theater is one step above giving blowjobs for crack. So I'd like her to be in my movie.

So those are the answers to the questions I was presented. For some strange reason, I think they weren't quite the answers you were looking for but whi in the hell cares anyways.

Ignore the man behind the curtain.

Also, I would like to give a shout out to the cutest niece in the world for being one year old and, more importantly, being related to me. Sure, I am a few days late in wishing a happy birthday, but fuck man, I am a turtle. Get used to it.

Happy birthday, Stacey.

Stay OG.

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Michele wussed out last week and didn't give an intro cause I'd already written one. Well, now the shoe's on the other foot. Go read hers, I'm too tired for this shit.

Ten Quick Questions for your reading enjoyment:

1. Who are you?
   Baby Huey, FTTW's resident foodgeek and headbanger.
2. Zombies - undead monstosity or the next logical step in human evolution?
   What, can't it be both?
3. Young Elvis or Fat Elvis?
   Given my penchant for zombies AND polyester, I've gotta go fat elvis. Speaking as a fat guy, it makes me hopeful that someday *I* can die on the terlet.
4. If you were a superhero, what would your name be?
   Gasman. I have the ability to direct my vaporous emissions with laser precision and missile-like strength.
5. You are the last man on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the human race, whether you like it or not. Your choice of potential mates is between Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Super Girl or Hilary Clinton. Which one do you choose?
   Oh man, that's tough. Super Girl. I'd turn her into Super Woman.
6. What was your first car?
   a 1987 GMC S-15 Sierra pickup. It didn't have a grill -- rather, the collapsed box from a case of Busch Light. The hood release didn't work. It didn't have a stereo. It was FUCKING BEIGE, and was obviously painted by hand, because you could see the brush strokes. It got me so much booty, and by so much booty, I mean absolutely no booty.
7. If you were going to show me around your city/town, where's the first place you would take me?
   We'd probably go to Chapel Hill to make fun of the yuppie pricks that hang out there. Then we'd go to downtown Durham and actually drink at the cool bars that the preppy white kids from UNC and Duke are too scared to go to because *gasp* they're in downtown Durham.

8. What's the last album you bought?
   Bloodjinn's This Machine Runs on Empty ... they're a local band and I really enjoy their work.
9. Do you have an arch enemy? Would you like one?
   Anyone driving 5 mph under the speed limit in front of me just made an enemy for life.
10. What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your teenage years?
    Bio-Dome 2: Josh's room. I swear I didn't leave it for like 5 years.

Now, I want you fair readers to make me a promise. If you ever find out that I'm going to be on Inside the Actor's Studio, I want you to fucking kill me, because I'm obviously a pod person here to take over the planet. If, however, you're interested what I'd actually say, here are the answers to those stupid douchey questions James Lipton asks.

1. What is your favorite word?
   My favorite word is duty. Cause, I mean, it sounds like "doody."


2. What is your least favorite word?
   Myself. It's way way Way WAY overused. Allow myself to introduce ... myself.


3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?
   Necrotising Fasciitis always gets my motor running.


4. What turns you off?
   "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band. No doubt.


5. What is your favorite curse word?
   Twunt. Part twat, part cunt, all awesome.


6. What sound or noise do you love?
   The sound of a guitar turned up to 11 and just wailing like a motherfucker.


7. What sound or noise do you hate?
   My goddamn neighbors' stupid fucking ghetto blaster stereos. Fuckin douchefaucets.


8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
   I really want to open a butcher shop when I retire.


9. What profession would you not like to do?
   Jizz-mopper is probably not as much of a dream job as it sounds.


10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
    "Well, we've got all the metal you can listen to, and if you press this button here, you can watch Jerry Fallwell being sodomized with a railroad tie in hell whenever you want. It's as much fun as you think it is.

Now you know ... the rest of the story. -BH

Posted by Baby Huey at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

We kind of stumbled onto the idea for this weekend's editors' picks.

Well, let's be honest. We were all feeling a bit lazy today. So we took the lazy man's way out. Pre-fabricated questions, designed for quick, witty answers. Or quick, boring answers. Depends on your viewpoint, I guess. Anyhow, one of said, let's do the ten questions from that Actor's Studio show, and another one of us said, hey, we have our own ten questions. So we decided to do both. Because, really, you can never know too much about the editors of FTTW. No such thing as Too Much Information here. The more you know, the more you.......ok, enough filler. On with the questions (Dan and Turtle will post theirs tomorrow).

These are from Bernard Pivot, and were stolen by that douche bag from Actor's Studio.

1. What is your favorite word?
Serendipity. It makes me smile.

2. What is your least favorite word?
Clamato. I know, it's a product, not really a word. But it makes me feel dirty for some reason. Dirty and queasy. Like someone has been eating an unclean vagina.

Moot. I hate that word because it always sounds like you mean something else that you aren't saying right. It's like the noise a retarded owl would make. Or an owl that mated with a cow. Wouldn't that be something?

3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?
Nature. Warm weather. A killer bass riff. Jessica Alba naked. Sharing a good laugh. Being in love. Romance. A clown suit with an attachable 15 inch strap on.

One of those things is not true.

4. What turns you off?
Arrogance. Stupidity. Selfishness. Lack of personal responsibility. Pit stains.

5. What is your favorite curse word?
I like the old classic standby of motherfucker. Can be used in so many ways, in so many circumstances.

6. What sound or noise do you love?
Waves crashing on the beach. Rain. Most music. Turtle's voice. My nephew's laugh. Nelson saying "HA! HA!"

7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Squealing tires. Sirens. Air horns. Balloons popping. Any kind of sudden popping sound. Silverware on teeth. 98% of ringtones. The alarm clock going off.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Reclusive, eccentric hermit who lives in a mansion.

9. What profession would you not like to do?
I can think of plenty, and they all involve either some form of human waste, water, or both.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"ARE YOU READY TO ROCK AND ROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL??!!."

And now for our Ten Quick Questions, which in no way are derivative of that other guy's questions. They are better, more fun and weren't stolen by a douche bag.

1. Who are you?
I am, I am superman. And I can do anything.

2. Zombies - undead monstrosity or the next logical step in human evolution ?
There will come a day when zombies will rule the earth. And I will be there, acting as a liason between the undead and the soon to be dead. I have my resume all ready. I just know I'll get the job.

3. Young Elvis or Fat Elvis?
Velvet Elvis. Or...Velvis.

4. If you were a superhero, what would your name be?

5. You are the last man on earth, and it is your job to perpetuate the human race, whether you like it or not. Your choice of potential mates is between Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman, Super Girl or Wilma Flintstone. Which one do you choose?

Well, first I would have to adjust to the fact that I'm a man. I mean, you go ove 40 years walking around with a vagina and all, and suddenly you have a penis, that's gonna take some getting used to. Once I spent some time masturbating and peeing standing up and adjusting my balls, I'd take Wilma Flinstone into a dark alley and bang her like Fred never could because he was too damn fat to do it right. But I'd bang her just for fun. Because I'll be damned if I'm gonna repopulate the world with just one chick. That would mean that our kids would have to do each other in order to get humanity going again. That's gross. Then again, it's what Adam and Eve must of have done. And Noah. Once that ark hit dry land and they had to start over again...well, I don't really want to think about this. Humanity is going to die a sordid, lonely death before I repopulate it with inbreeding. The last thing Mother Earth would hear is Wilma screaming "Yabba Dabba Doo!"

6. What was your first car?
73 Omega

7. If you were going to show me around your city/town, where's the first place you would take me?
I'd take you to the housing development that is where my junior high school used to stand. Because that pretty much sums things up around here. Have land, will build McMansions.

8. What's the last album you bought?
Go National, Got My One Good Eye On You. Really cool stuff from Kevin Seconds (7 Seconds) and his wife.

9. Do you have an arch enemy? Would you like one?
Yes. It's name is Anxiety.

10 What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your teenage years?
The Girl Who Thought Led Zeppelin Lyrics Were Meaningful (subtitled: This Is Your Brain On Drugs).

Alrighty. That's 20 questions asked and answered. And now you know more about me than my mother.

Anyone else care to answer?

-Michele

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

An album that redefines a band or a genre, hey?

Miles Davis
When I was younger I used to completely ignore jazz. If I paid attention it was only to deride it as pretentious shitty music. I eventually caught on to some of it and decided that it might not all be a waste of time. Miles Davis’ Birth Of The Cool was one of the first albums to grab me. Miles was always experimental as hell, and this album is considered to be the one that started the break away from bebop jazz in the late 40’s– which is cool too, but, you know. One step at a time here.
Miles pissed people off a lot in his career, and he did it again in 72 with On The Corner. That one redefined what I thought jazz could be altogether. That was like nothing I’d ever heard before the late 80’s or early 90’s, and Miles had put it out in 72. And everyone hated it for years. That album sounds like some kind of ambient funk jazz remix, full of repeated movements with background loops and samples and shit. Give it a listen, it's a crazy record. And it's crazy that it was put together in 72.

The Clash
Now this is easy.

Everyone knows that London Calling is a great album, a breakthrough milestone yeah yeah yeah. And it is, and it completely redefined The Clash at the time. The first two albums are that classic late 70’s punk sound, but London Calling drew on a lot more influences. Other influences were expanded on.
The Clash were a group that never wanted to stop exploring boundaries and redefining themselves, and they weren’t afraid to venture into sucking ass either. It’s hard to find people to even admit it these days, but have you ever heard Cut The Crap? I love The Clash, and I’m a forgiving sort, but c’mon. Hell. There’s a good argument that that album actually helped redefine sucking. There are no good songs on that album. There are only songs that don't suck as bad as the others.

Gang Of Four
History has been kind to Gang Of Four. The way some people write about it, you'd swear that music was standing around and scratching its head, wondering what to do next when Gang Of Four came along and showed music the way. This is a bit of a stretch, but there's no denying that Entertainment! doesn't sound much like anything before it, and you can still find traces of their influence in a lot of bands today.


Dirty Rotten Imbeciles
Man I loved DRI when I was a kid. Still listen to them every now and then for that matter. Not as much as some other stuff from my younger years but it gets its turn…. the self titled album and Dealing With It in particular. Makes me think of drinking beer in a garage. Those guys were young and messy and they had a blast making fast messy music. But they had ambitions too, and they liked more than one kind of music. So they threw some metal into it and released Crossover. And yeah, I still liked it. That album redefined DRI pretty well. Some people hated it, they didn’t want no chocolate in their peanut butter. Other people loved it. DRI are mentioned time and again as influences on newer bands, and the boys are still around.


Well that's all you're going to get out of me. You've heard from the other editors, now do your part. Who did we leave out?

Posted by Dan Greene at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

This is a tough one to think about. I really don't know what angle anyone else took in writing this so I am kinda going my own way. All of this is subjective and unfortunately, I have to stick with musical types that I am familiar with so you guys have to forgive me on that one.

The route I went with was which albums made the general population wake up and listen to what the hell was going on in their scene. Most of this list is going to be nothing new. This is just my opinion of which albums broke out and put a magnifying glass on the music type that they were categorized in. God that's confusing. As I said, the music was nothing new but somehow gained a whole new level of exposure due to whatever circumstances that were involved.

And of course I am missing a lot but hey, it's what I do.

Let's start out with the easy ones.

Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks

Not much to say on this one. Kinda woke up everyone to the punk rock scene. Sure, punk rock was around before this but not so out there to the public. Maybe it was Malcom Mcwhateverthe fuckhisnamewas or maybe it was just right time, right place type of thing. Whatever it was it basically broke punk to the public. Hell, my mom even knew what punk was.

Nirvana - Nevermind

Well this one had to be in here. General rule of thumb to me is that when my mom has heard of a band it is generally now considered mainstream. Nothing incredible music wise but something worked at some point. Don't ask me how it happened cause I don't know. All of a sudden they were huge and the small club days were gone. Also my mom knew who they were. See above for that. In my opinion there were a lot of bands doing grunge better, but this was the album that broke.

Those were the easy ones.

Now let's get a little harder.

Sleater Kinney - Dig Me Out

Grrlpower was out a long time before these guys (or girls?) shot their first video and turned down some insanly high contracts but somehow this was the album that people remember as the first real riotgrrl album. As with all of these on my list, there were others doing it for longer but somehow this one hit. It is also one of my all time favorite albums so I have a little bias on it. With this album, normal everyday punk rockers stopped thinking of riot grrls as "those fat lesbians with tattoos who drink a lot of beer" and started listening to their music. plus, my mom thought they were too cute to be so angry.

Turbonegero - Apocolypse Dudes

Whoa. Norway has music? Really? The first time I heard this album, I was shitfaced drunk at a huge BBQ somewhere near Reno, Neveda with about ten other people from bands that played all different types of music. We all sat around and decided that these guys were going to be huge. This was the album that would put deathpunk on the map. Problem was that the band had broken up five years before. The day I realized I would never see these leather warriors was a sad day indeed. But never say never, ya know? Who knew a few years later I would be flying over to Norway just to see them for their reunion show? Crazy fucking world. Plus it was another band that made the "My mom's heard of them" list.

Black Flag - Damaged

Welcome to the West Coast, motherfucker.

NWA - Straight Outta Compton

Welcome to the West Coast, beetch.

Metallica - Master of Puppets

San Francisco thrash finally had a spokesband. I listen back to the other bands that came out at the same time and absolutly nothing compares to what Metallica was doing. Too bad they went down so hard. My mom liked Damage, Inc. She said she hated it, but I know I saw her at a few clubs. She was a sneaky little minx.

So anyways, take it or leave it, that is my list of certain albums that defined certan styles of music that brought them out to the general public and forced people to recognize what they were doing.

Of course this list is sorely missing a lot of albums but what I went for in this post was bands that broke. Feel free to throw in whichever ones you think I missed and you will probably hear me slap my forhead and say "Oh yeah. I forgot that one."

Remember, none of them started what they were doing but for some reason or another, these are the bands that will be the first quoted in some VH1 special or by my mom. - T

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

The editors of FTTW were sitting around, deciding what we should write about over warm beer, cold coffee, and cheap cigars. I don't remember where it started, and trips on the FTTW editors' train of thought are scary things, so I won't put you through that. Regardless of everything that led up to it, we decided to write about a redefining album. Could be an album that redefined a genre; could be an album that redefined a band.

I don't know what the other editors are gonna write about. I'm guessing, though, that they're going to be positive. I didn't want to go that route. Change is inevitable, but it's not always good. Besides, I can think of no other album that did more to redefine a band. It's just too bad that it redefined them in a very negative way.

I'm talking, of course, about Metallica's self-titled fifth studio LP, more commonly known as The Black Album. Three years after ... And Justice For All, I'm pretty sure we all expected great things. Jason Newsted would come into his own and we'd be able to finally let Cliff Burton go. Flemmin Rasmussen would continue to rock the boards and come out with a dark, brooding masterpiece. More than that, there was a logical progression of albums. I mean, take a look at it:

1983 - Kill 'em All

Primordial thrash was still influenced by punk and hardcore, and Kill 'em All was no different. Fun songs with lotsa 3 chord chugga chugga with some decent solos. Lo-fi production quality but hey, it was '83. Whaddya gonna do?

1984 - Ride the Lightning

Just as thrashy as Kill 'em All, there were definitely darker elements, like "Fade to Black" and "Creeping Death." The instrumental "Call of Chthulhu" really showed their musical range, and led well into ...

1986 - Master of Puppets

This album is damn near metal perfection. From the opening notes of "Battery" to the fade out of "Damage, Inc." your head can't help but bang. It just can't. It was also, sadly, the last album that Cliff Burton played on before his tragic death. Disheartened over their friend's loss, they released ...

1988 - ... And Justice For All

Not their greatest work, but hey. They just lost their bass player -- one of the greatest of all time. Give 'em a pass. To be honest, the reason I wasn't hugely fond of it wasn't entirely their fault. The mix was totally off, and if they took the original masters and remixed it, I would enjoy it a lot more and would probably go out and buy another copy. There's a lot less of the classic thrash feel -- it's dark and brooding, to be sure. Where would they go next? Darker? Thrashier? Venture into death metal? Let's find out with ...

1991 - Metallica

Whoa, whoa whoa WHOA. What the fuck is this? Ok, I'll give you Enter Sandman. It's kinda cool. The rest of it is NOT Metallica. Slowish Southern rock (Sad but True), MULTIPLE ballads (The Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters). I'd mention the other songs but let's face it -- they're mostly filler.

I give the Black Album a bad rap, but it's not a terrible terrible album. I still can't listen to it, though, because it's so. damn. depressing. It's like hearing how and when you're going to meet your untimely, violent death. You certainly don't want to go back and listen AGAIN.

If you wanted to read about the album that I thought changed the world for the better, tough shit. You ain't getting it. Wait for Dan's pick. I'm pretty sure we haven't killed his spirit. Yet.

Baby Huey will have Dan's spirit in a jar on his desk by Memorial Day.

Posted by Baby Huey at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Defining albums. Do I have to write an intro? Baby Huey already did that. Read his. I'm exhausted.

Three that were defining for genres:

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

Mixed industrial techno with traditional songwriting, making what was then an obscure genre accessible to people who might otherwise have not given it a listen. This album took a little everything - synth pop, new wave, techno, rock, goth, drama, despair, catchy riffs, danceable beats and forged them together into something a thousand bands would try to replicate.

Run DMC - Run DMC
Where would hip-hop be without these guys? This album was the original hybrid of hard rock and rap, and no one after could produce that sound so sweetly. This album also marked a turning point for hip-hop - until then, it was more party/fun music than anything else - bringing a little dose of reality to the rhymes. It shaped the future path of rap more than any other album.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
The songs were long and murky in a sludge-rock sort of way and the music was somewhat trippy and sometimes listening to this album was like walking through an acid trip while wearing boots made of cement. But there is no denying that as a whole, it worked. Maybe it didn't define the genre of heavy metal, but it sure started the path on which a whole slew of bands later traveled.

One that was defining in a negative light:

Spice Girls - Spice Girls
Not all defining albums define in a good way. This one represents the height (or low point) of crass commercialism and branding. This is how your six year old became a desired demographic. This is where pop music proved to the world what some of us jaded, cynical music lovers already knew: that it is nothing more than a giant manufacturing conglomerate that cares less about the end product (the record) than it does about what items the product can sell. And it also proved that 90% of the record buying public are sheep-like slaves to the flashing lights of mass media.

And one that was defining for me, personally:

Black Flag - Damaged
I had been listening to punk before this, going back to the Ramones and Sex Pistols, but there was no punk album - hell, no album in those last years of high school at all - that I reacted to so viscerally. There was something profound about this, something dark and desperate that at times made me want to crawl under the covers and just give in to whatever mental breakdown was coming and at times made me want to get out the door and kick ass and take names. It was raw and powerful and listening to it was the aural equivelant of scratching yourself until you bled. Less messy, too.

There you have it. Just a couple of defining albums that popped into my head. There's a ton more, and I might visit a couple of them in Tuesday's Gauntlet.

-michele

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Ah hell, I don’t know what to do with this. I’m new. When someone asks me a question like that I usually just start talking shit. What spews out is probably accurate enough anyway so fuck it.

I mean, if you’re taking a multiple choice test, you know not to double check your answers, right? That shit will fuck you up.

Friday – PCP Laced Joint
Friday made me laugh a lot. A lot. Straight, sober or otherwise. Particularly otherwise. There were a bunch of good scenes in the first movie….. the second one was pretty good and I haven’t seen the third one, though I hear that’s alright too. But that first one, shit. Hardly a break in the jokes, and all well delivered by a good cast.
Chris Tucker’s become a bit of a pain in the ass lately, but he’s done some good stuff in his career (remember Dead Presidents?) and Friday was great. This isn’t opinion, it’s objective Truth, like capital T Truth. Friday was great.

- “You got knocked the fuck out.”
- “What, you trying to build a clubhouse?”
- “I LIKE PIG FEET!”
- “Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I don’t give a FUCK!”

And it goes on and on. But the first line to come to my mind is always,
“I spent all night in Deebo’s pigeon coop and the only one who could get me out was my Mom.”

That whole scene is good times. Drugs by mistake. Smokey telling Craig a story about why he doesn’t want to sell any weed to Hector. Why ever since then, he’s been like fuck Hector.

Caddyshack – Chocolate In The Pool
Yeah, I’m hangin in the gutter tonight. Caddyshack has a lot of great scenes, but this one is so lowbrow it’s not funny… Wait, I didn’t quite mean that…
I have to thank my wife for this one. I’d never seen Caddyshack until I started seeing her. This movie is funny as hell. You want a few reasons why?

-“Let’s dance!”
-“It looks good on you though.”
-“I got it from a Negro.”
-“They’re like the Viet Cong. Varmint Cong.”

Keep in mind that I also love stupid 80’s stuff. No apologies. You got a better scene from Caddyshack than shit in the pool? I bet you do….. Nominate it! It’s what we’re here for.

Fast Times At Ridgemont High – I Know That Guy
Ah, Spicoli. Jeff Spicoli.

Jeff Spicoli. Sean Penn in one of his best roles. He’s a great actor, you say? He sure is. He’s done more sophisticated roles than this? Sure enough. But he took that role and treated it as importantly as any other role in his career. You know Spicoli’s bedroom? Sean Penn lived there when they weren’t shooting. During the entire gig he refused to answer to anything other than Spicoli.

So you know he was wasted when he was smacking his shoe off his head.

Again, there may well be better scenes in this movie and I hope your opinion is different than mine; in fact I hope you have lots of shit to say about it. But that scene where he first walks into Mr. Hand’s class, late. That kills me. He’s just spaced the fuck out, walks in, kind of talking to the teacher, looking around, sees a guy in the class.

“Hey, I know that guy.”

You fucking stoner.

So what do you have for us?

If you want to work at All American Burger, maybe Dan can talk to Dennis Taylor.

Posted by Dan Greene at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

What is funny? A lot of things are. Personally, I think the funniest thing to see the reaction of people when they walk through a spider web. That is one of the funniest things that has ever been witnessed. That little freak out dance people do as they try to get all the spider ass string off their face as fast as possible is something that is truly made for memories.

But tonight, or today if you live in Uganda, is a day for funny movies and my personal favorite scenes. This was a tough one cause I usually take the movie as a whole before I take a scene. I still think Stir Crazy was one of the greatest comidies ever made and yet I still can't think of a single scene from that one that has made me fall down laughing. Yet I still love the movie. Same thing goes with the original Out of Towners. Love the movie but no one scene pops into my head.

So this one was a bit tougher to do. How do you just nail one scene on the head with the drop dead funny when the rest of the movie is "eh"? So you can see my dilemma. But here is my best try at this.

The jive talkers from "Airplane!".

These guys were funny. They sounded so jivey(?) yet they were so sweet. Just a couple of dudes making their way through the airport with nothing else to do but talk about true love and god in their own way.

First Jive Dude: Shit man, that honky mus' be messin' my old lady... got to be runnin' cold upside down his head. You know?

Second Jive Dude: Hey home, I can dig it. You know he ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap up on you man.

First Jive Dude: I say hey sky, s'other s'ay I wan say?

Second Jive Dude: UH...

First Jive Dude: Pray to J I get the same ol' same ol'.

Second Jive Dude: Eh. Yo knock yourself a pro slick, gray matter live performas down now take TCB'in man.

First Jive Dude: Hey, you know what they say... See a broad, to get that booty yak 'em.

First Jive Dude, Second Jive Dude: Leg 'er down 'n smack 'em yak 'em

First Jive Dude: Cold got to be. You know? Shiiiiit.

Pray to J? Col' got to be? That is comedy.

The next one is a little tougher cause this one deals with more of a character more than a single scene. So I am kind of cheating on this one. Cause I can. General Garcia at the end of The In Laws.

Alan Arkin and Peter Falk are great together. Sure, Alan Arkin is a pure product from the 70's.

Near the end of the movie when he is finally introduced, this movie takes on a new life. This is the part where Shelly and Vince meet General Garcia in his country and General Garcia is showing the guys all his stuff. General Garcia, in my opinion, is one of the funniest caracters ever written. He is so stupid and yet so insane. A Latin-American dictator whose closest advisor was a cartoon face drawn on his own hand. That's good stuff.

General Garcia: [commenting on his choice for a new national flag, featuring a portrait of himself alongside a topless local prostitute] If it wasn't for the church, this flag would be flying at the U.N right now. But no . . . they stand in the way, THEY STAND IN THE WAY!

and when he is about to shoot the boys at the end:

General Garcia: We have no blindfolds senor, we are a poor country!

So even though 70's week is over, I am gonna have to go ahead and add General Garcia as one of the best things that came out of that god forsaken decade.

And Last up is The Jerk.

So many things about this movie made it incredible. Maybe it was Steve Martin's sweetness or stupidity or maybe it is cause I have seen this movie so many times that it makes it hard to just pick one scene that grabs me. But if I have to pick just one, I'll leave it all up to the one that ends like this...

Navin R. Johnson: And I don't need one other thing, except my dog.

[dog growls]

Navin R. Johnson: I don't need my dog.

..and with that wish you all a fond goodbye for the day.

Now go see some funny movies. - T

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

One person's funny is another person's not so funny. Personally, I don't get the whole Will Ferrell thing, but I know people that think his movies are the highest level of comedy yet to be explored or some shit like that. I got through ten minutes of Anchorman before I knew I was going to hate it. And then there's movies like Dodgeball, Dude, Where's My Car and 40 Year Old Virgin that some of my friends have peed themselves laughing at, but leave me just blinking at the screen, trying to stay awake.

So when I give you my list of funniest movie scenes, it's with the knowledge that a bunch of you are going to look at it and say, what is she, on dope?

Maybe.

1.Slap Shot is one of those movies that just doesn't appeal to everyone. If you don't like hockey, you probably won't get most of the humor. Me, I think it's one of the funniest movies in existence. And my favorite scene doesn't even involve the Hanson Brothers, or take place on the ice.

[At the Chiefs Fashion Show]
Johnny Upton: I'm gonna flash'em, Joe.
McGrath: No, you're not.
Johnny Upton: I'm gonna open up this faggot robe and wiggle my dick at em. And do you know why? Because I want you to have a heart-attack and die so we don't have to do this shit anymore. You and your fucking fashion shows.

Then, Johnny walks off, presumably to do his fashion show walk. Offscreen, you just hear a roomful of women screaming.

2. Big Lebowski
The movie as a whole is incredibly funny and entertaining; it's in my top ten of my all time favorite movies. Maybe even the top three. This isn't really a laugh-out-loud film, but that's ok because most of my favorite humor isn't the "LOL" kind. This scene is directed to perfection, and encapsulates the entire feel movie in about four minutes. Jesus saves.

3. Humor may be subjective, but I don't know anyone who doesn't find Mel Brooks movies funny. This is my favorite scene from my favorite Brooks film, Young Frankenstein:

4. Friday
Just because I don't like Dude, Where's My Car? doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good stoner movie. Chris Tucker is always funny. Plus, I got a thing for Ice Cube.

That's just four of my favorite funny scenes. I'd write more, and maybe even make this funnier, except I've got a wicked stomach ache today and I need to go close myself off in a room and umm....let some air out. See, farts are always funny.

Michele will one day tell you about the time Turtle tried to light his farts on fire. With photographic evidence.

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

To quote one of the other Editor’s “Lord knows, it’s been a long week!”. And in the spirit of a long week, we came prepared for the weekend. Just for you. Cause we care. No, really. We care. A lot. You see, after a long week of fighting and bustling through the daily bullshit we have to put up with so we can do what we enjoy, sometimes you just need a good laugh. You need to put your feet up on the coffee table, sit back, relax and just laugh ‘til your sides hurt. Because laughter really is the best medicine for when the working week is ailing you.

As such, we, the Editors of FTTW, bring you fodder for a new poll and, hopefully, will make you smile a little bit. Next weeks poll is all about the Best Comedy Movie and here are my picks, followed up almost immediately by Huey’s. Turtle, Michele and Dan will be posting their faves tomorrow. So, let the funny begin!!!

Blazing Saddles – Am I a sucker for old Mel Brooks movies ? Boy, am I ever. Young Frankenstein, The Producers…. Hell, Spaceballs even had about forty five minutes of goodness in it. But there’s something special about Blazing Saddles. And it’s name is Richard Pryor. I’ve been a fan of Richard Pryor since the first time Jonny D and I snuck downstairs with his old man’s copy of SuperNigger and we laughed our asses off. Here, the combination of Mel Brooks zany humor and Pryor’s social commentary really work well together and the end result is a movies with gems like this:

[Lili Von Schtupp offers Bart a gigantic sausage]
Lili Von Shtupp: Would you like another schnitzengruben?
Bart: No, thank you. Fifteen is my limit on schnitzengruben.
Lili Von Shtupp: Well how about a little...
[whispers in his ear]
Bart: [shocked] Baby. I'm not from Havana.

And this:

Olson Johnson: All right, we'll give some land to the niggers and the chinks, but we DON'T WANT THE IRISH.

Best. Line. In, A. Movie. Ever.

The Philadelphia Story – It’s been said, by a good many women I’ve dated, that I have a crush on Katherine Hepburn. And to some extent that may be true. I’ve always been taken by women who are witty, striking and mean. Some say it’s a character flaw, but for me, there’s nothing better to keep me on my toes than a woman who’s as quick minded as she is beautiful and who has a mean streak to boot. And that may be one of the reason’s I love this movie so much. I’ve always said that it’s because I love the “Parlour Comedy”. There’s a fantastic, very dynamic, interplay between Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in this movie that’s two parts animal ferocity and one part familiarity that makes the banter between them seem so effortless and natural. Banter like this:

Dexter: You don't look as well as when I last saw you, Kittredge. Oh, you poor fellow. I know just how you feel...Why, you don't look old enough to get married. Not even the first time. And then you never did. She needs trouble to mature her, Kittredge. Give her lots of it.
George: I'm afraid she can't count on me for that.
Dexter: No, that's too bad. Sometimes, for your own sake, Red, I think you should have stuck to me longer.
Tracy: I thought it was for life, but the nice Judge gave me a full pardon.
Dexter: Aw, that's the old redhead, no bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left in the jaw.

And that’s what makes the film such a joy. The whole thing is farfetched and outlandish, but the dialog and comfort level in the cast makes it seem so natural. Also, Cary Grant is on fire because he gets lines like this:

Dexter: I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time I secretly wanted to be a writer.

Raising Arizona – I’ve stated my unequivocal love for the Coen Brothers here on a good many occasions. But it wasn’t nearly as warranted as it is in this particular case. Sure, Millers Crossing is a rum drenched gangster tale set in the forties that feels more like a documentary than it should. And the Hudsucker Proxy makes me laugh and laugh and laugh, even though I can’t stand Tim Robbins or Jennifer Jason Leigh. But Raising Arizona takes the best parts of the screwball comedy and the best parts of the parlour comedy, lays them all out like a map and then plots the shortest course between there and your funny bone. Hm, that didn’t come out quite right, but the film is hella funny. There are great performances by everyone in the cast, but once again, the writing really shines through. Bits like:

Glen: Say that reminds me, how'd you get that kid so darn fast? Me and Dot went in to adopt on account a' somethin' went wrong with my semen, and they said we had to wait five years for a healthy white baby. I said, "Healthy white baby? Five years? What else you got?" Said they got two Koreans and a negra born with his heart on the outside. It's a crazy world.
H.I.: Someone oughta sell tickets.
Glen: Sure, I'd buy one.

And:

H.I.: What kind of name is Ed for a pretty thing like you?
Ed McDonnough: Short for Edwina. Turn to the right.
H.I.: You’re a flower, you are. Just a little desert flower.

Socio-political commentary, romance and zaniness all rolled up into one. Plus, one of the most daring stunts ever pulled off by a pack of Huggies…. Ever.

Anything by the Marx Brothers – I sat here for a good ten minutes trying to come up with the single funniest scene in a Marx Brothers movie and, for the life of me, I can’t pick just one. The movies need to be viewed as a whole, because a two minute clip doesn’t do any of them justice. You need the wordplay, the banter, even the jokes where nothing is said at all, to flow seamlessly into one another. Because the Marx Brothers isn’t just “How he got into my pajamas, I’ll never know”, it’s the sum of the parts. The punchlines don’t count because another one is thirty seconds away. You don’t fully get the first joke until three jokes later and by then you’re dizzy, reeling under a comedy onslaught many have tried to recreate but none have equaled. The Marx Brothers movies aren’t just entertainment, they’re a test of your comedy endurance, and for those that are quick enough and strong enough, well, then you know the heights of comedy.

So, those are my picks. There's a whole lot of the funny in Huey's column, right off the main page, as well. And T and M and D's column's will be up for you on Sunday morning bright and early. Get your favorites together and tell us about them. --F

Posted by thefinn at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

As a dude, there's nothing more fun to me in conversation than inserting an apropos movie quote. Except (nah, I'm not gonna do that to you). These are some of my favorite scenes ... hope you like 'em too. In order of release date:

Crocodile Dundee

[Dundee is threatened by a mugger with a switchblade]
Sue: Mick, give him your wallet.
Mick: What for?
Sue: He's got a knife.
Mick: [chuckling] That's not a knife. [Dundee draws a large Bowie knife]
Mick: *That's* a knife.

Honestly, I defy you to find a funnier line in a movie that's also completely true. Crocodile Dundee was the greatest documentary about the Australian people ever made. And if the scene is parodied on the Simpsons, you know it's funny. Maybe.

Aussie Dundee Guy: "That's not a knife, This is a knife"
Bart: "That's not a knife, that's a spoon."
Aussie Dundee Guy: "Aaah, I see you've played knifey-spoony before."

Mallrats

This movie is such a series of vignettes, and is so all over the place, it's really more a collection of memorable quotes. It's what I love about Kevin Smith movies. Jay and Silent Bob are OK and all, but my favorites are always the characters Jason Lee plays. His delivery was always impeccable. Brodie Bruce in Mallrats always reminds me of how I was in high school -- namely, overly pissed about the smallest things. Ok, I'm still like that, but not at the mall. I hate the mall. I think his rage can be summed up in one quote that I absolutely love.

That's criminal; that kid is back ON THE ESCALATOR AGAIN!

The Big Lebowski

[the Dude, Walter, and Donny walk out of the bowling alley, to find the three Nihilists waiting in front of the Dude's car, which has been torched]
The Dude: Well, they finally did it. They killed my fucking car.
Nihilist: Ve vant ze money, Lebowski.
Nihilist #2: Ja, uzzervize ve kill ze girl.
Nihilist #3: Ja, it seems you have forgotten our little deal, Lebowski.
The Dude: You don't HAVE the fucking girl, dipshits! We know you never did!
[the Nihilists, stunned, confer amongst themselves in German]
Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Nihilist: Ve don't care. Ve still vant ze money, Lebowski, or ve fuck you up.
Walter Sobchak: Fuck you. Fuck the three of you.
The Dude: Hey, cool it Walter.
Walter Sobchak: No, without a hostage, there is no ransom. That's what ransom is. Those are the fucking rules.
Nihilist #2: His girlfriend gave up her toe!
Nihilist #3: She though we'd be getting million dollars!
Nihilist #2: Iss not fair!
Walter Sobchak: Fair! WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?
The Dude: Hey, cool it Walter. Look, pal, there never was any money. The big Lebowski gave me an empty briefcase, so take it up with him, man.
Walter Sobchak: And, I would like my undies back.
[Stunned, the Germans confer amongst themselves again]
Donny: Are they gonna hurt us, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny. These men are cowards.
Nihilist: Okay. So we take ze money you haf on you, und ve calls it eefen.
Walter Sobchak: Fuck you.

I will admit that I'm not a huge Coen brothers fan, but this movie is so fantastic. This scene is so representative of the entire movie. You've got the ultimate cool cat in The Dude, riled up by the big Lebowski's antics, Walter being pissed, and Donny being out of his fucking element. And Flea is a badass nihilist. It's the truth.

Super Troopers

Mac: All right, how about "Cat Game?"
Foster: Cat Game? What's the record?
Mac: Thorny did six, but I think you can do ten.
Foster: Ten? Starting right 'meow?'
[Mac laughs - they walk up to the car, and Foster taps on the driver side]
Larry Johnson: Sorry about the...
Foster: All right meow. (1) Hand over your license and registration.
[the man hands him his license]
Foster: Your registration? Hurry up meow. (2)
[Mac ticks off two fingers]
Larry Johnson: Sorry.
[the man laughs a little]
Foster: Is there something funny here boy?
Larry Johnson: Oh, no.
Foster: Then why you laughing, Mister... Larry Johnson?
[pause]
Foster: All right meow, (3) where were we?
Larry Johnson: Excuse me, are you saying meow?
Foster: Am I saying meow?
[Mac puts his hands up for the fourth one, but makes an "eehhh" facial expression, as he is considering the last one]
Larry Johnson: I thought...
Foster: Don't think boy. Meow, (4) do you know how fast you were going?
[man laughs]
Foster: Meow. (5) What is so damn funny?
Larry Johnson: I could have sworn you said meow.
Foster: Do I look like a cat to you, boy? Am I jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree?
[Mac is gut-busting laughing]
Foster: Am I drinking milk from a saucer?
[feigned anger]
Foster: Do you see me eating mice?
Foster: [Mac and the man are laughing their heads off now] You stop laughing right meow! (6)
Larry Johnson: [the man stops and swallows hard] Yes sir.
Foster: Meow, (7) I'm gonna have to give you a ticket on this one. No buts meow. (8) It's the law.
[rips off the ticket and hands it to the man]
Foster: Not so funny meow, (9) is it?
Foster: [Foster gets up to leave, but Mac shakes his hands at him, indicating only nine meows] Meow! (10)

I wish real cops were like this. That would rule. That is all.

It's really hard to write this because I'm laughing so hard. What are some of your favorite scenes?

Baby Huey had to get this done before dark because he doesn't fucking write on shabbas. SHOMER FUCKING SHABBAS.

Posted by Baby Huey at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

It's Car Week here at FTTW!

Yes, we are starting our week on Saturday instead of Monday. We can do that. Our bylaws say so. Right under the "you must be here three months to access the moonshine still" rule.

Tomorrow, we're going to have a really fun car poll as The Almost Final Countdown comes back. And we'll have some fun car stuff the rest of the week as well. Yep, we remember when we used to write about cars a lot (it's how FTTW got started, after all) and we miss it as much as you. So you're gonna get a full dose of the vroom vroom stuff this coming week.

We're gonna start you off with our editor's picks. This week's theme is loose - we just said - write something cool about cars. At least three of us are writing about our "favorite" crashes.

You'll notice that there are five editor's picks this week instead of four. Please welcome Dan of Don't Go In There as the newest editor of FTTW. HI DAN!

And now, on with the car crash show. -M

I've been in quite a few car wrecks in my time, but this one is still fresh in my mind. Let's go back to March 2006 (inster wavy lines here).

It is a Friday. The last day of the most stressful week of my entire life. No exaggeration there. I am frazzled, on edge and probably within inches of beating a random person just for the hell of it. Hell week, as it were. And it ends like this:

I'm driving home from work, headed east on a four lane road. I have ODB on the stereo and I'm a little jacked up on caffeine and sleepless nights and stress. My senses are heightened. Ever tweak? That's what this feels like. My hair is standing up on end. I'm ready to jump out of my skin. There's something in the air. Something's gonna happen. I can taste the electricity on my tongue. It tastes like battery acid.

I do a little ass shaking in my seat as Baby I Got Your Money ends. I change XM stations and ODB morphs into Black Flag as I drive across a main intersection. Up in front of me, a school bus has stopped. It's facing against me. Westbound. It's got flashing lights going and its stop sign is moved out from the bus like a long arm of the law. And you listen to that arm. It says that traffic going in all directions must make a full stop and wait for the bus driver to turn the lights off and retract that long arm before proceeding. That's the law.

The car in front of me stops.

I stop.

The car behind me stops.

I glance in my rear view mirror. The utility truck coming across the intersection? It's not gonna stop.

I know what's going to happen before it actually does. I watch an ugly scene unfold in my mirror. The truck plows into the car behind me.

And then I brace myself for the inevitable. I know what's coming. I remember that you are supposed to go slack at a time like this. Don't tense up. You'll suffer less damage that way. Well, hell. I'm already tensed up. There is no chance of my body - having been in fight mode all week long - going slack, not even with the knowledge of what's coming. I see the car coming at me, the truck pushing it forward like Mr. Plow pushes snow. Slack is not an option here. I'm stiffer than...well, I'm stiff.

I watch. I wait. I know that car behind me is going to be plunged forward. I know it's gonna smash right into me. I do a brief mental check. No holes in my underwear. I shaved my legs this morning. I figure I'm going to go through the windshield (yes, I was wearing a seatbelt and yes, I was being over dramatic). This all has taken place in about ten seconds, by the way. It's amazing what your mind can conjure up when you think you are about to become airborne through some glass. Or killed. Or crushed.

And then it happens. Basically, the car behind me fucks my car up the ass. That's what I am thinking as I lurch forward on impact. Automobile butt sex. That's going to be my dying thought. Thank Christ no one but me knows that.

I'm not even close to going through the window, though. Really, the whole crash part of the incident is kind of anti-climatic. My car moves about two feet forward. Stops. Still running. Rollins still singing on the stereo. I sit there and take stock of what's happened. I'm more pissed than hurt. All the fear seeps out of me and is replaced with renewed stress, anger, annoyance, desire to kill random people, etc. The whole damn week comes rushing back at me and I decide that this guy driving the truck - and not some random, innocent hobo - is going to suffer the consequences of it all.

I get out of the car. The lady in the car behind me is holding her neck and moaning. Typical post-accident stance. I go see if she's ok, she says she's fine, but she's sure something bad happened to her neck or back. She's laying it on pretty thick and looking around to make sure any available witnesses hear her moans and cries. Some guy is calling 911.

So here comes the jackass truck driver. I look at him and just shake my head like you do at a kid who disappointed you by sticking bugs in the microwave.

He says: "What? You came to a stop in the middle of the fucking road!" I hear Turtle's voice in my head. Calm Michele. Remain calm.

I say, very slowly: "There was a school bus stopped here."

He says: "Where?"

Ok, this is going well. I explain to him that there was a stopped school bus. He looks confused. I explain again, using my best "you must be retarded" voice, that you must stop for a school bus when the lights are flashing. That confused look on his face again. He insists there were no flashing lights. Then he says he was distracted by the sound of a horn beeping. Then he says it's not his fault. Then he starts blaming everything but his own stupidity. Sun glare. Cross traffic. Global warming. Aliens. As he's blabbering about who else is to blame for his mistake, it dawns on me that he has the look and mannerisms of what Beavis would be like grown up. As he talks, I just see Beavis. He's making another excuse, something about the space time continuum, I think. I walk away from him because I'm about ready to kick him in the nuts. I call Turtle because I need my nerves calmed.

The cops arrive and we all pull our vehicles over to the side of the road. We're standing outside of our cars, just waiting for the cops to finish talking to the drama queen with the alleged broken neck, spine, legs and uterus. I swear that's what she said.

Beavis comes over to me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his dirty jeans. He looks like a chagrined child who just realized that maybe putting ants in the microwave to see if god would save them was not a good idea. See, god doesn't save them. And god doesn't save idiots from themselves.

"I guess you're kind of mad at me?" he says.

I stare at him. "Mad? I get mad at people I know. I don't know you. I just think you're an idiot."

He comes closer, looks at the ID I'm wearing on a chain around my neck. "Oh you work at the court, huh?" I say nothing.

He stares down my shirt. I move over about five feet. He follows me.

"So it's Friday. You headed home or what?" That Beavis look on his face. Still staring blatantly stares down my shirt.

I'm thinking "What the fuck?" but not saying a word. I zipper up my jacket and go over to inspect the damage to my car. Beavis follows, starts to say something to me, but the cop comes over and asks for his license, registration and insurance. Beavis chooses D: none of the above. The cop is obviously annoyed by this. I think of Beavis singing. Breakin the Law, breakin the law!

I go sit in my car for twenty minutes while paperwork is filled out. I wait, I wait, I wait. Beavis paces back and forth by my car, glancing in and giving me strange looks. Then the cops call in his info, all the time shaking their head or calling him back to yell at him. He has no answers to their questions. He seems to not know a hell of a lot more than he knows. He keeps walking past my car and looking in, smiling. Weird smile. Like "I just fucked with your head and I am really enjoying that." Creepy.

The cops finally give me back my license. I can go home now. End this fucking day. End this fucking week. There is a bottle of Jack Daniels at home with my name on it and I am planning on bathing in it when I walk in the door.

I start my car and I see Beavis is sitting in the squad car. The policemen are going through his work truck. Searching it with purpose and determination. Beavis's weird grin is gone.

I drive past the squad car, roll down my window and give Beavis - and the whole damn week, by extension - the finger.

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Car wrecks.

I've been in a lot of them. I have no idea why but these kinda things happened to me like once a fucking year. Seriously, I really get tired of these. Yeah, the Valentine's Curse I had was funny to look at but really, that curse really sucked. If you guys don't know what the Valentines Curse is, I'll explain it.

Every year on that day, I get hit by a car. Don't ask me why*.

So I don't go out anymore on that day.

But since this isn't really one of those stories, let's move on.

My brother was in town. Don't ask me why. I stopped asking questions a long time ago about things like this. But for some reason, he met me out of town. Like thirty miles out of town. Weird. He was going to a show and really needed me to drive his girlfriend's car into town because he was scared to drive in the city. Ok. This is when it gets really weird. He stole his girlfriend's car from a town about an hour and half away and drove to meet me in the pouring rain. I took the car on the outside of town while my brother and my friend slammed back cheap beer in the back seat.

See, that wasn’t that hard to get.

Anyways, we drove through the Bay Bridge and everything was fine. I only had a few beers in me, so it was all cool, but I was going to get drunk before the show started. They needed to know that by the end of the show, someone else would have to drive the car back.

The rain started coming down harder as the radio blasted "I'm only happy when it rains." Don't ask me who sings that. All I knew was to keep driving. We hit the city, found the place and sat in this old car, drinking the rest of our beer and doing cocaine. When we were done, we wandered in. I met some of my friends inside and the show went off.

No big deal, but I was fucking drunk as fuck. I handed the keys to my friend. He was drunker than me. Well fuck. This isn't going to work. My brother trembled at the the thought of driving in the city. Someone had to drive. So it looked like it was up to me.

Before we go any farther I want to say I do not condone drunk driving, nor do I think it is funny in anyway. I think people who do it are incredibly selfish. I, myself, have had three DUIs and those were only the times I have been caught. Anytime I talk about breaking the law, remember there were always consequences for my actions.

*Insert the evils of drugs and alcohol here*

I started the car. My friend was passed out in the back and my brother was happy as a motherfucker that he was in a city. I was closing one eye to find the bridge.

I had asked a friend to follow us home in is car, you know, stay behind us so he could cover me. His little red car followed. I had this made. I hit the pass and on the bridge. "I'm only happy when it rains." That fucking song again.

I know a lot of you are probably familiar with the Bay Bridge, but if you aren't, it is a two-tiered bridge that spans the bay. Designed by two different guys. The first part of the bridge stops in the middle when it hits Yuerba Buena Island. Then you go through a tunnel on the island to get to the second part of the bridge. When you get off the second part, depending on which way you are going, you either hit Oakland, San Francisco or Berkeley.

That really has nothing to do with the story, so let's move on.

That song kept playing as I hit the first part of the bridge. Ok. We can do this. And when I say "We" I mean "I". One eye closed with someone screaming in my ear about how cool the show was, another one in the back snoring and my ears being blasted with this one song. The first part of the bridge was ending. The rain was pouring. My friend who was following me decided it was time to pass me.

We hit the island underpass and it was flooded. The car started to hydroplane. I could feel it happening. No one else knew what was happening. My lungs took a deep breath as I looked over to make sure everyone was belted down.

Don't get me wrong. This wasn't like a long gaze. This was an "Oh fuck!" gaze.

Everyone was belted.

We started to spin.

Oh, just fucking great.

We slammed the wall. My friend’s head nailed the side of the door. 90 mile per hour spin in the middle of the busiest fucking bridge in Northern California. Shitfaced drunk and blocking traffic. Three drunks in a smashed up old Ford with empty 40s of King Cobra lying on the seats.

See, this kinda shit is when I work my best. This isn't like light a cigarette and survey the situation type shit. This is when you need to think, and think fucking fast.

My friend’s car stopped in front of us. He came running back. I flipped the ignition. No bueno. I tried it again. It is going to work. I know it. Dammit. Calm down. Think this through. Cars were pulling up behind me. My friend asks me if we are all ok. "We are good enough for now. Take these empties and throw them off the bridge." My little, fat friend grabbed all the bottles he could hold and ran for the bridge.

Situation one was taken care of.

Ok, now we gotta get this piece of shit of the road before a cop comes. More cars backed up. Ok, turtle. You need to think. Another quarter mile of pushing this car to the off ramp of Yerba Buena Island or another DUI. I tried to push the car, but it wasn't working. The axle was totally bent. Well, not totally, but there was no way I could push this. My friend in the back was screaming he had a concussion while still laughing about the whole thing. My brother leaving with my other friend. Oh. well. fuck.

Gotta keep moving.

Just then some limo driver opened up his door. Some totally wasted out of his mind cocaine dude. He came up and looked at the car. "You guys need to get this out of here." Well fucking thanks for the update J. Edgar, we kinda know this. He got in the car and tried to start it. Then flipped the trunk, pulled off the fuzzy thing that covers it, pushed a button, and the car started. Well, started is not really a good description of it. But, it was rolling.

I managee to get it to the center island, turn it off and park it. Sparks were flying as I did it, but it happened. We made it. Grabbing my friend and the rest of the empties, we abandoned the car and ran up a hill, just to sit and think about our next step. We were in the middle of the fucking bay with a car that was shooting sparks.

Ok. Hold on.

Let me savor the moment of crisis number two being over before we start on number three.

Well, I had about a minute before crisis number three hit me. Getting off the bridge and staying out of jail. We both drank our 40s so if a cop came, we could say we just started drinking right when we got here cause of the stress. I do not know if that gets you out of a DUI. I really think that might be an urban legend. So don't quote me on that one cause I don't really know. But our big problem now was getting out of the middle of a fucking bay.

A tow truck driver came by and asked us if we needed help.

No, we just like the island and decided to crash our car here to look at the new homes.

So, he picked us up and drove us back to our starting ground. Well, my starting ground. Remember this wasn't my brother’s car. He stole it from his girlfriend. He lived another hour or so away. We had to get it back there.

Welcome to crisis number four.

Ok, I needed some sleep bad, but the sun was coming up. No car at her house in the morning equals bad things. This has to be done now. I called in a favor to a friend and had it towed to his place. But I was doing bad. Really, the wreck might have actually done damage to me, but I just didn't care. Something else was happening to me now. Sobering up. Really, the alcohol makes your teeth chatter as it goes through you and away from your body. You can really feel it leave you as you start to sober up. This had been a long night and I was about to go into seizure mode. I can feel when they are coming on. I needed a beer bad or a drink or something because I was seeing those little white circles. I popped Librium so I wouldn't end up in the ER looking up at mom crying over me. I needed a drink but it wasn't 6am yet.

So Librium will have to do. Don't get me wrong, Librium doesn’t get you high. Not at all. It is for when your body is just about at the seizure state. You can not detox without them. Well, you can, but chances are you will be in the hospital and dah dah dah...

So I needed a drink and I needed to fix this car. We got to the shop and my friend was drinking. He handed me a bottle of Captain Morgan’s and I took a long pull as he checked out the car. Axle. Bent. Money. Bottle. What happened?

Just give me a second til this hits me. Please?

The liquor entered my blood stream and I felt my senses coming back. He wanted to know how good friends I was with the owner of the car.

What?

How good friends was I with her?

I dunno. Why?

He could get this fucker running back to where I needed to get it.

Ok hero. How you going to do that?

He pulled out a torch and a crowbar and twisted the metal back into place. Hey dude. Don't ask me what he did. I had to go out to ask other people just to tell me what the button the coked up limo guy pushed to get the car started was , so don't ask me what the fuck my friend was doing.

Well, anyways. I dropped the car off to my brother and just told him good fucking riddance. You know those sad eyes when you steal your chick’s car and his brother wrecks it and then fixes it with a blowtorch and a crowbar? You guys all know those looks?

Well, I don't blame you.

I just gave him the keys and went inside. Turning on the stereo, I let my mind wander.

Just as I was about to fall asleep....

"I'm only happy when it rains..."

God, I hate that song. - T

*curse broken in 2007

Turtle issues the standard disclaimer with this one.

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Boys and girls, this is the story of my first car ever. I will fully admit that this is really only a "funny if you were there" kinda story.

So this all happened like 10 years ago. I used to have this beat up old truck -- a 1987 GMC S15. It was beige. The beige was painted by hand -- you could still see the fuckin brush strokes. Anyway, one summer day I'm hanging out with my friends Tori, Jonathan, Amy, and Shannon. We were over at Shannon's house, and her mom came home and, well, her mom's insane. So we left, sans Shannon, because her Mom felt like flipping out on her. So we went over to Amy's house. More good times. I'm all about fire and we had a bonfire and had much fun. Burgers, smores, lots of combustible hydrocarbons went into the fire. Then, it was time to go. We started piling into my crappy truck. I got in on the driver's side, then Tori on the passenger side and scooted to the middle. Jonathan got in by plopping down -- directly on Tori's hand, which was resting on the seatbelt for the moment. We heard that little bastard pop and it almost immediately started bruising. Jonathan and I, appropriately, began freaking the fuck out. But she was like "it's ok, let's just go home." We do just that.

The next day, I was laying catatonically on my bed, one with the television, as I was wont to do on Sunday afternoons in the summer. Cause, you know, it was fuckin hot and I was fat. Lo and behold, I get a call from Tori, who is holding the phone with her freshly broken hand. Told ya we should have gone to the doctor.

That event garnered my truck the diabolical moniker "The Truck of Pain." She wouldn't even go near it, except to form a cross with her fingers and yell "TRUCK OF PAIN! TRUCK OF PAIN!" at it. Pretty metal, if you ask me.

I had that truck for another year. It finally died, and I got a nice new Ford Ranger as a replacement, because dad had to live up to a promise he made to me in fourth grade that said if I got a full ride to college, I got a car. Goddamn right I called him on it! Anyway, this truck was much nicer than my old pieceofshit. So nice, in fact, that I danced a jig in the bed when I first showed Tori, Shannon, and Amy. It was, from then on, named "The Truck of Mirth and Merriment." My brother got that truck eventually and wrecked it. Dumbass.

Good times.

-Baby Huey

Posted by Baby Huey at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but I couldn’t have been older than 18. Which means that it was too long ago for the coppers to bust me for it, so it’s all good.

I left the house with Mom’s car at about 6:00. Lit a joint two intersections from the house. I was pretty high by the time I got to Kirk’s house, halfway across my little town. He jumped in and we went for another joint or two, way the hell up this dirt road in the middle of nowhere. One of those places for smoking dope and dumping the body. Kirk pulled out a little pill bottle, filled with these little white tablets. Codeine phosphate. You know that shit in prescription cough medicine that dopes you up and knocks you out, the wimpy brother of morphine and heroin? Yeah, well he’s still pretty tough. We crushed one up and threw it in the pipe.

At that point we figured it was a good idea to go pick up another friend, Tyrone. Kirk and I downed two more codeine each and off we went, back into town. Kirk fell on Tyrone’s front steps and cut his forehead open, so he had to go in the house and clean up while mumbling semi coherent bullshit to Tyrone’s hyper-inquisitive Mom.

“Kirk, have you been drinking?”

“No, I just lost my balance is all, that’s all.”

“Kirk, you can hardly stand up, now you’ve either been drinking or you need to go to the hospital.”

“I’m….. I’m just….”

“Kirk, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with you, what’s wrong?”

“I’m TIRED, OKAY? JEESUS! TYRONE, COME ON MAN.”

“Kirk, you’ve never spoken to me like that befor…”

“Jesus, I’m sorry, but I’m tired as hell and I just banged my head open and there’s nothing wrong and you’re just asking me too many questions while I’m cleaning blood off my face, I’m sorry, I’m real sorry.”

“Oh Kirk, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, I just wan…”

“It’s alright, you’re a great lady, can your son come out and play please?”

Back up the dirt road for more of the same. I kind of kept away from the codeine because I was still really messed up, but the hash was a bit of alright. Tyrone….. Tyrone started talking about acid. Now, why would you stroll down one road, only to turn around and sprint the other way? I didn’t know either, but why the hell not.

The rain that had been coming down for the last hour or so was starting to turn to sleet, and the roads were getting kind of icy. Fuck that noise, I thought in my infinite wisdom, I’ll just slow down. We gotta get some acid, who cares if it takes while to get there.

Driving along LeMarchant Road, right by the hospital (you know the place), and the light in front of me goes yellow. The cab in front of me starts to slide a little but hits a dry spot and maintains easily enough. Comes to a nice stop right on the white line. Me? I was about five car lengths behind the guy, doing less than the limit, and slowly slid right the fuck into his back bumper. Smack. His two passengers, a young couple in love and on their way to nicer places than we, jerked forward and turned around in shock. Hell, I was in shock too. I turn around to the guys.
“Holy fuck you guys alright, that was fucked right up, holy sh…”

Smack.

The car behind us slid on the same patch of ice and hit us exactly like we hit the cab. We jerked forward and turned around in shock.

Tyrone’s fucking ex-girlfriend. Small town. Or maybe she had been trailing him. I mean, he did leave her because she was a little crazy.
I couldn’t tell if the look on her face was because she’d just ran into us or because she’d just been caught behind us. It was all too much for my fucked up and feeble mind.

“Tyrone, what the fuck is Shelly doing back there?”
“Dude I don’t know, seriously. What the fuck.”

Then the lights. The blue and red lights. Fucking cops. God damn.

Kirk stuffs a felony down his pants and we all get out of our cars to explain and argue and accuse and take breathalyzers. Breathalyzer? No problem, officer. NO problem. Shelly starts crying about the accident and tells Tyrone that she still loves him, and he tells her to fuck off and they go fight loudly about twenty feet away. The cabbie is telling me that I need to pay him for the accident in cash, and that it was my fault and that I can’t go to the insurance companies because it’s my fault and it’s his choice to get paid in cash. His passengers are standing politely off to the side, until after about 25 minutes the guy comes over. Politely at first, all hums and excuse me’s, then louder and louder until finally, “I said, could you turn off the fucking meter please???”

Cabbie had left the meter running and it was up to about forty five bucks. Asshole. He left me and started arguing with the other guy, saying that the accident wasn’t his fault and that the passenger was responsible for the fare. The cop told him that was bullshit and he shut the hell up. Finally.

After it’s all over, damage inspected and insurance information exchanged, the three of us get back in the car. No way am I interested in acid now. All I want to do is park the car, go to someone’s house and maybe relax a while with a little help from the bottle in Kirk’s pants. It’s unanimous. Doped up in a dark room for the next few hours. I’ll tell my Mom about this shit tomorrow morning. I say that out loud.

Kirk says, “Shit dude, your Mom. Didn’t you say you had to pick her up from work tonight?”

“Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me, that’s not until later though.”

“When does she get off work tonight, midnight?”

“No, ten.”

“Dude, it’s quarter after eleven.”

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

I’d love to tell you about a spectacular, fiery crash. One that involves me, high on ephedrine and pumped fulla cocaine. Barreling down the road at 200 miles per hour. Screaming my mother’s name while I plow into a bus full of underprivileged and mildly retarded children from the local church who don’t know that they’re on a one way trip to see Jesus. But I can’t.

I’d love to tell you about the time I was getting busy in the back seat with Mary Jane Rottencrotch. Feeling her breath, hot on my neck, as she moaned into my ear. The whole car smelling of sex and hormones. Glancing over and noticing that the windows have steamed up and that the only heat we’re gonna have tonight is the heat we’re about to generate. But I can’t.

I’d love to tell you the time I was in high school, hopped up on goofballs with some of the best friends I ever had. Fishtailing down back roads, trying not to spill our beer and screaming the words to “Running with the Devil” into the cold October air. One of the headlights doesn’t work and none of us are wearing our seatbelts, but we’re seventeen and invincible and there’s nothing that’s gonna slow us down tonight. But I can’t.

You see, I’m not a car guy. I can’t tell you makes and models (with the exception of the 1967 Chevy Impala, which is the auto equivalent of the sexiest woman you’ve ever seen. That car drips sex, runs offa love juice and can make me hard at fifty yards.), or how to make the engine purr just right (something to do with the carburetor ?). No one I knew in high school had a car (we were in Germany and no one was old enough to drive) and I never made out in the back of anything with anyone. Hell, I’ve only been in one accident and even that’s not that exciting, unless you count being sandwiched between two old men and their incredibly giant cars, as exciting. I can’t tell you the last time I even popped the hood of my car or kicked the tires. All I know is that when I get in it starts and when it doesn’t, I walk over to the mechanic around the corner.

So, instead of telling you about my best times in a car (because really, I don’t have any), I want you to tell me about yours. --finn

Posted by thefinn at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

So it is getting close to the end of 80's week! Whoop de doo. Actually we have had a lot of fun this week kicking the shit out of memories and some of the things we used to do. We found out that some of our writers have been through hell during the 80's and some of us just stayed drunk. Please remember that both of those things aren't mutually exclusive.

I like using big words like that.

Makes me feel all smart and shit.

Anyways, we as editors tried to think of one thing that would truly unify everyone on this site, except for Meg of course, cause she grew up with hippy parents with corn husks coming out of their hair.

So what did we think of?

MTV shows!

Everyone remembers those damn shows, except for Meg (see above). Hell, they have been on for 30 years. You have to know some of them. Love them or hate them, they were there.

So tonight we will be reviewing out favorite shows on the Music Television. If we miss yours, like add it in, dude. Ta hell is wrong with you? We want to hear it. Except for Meg who can tell us how to tell what time of day it is by licking a tree or something like that. (Just kidding Meg.)

Anyways. In no particular order, here are our favorites.

Turtle goes first.

Wow. So many good shows. So many to choose from. Actually, that's not really that true. I hated MTV growing up. I mean, it was the same crap they played on the radio. There was really nothing it offered me. Well, there were a few shows, but they put them on in times where the clearly showed the world that they didn't want us. Well you know what? Fuck them. If they didn't want me, the fuck would I want to be part of their scene?

'Cept for those few shows. Cause they were ok. Those shows?

120 minutes

Ah. A perfect example. Nestled in that prime time slot of midnight to 2 o'clock on Sunday nights. See, this is what I love about MTV. They had their finger on the pulse of the next big wave in popular music. Years before bands like Nirvana were breaking out and breaking big, MTV had the foresight to put the bands that influenced the "next big things" on late at night. They knew their audience well.

That was my sarcasm meter turning red.

Well, this show started out cool, but like Elvis in many of his Hawaiian movies, it got it's balls cut off. What started out cool turned into a joke. After a year or so, they dumped the original host and just replaced him with some daytime host who, get this, put on a leather jacket to show he was hard.

Well the harder music slowly left the show and suddenly it turned into another industry showcase for bands that MTV thought were edgy. Yeah. Next time anyone says to me the Sugarcubes ate "edgy" slap me right in the fucking face and give me two farts to jesus cause if this is edgy I must be listening to some Norwegian Death Metal type of shit.

Wait. I was.

Oh well. When MTV can't even satisfy your fix, all hope be lost.

Moving on from that rant, let's get down and funky!

Yo! MTV Raps

This was a good show. Playing everyday! Well it was when Dre and Ed Lover took over from that god awful Fab Five Freddy. Jeez he was bad. Fab Five Freddy. A little trivia for you all. In that Blondie video for "Rapture(?)" that's Fab Five Freddy dancing around in the back. Once again calling me to shout out my old mantra "Debbie harry was not punk." For christ sakes.

Well actually. If you think about it. Anthrax and Public Enemy teamed up for some song and really so did Sir Mix A Lot and The Accused so maybe my point holds no water.

Having arguments with me is fun because if you just let me keep talking, eventually I'll talk myself into a circle and shoot my own point down. It's like shooting fish in a barrel with me. Another reason I didn't pursue my true calling as a pimp.

Where the hell was I at?

Oh. Yo! MTV raps! Dre and Lover ruled. Simple point in life: if you want to make it big, have a morbidly obese sidekick. Never forget that rule. Look at Abbot and Costello. Right there. The skinny guy may be funny but fat people get the funny trump card. So I spent many a weekday enjoying my days away with my cheap beer and my two ghetto TV friends. Hey! They were my friends! If Mr. Rodgers wanted to be my friend, then they could be my friends, too. They could teach me cool things that Mr. Rodgers just couldn't. For example: Ed Lover taught me how to do that funky dance he did with his hips while Mr. Rodgers taught me how to make paper mache.

Cool kids don't make paper mache.

Cool kids do the funky Ed Lover dance.

God bless that dance.

Last but not least is Sisqo's Shakedown.

He was just cool cause everyone likes thongs, right?

thong thong thong thong thong thong

Fun Turtle trivia! I met Sisqo at Disneyland before. Sisqo does not like it if you just say "thong thong thong thong thong thong thong" to him.

I am not going any farther into the new stuff and the new people on MTV because Bam is an asshole.

Nothing personal though. - T

Yes, Bam is an asshole. But I'm going to do a couple of more recent shows, anyhow.

Jackass

The show that caused thousand of brain dead children to run out into the streets and scream "I WILL TRY THIS AT HOME!" You think that might be a bad thing, but it's not. Kids who were once content to sit on their fat Cheeto loving asses and flip the remote control all day while downing Big Gulps and yelling at their moms to bake them a pie suddenly got off the couch. They went OUTDOORS. Sure, they were out there breaking bones, breaking laws, breaking everything in sight, but they were being active. They were moving. So what if by "moving" I mean rolling down a steep incline in a shopping cart? Who cares if every night ended up with a concussion? They were getting some much needed exercise in the process. Losing a few brain cells or having some metal implanted in your leg is a small price to pay for leaving behind a sedentary lifestyle for one of adventure, excitement and multiple fractures.

Plus, it never gets old to see someone getting hit in the balls with heavy objects.

Remote Control

Remember this show? The first time I saw this I thought, finally - they made a game show that I can actually win. With categories like Brady Metaphysics and Inside Tina Yothers and Dead or Canadian, I felt like they had created this thing with me in mind. I remember some other stuff about popcorn and big chairs and a wheel of torture - these things come back to me eventually if I light a fire under my brain - and Denis Leary and Adam Sandler. And Sing-a-Long with Colin Quinn! And some chick named Marisol. Beat the Bishop! Man, that was a fun show.

Oh, I just remembered I had the home version! And the NES version!

Sucker Free MTV

This is a current show. According to Turtle - and he would never lie to me about such a thing - you must watch a portion of this show every day in order to keep your home sucker free. Because who the hell wants a home with suckers in it? You ever have a sucker problem? Those things invade your home like flies. Get into your liquor cabinet and put their feet on your furniture and dirty your sheets and play crap like Vanilla Ice. You got to keep those suckers out of your home! You must be SUCKER FREE! Just a few minutes of this show each day will keep you safe from someone coming into your home when you least suspect it and rapping Snow's Informer while they piss on your rug. The one that tied the room together. Dude.

I think I'm overtired. -M

So those are the few, the proud, the MTV shows we picked. They weren't that bad, now were they? I mean the Real World was kinda funny when they put the guy from WAR in with the Black Panther. Them race riots just keep getting funnier every day.

MTV. Love it or hate it. It is still around.

So those were ours.

What were yours?

Michele and Turtle are both sucker free today. Are you?

Archives

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Baby Huey gets things started:

I was born in '81, so I'm a toddler of the 80s. My real heyday was the 90s, but hell, I still enjoyed MTV. It started broadcasting 6 months after I graced y'all with my presence. I've always been an MTV fan. A little story for you (I swear to god it's true):

As a toddler, I was a huge MTV fan. I'd watch it all day long. My dad came into the TV room one day and asked me what I wanted to do when I grow up. I looked right at him and said "I wanna ROCK!" He took me to Threshold, the local record store, and bought me a Twisted Sister button. My mom promptly shit a brick. They've been divorced for 20 years. Coincidence?

I'm going to briefly explore the greatest MTV show ever, and its sad, sad replacement ... and how it's really indicative of MTV today.

To me, the 80s meant a lot of things. It meant John Hughes movies, it meant slasher flicks. It meant Valley girls, but more than that, it meant MTV. And nothing said MTV in the 80s like Headbanger's Ball. Granted, I didn't start watching it until the 90s, but still. In retrospect, the 80s? Totally Headbanger's Ball.

The Ball came out in 1987, with the metallest motherfucker this side of a guitar, Riki Rachtman at the helm, replacing Dee Snider and Heavy Metal Mania. This show had it all. I mean, where else can you see Death Angel followed by Poison followed by Prong followed by Twisted Sister? It was fannnnntastic. It defined the genre of the 80s. Fuck new wave. Seriously. Fuck it right in its stupid fucking asses. Pop? Laaaaaaaaame. Metal? Fuck yeah. Then in 1995, dammit, they cancelled it. Out of nowhere. Didn't even tell Riki.

In the spring of 2003, I was a college senior. I already had a job. I heard Headbanger's Ball was coming back. I did a few shots in celebration. I heard Riki wasn't coming back. Hmmm .... that's OK. They'll get someone totally metal. See? They just announced they're going to use metal bands as rotating hosts! That'll kick ass. Who's first? Oh ... Metallica? That'd have been super cool in 1987. But whatever.

I watched that first episode. After four years of college radio, I was pretty in tune with the metal scene. Or so I thought. Everything they played was mainstream. ... Maybe that's what people really like, says I. Ok, let's see who's on next week. Rob Zombie? This is starting to set off some alarms.

Today, Headbanger's Ball is a laughable shell of its former self. Hosted by Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed, the show is rehearsed and polished. It's sad. You have a 2 hour show ... sort of. Sometimes it's 1:50 so they can fit whatever new, sophomoric pap Bam Margera got optioned. Two hours of Headbanger's Ball time is like two hours of football time: that much may pass on your watch, but they only cover 35 minutes of ground. Seriously. They'll do a video or two, then 5 minutes of commercials. Repeat ad nauseum. They'll have 2 or 3 great bands (Goatwhore, Kreator, Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death -- they've all had good videos soon) and the rest are metalcore and ... fuckin SCREAMO. SCREAMO!!!!. I want to kill every fuckin "metal" band where the singer's hair is gelled down and swept across his head. FUCK!

Just like everything else in MTV, they took a fantastic idea that had a lot of fans and commercialized it to the point that even the most ardent followers want to stab someone in the trachea after watching it.

Shame on you, MTV.

- BH

BH was drunk when he wrote this, giving the post a genuine rage tempered with drunken anger. -ed

and thefinn draws this little adventure to a close....

Being a child born in the seventies meant that I watched more than my share of MTV as a kid, until I went back to Germany. Little news for you, MTV Europe, not nearly as much fun. And when I came back in 1990, MTV had changed. More original programming, “new and exciting” shows (long before the days when they ran 23 hours of reality TV) and SOMETHINHG HERE. Initially, I got sucked back in, but that only lasted for a couple of weeks before I got bored. What brought me back though was something I never thought I’d see on MTV.

Cartoons.

I’ve stated my love for the animated on this site a hundred times, so this might as well be one hundred and one. Liquid TV tuned my head when they first started running it, even though the first few episodes were all they ran for months. Apparently though, there was an audience for this kinda stuff and MTV started an animation renaissance that continues (sorta) to this day. Here’s a few of my favorites.

The Maxx – Once upon a time, an amazing writer by the name of Simon Keith had a very popular comic book called “The Maxx”. Mr. Keith amazing characters and had a very imaginative mind and when MTV called and asked him to do an animated version of his comic, he jumped at the chance. This was before MTV (and subsequently it’s parent company Viacom) started buying up great ideas and turning them into shit, so it seemed like a wise move. The story revolves around a homeless man called Maxx, who lives on the streets and adventures in a parallel world called The Outback. He’s befriended by a therapist named Julie who attempts to break him of his psychosis and who ends up being pulled right into it. It’s compelling writing and a strange little story that sadly hasn’t been released on DVD, but can be found here and there on the internerds.

Aeon Flux – Maybe I just have an affinity for oddball characters who’s motives are always questionable. Are they a good guy ? Is she a bad guy ? Ah, fuck it… Morality’s for suckers. Aeon flux originally ran on Liquid Television as a series of five minute shorts that, I think, dealt with the missions and subsequent deaths of a series of cloned assassins. Huh ? Yeah, I did the same thing. Essentially, the series followed the adventures a female assassin (who could catch flies with eyelashes) as she made her way through a futuristic city looking for her target. There’s virtually no dialogue and it makes use of context to do more of the storytelling than anything else. Oh yeah, the main character seems to die in every episode, but with each new episode, she seems miraculously unharmed and continuing the mission.

Beavis and Butthead – Do I really need to cover this ? Unfortunately, this was the last great gasp of the MTV creator owned cartoon. Not long after the show started, MTV decided to buy Mike Judge out and they screwed him in the process (the did the same thing to John K., so at least he’s in good company), but for those first few seasons you were reminded of how consistently funny a couple of retards could be. They were a couple of idiots who sat on the couch and made fun of music video. They were miscreants who played frog baseball and “washed the dog”. And I’ll be damned if they weren't hella funny.

And that wraps us up. So now the question goes to you… What were/are your favorite shows on the MTV ? Let us know and we’ll ridicule you mercilessly for having an opinion.

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There’s a lot of things about the Seventies I think I remember. There were a lot of good times (waiting on my baby sister to be born and holding her hand for the first time, flying a kite with my old man in the park, sitting on a curb in Virginia and wondering what life in America would be like) and a handful of crappy ones (let’s not dwell on those, okay ?), but I really couldn’t choose “the best” things about that decade. Instead, here are a handful of things I really enjoyed and I invite you to share yours with me….

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School – What do you get when you combine Alice Cooper, Roger Corman, a group of fun loving teens and the ever lovin’ Ramones ? Mother fucking Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. Riff is your prototypical teenager. She likes sex, drugs, and the Ramones. But she hates her school. The high school is run by a principal who acts more like a Nazi than an educator, who is determined to ban any and all rock and roll from her fine institution. But Riff is willing to fight the system, and will do anything in her power (and a few things that aren’t) just to watch her principal go down.

Is it a crappy teen comedy, directed by one of the greatest schlock directors of our time ? Or is it a musical, borrowing from the best that stage and screen had to offer and distilling it down to their basic three chord parts ? Who fucking cares. The movie is ten kinds of fun. The plot makes no sense, the cameos are hilarious and it’s the fucking Ramones. And it beats the hell out of “Kiss Saves Santa”.

The Muppet Show – Vaudeville is apparently a lost art, but one that had a very bright and shining revival in the 70’s… Starring Muppets. Kermit the Frog yelling “It’s the Muppet Show starring” seems like kind of a cheap way to open the show week after week, but for me it never got old. Besides, who didn’t like Kermit ? Sure, he may not have been your favorite Muppet, but there was no one who didn’t like him. And who couldn’t love a show with such an great cast ? Gonzo the Great, Scooter, Sam the Eagle and Sweetums. Hell, there were even a few sketches where that damned pig wasn’t the most annoying thing on the stage.

The guest stars were always fantastic and all over the map. One week, they’d have Lena Horne, the next week it’d be Vincent Price. Steve Martin, John Cleese and practically every other actor I idolized in my formative years were all on The Muppet Show. And who could forget Johnny Cash ? It’s a damn close tie between the Johnny Cash episode and the Star Wars ep for Best Muppet Show ever in my mind. Everything in this show “just clicked” and it still really holds up. It’s even more fun to watch these days because my little beast gets really excited, sings along and watches the Muppets with an interest he usually only reserves for Bob the Builder.

And since it’s been a long week (both physically and mentally), I give you fifteen lines from fifteen albums; in no particular order (I’m not sure if it’ll work, but I’m willing to try anything at least once)….

Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life
“Sneaking out the back door, to hang with hoodlum friends of mine”

Led Zeppelin – Zeppelin IV
“When you’re trying to find your way home, you don’t know which way to go”

Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True
“Beat me in the kitchen and I’ll beat you in the hall, there’s nothing I love better than a free for all”

The Clash – London Calling
“Spanish weeks in my disco casino”

Neil Young – Harvest
“I hit the city and I lost my band, I watched the needle take another man”

David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
“Oh, don’t lean on me man, cause you can’t afford a ticket”

Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
“This is the car at the edge of the road, there’s nothing disturbed, all the windows are closed”

Raw Power – Iggy and the Stooges
“Dirty face and dirty love, I knew you right away”

Devo – Are We Not Men ? We Are Devo
“I’ve had just about all I can take, I can’t take no more”

Van Halen – Van Halen
“I live my life like there’s no tomorrow”

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On ?
“Yeah , it makes me wanna holler and throw up my hands”

Sly and the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On
“I’ll be around to carry on”

Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model
“Things you see are getting hard to swallow, you’re easily led but much too scared to follow”

Madness – One Step Beyond
“Hey you, don’t watch that, watch this”

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
“Did she cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love”

All right, not sure if that worked, but it’s something that I wanted to make myself do for a little while now…. So kids, I gave you movies, TV and a shitload of good music… What do you wanna share ?

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What do the 70's mean to me?

Heat.

That is really all I remember about the 70's. Well, a few other things. I was a kid. But I remember the Fresno heat. If any of you don't know where Fresno is you should consider that a good thing. Well, that was where I spent the 70's. Driving down those streets in beat up old cars with Burger King collectors glasses. Remember when they used to do that? They used to give you glasses. Like made of actual glass! My grandparents would stock up on those fuckers. Every single glass I ever used when I was a kid had a BK symbol on it along side whatever the hell was in the movie theaters that month. Or the newest cartoon that was out.

Man, I was cool. But enough about me. Let's get down to why I was so cool in the 70's.

1972 El Camino

Fuck yeah, we were poor, but we knew how to ride in style. This was the machine. Sure, ours was yellow and technically, it was my Uncle's, but I was one cool cat in the 70's. Just put on my hat and we would ride the barrio down low. I think that is one cool thing about that side of my family. They all had cool rides. This one was my Uncle's, as noted earlier. All of his cash went into this ride. I still remember rolling down the streets with the heat so hot, the streets looked liked glass. Wearing a wife beater at 7 years old. I was cool even back then. Didn't have any cool tattoos yet cause well, that would have been weird. All the neighborhood kids were in awe of this ride as it bounced pass the houses.

Never knew what happened to that car. But it was cool. And I was in it. So I was cool by association.

1976 Nova

That was grandpa's car. A real cool car. Why do old people have really cool cars? I mean, were the issued them to anyone with a pulse in the 70's?

If they were issued, all I have to say is where is my fair share. I paid my dues. I really wanted my grandfather to die so I could get this car. Everyday my eyes would look up hopefully to see if there was a coroner in the house taking away his body just so I could get the keys to this sweet, sweet ride.

Man, that's fucked up. I don't believe I said that.

Anyways, it really didn't matter if I wanted the car so bad that I wished him dead cause he ended up totalling it in a black out, passed out on the freeway a few years later. See, my family loves fast cars but, we love our liquor more.

The Humpty Dance

Yeah, I know it didn't have much to do with the 70's. I just thought I would let you all know what song is playing in my mind right now.

"Do me, baby......"

The Kegerator

One of my fondest memories of growing up. My grandpa didn't fuck around when it came to drinking. Too many people over for all day card games to always send people out for more beer so he needed something bigger and better. Many a wasted days and nights were spent by me in the backyard. See, grandpa had it out back in the yard. Just a fridge sitting in the sun. A few kids soaking up the sunshine while drinking a fine Pilsner like Pabst or Hamm's. We used to fill up coke bottles with beer and spin the day away. I have never had a beer that has tasted so good as when it came from my family's kegerator.

Maybe it was the the Fresno water. Maybe not. All I know is that it worked. An alcoholic was born.

Canals

What do they have to do with the 70's? It was another place I would spend my days away. Fishing for mud fish or some other god forsaken fish while drinking the last of our beer. The stench of sewage stuck to the sweat on our shirt. If any of you have never experienced that smell of dust, dirt, mud, gas, beer and sweat you are truly missing out on one of life's greatest treasures.

It smells like victory.

Or death.

You make the call.

My house would drip with this smell the second I opened the door. Just slamming you in the face. Something about that smell being locked up all day inside a house just waiting to get out. Kind of like when you fart just as you are exiting a car to go work. Just waiting til lunch until you could open the door once again and smell that vintage fart.

That is what my house smelled like.

So the 70's weren't so bad for me.

Fat, drunk and stupid was a hell of a way to go through life. - T

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70's week is coming to a close and we can put all the bad songs and bad commercials and bad memories behind us.

Before we do that, the editors of FTTW would like to leave you with some of our favorite things of the 70's. Yes, there were some good things to come out of that decade.

Here's mine.

Best Album Cover/Title

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Most Pretentious Album That I Claimed To Fully Understand But Realized Later On That The Influence of Drugs Had A Lot To Do With That

Genesis - Trick of the Tail

Best Album That Was The Gateway To My Love For Satanic Heavy Metal

Superstars of the 70's. This box set came out in 1973. Which is kind of weird. Three years into the 70's and they’re already putting out a four disc set of the decade’s superstars? The people at Warner were either very hopeful or manipulative marketers. These are the bands you will love for the next seven years! But it had Paranoid by Black Sabbath on it and I wore a groove in that vinyl listening to that song a hundred times a day.

Best Reading Material

Creem Magazine. They fed my Kiss craziness and my Robert Plant fetish for many years.

Best Movie That Ended Up, Years Later, Costing Me Thousands of Dollars in Plastic Crap and My Respect For George Lucas

That was kind of obvious.

Most Awesome Car EVER.

That's a 1970 Chevelle SS. Mine would be in black, but you get the idea. That right there, ladies and gentlemen, is the ultimate in automobiles. It's the car I've been dreaming about since I first got my license back in the dark ages, and the car I will some day own. Mark my words. That's not just any muscle car, kids. That is a piece of art. You know how some guys feel when they see a picture of some big breasted chick with her legs in the air and a "take me" look on her face? You know how some women feel when they see a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes on sale at Neiman Marcus? That's how I feel when I see this car. No, I don't want to fuck it, but I just might rub up against it in a sexual fashion, given the chance. Oh hell, if it had a dick, I'd fuck it.

Greatest Sports Moment That Never Fails To Elicit A "Fuck Off And Die" When Mentioned To A Red Sox Fan:

Bucky Fucking Dent. October 2, 1978.

"Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it! It's a home run! A three-run homer by Bucky Dent! And the Yankees now lead by a score of 3-2!" - Bill White

One of the greatest moments of my entire life.

The One Photo I Have of My Formative Years That Doesn't Make Me Look Like A Wannabe Hippie

It's all about the boots. Because it sure ain't about the denim.

Best Recreational Drug of the 70's

Bless the 70's. I had the time of my life.

Michele still listens to Genesis once in a while, but no longer understands the lyrics

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As a 70s week here at FTTW draws to a close, let's take a quick look at what we've seen:

• We reminisced about some really shitty songs
• We had a fondue party
• We looked at some kickass and not-so-kickass commercials
• We did horror movies, 70s style

I'm gonna get started by talking about shit that happened before he was born:

That's right folks. I'm the baby of the bunch of FTTW editors. I was born in 1981, but that doesn't mean that I don't love my 70s culture. My dad enjoyed his late teens and early 20s in the 70s, so that was his heyday, and he had no problem sharing that culture with me. I have my favorites of a lot of 70s things, so here's a peek into my mind.

TV Show

Fawlty Towers. I didn't discover this show till the mid-90s, when Comedy Central started airing them. What a great show. I was your typical computer geek high school student in that I was a huge Monty Python fan, so when John Cleese's own series came on, I was on that like stink on shit. It was great. It reminded me a lot of Wings, which of course came on much later, but I was already familiar with it.
John Cleese was fantastic. I had a huge crush on Connie Booth. The little gay Mexican man? Hilarious.

See folks? I'm not all death and metal and zombies. I can laugh. I'M HUMAN TOO.

Album

A lot of really great albums came out in the 70s, but in my opinion, it peaked in 1972, when Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick. I first got introduced to Jethro Tull in 1994, when I was in 7th grade. My county concert band played an arrangement of "Aqualung" and when I told my dad about it, his eyes lit up. He played me the whole album, and I loved every second of it.

I started learning more about his music and when I found Thick as a Brick, I fell in love with it. I loved the concept of a single track on the album. It was like a one-act rock opera. It was fantastic. I have a long attention span for songs. Bands like Opeth really get my motor running because they don't conform to the radio-friendly 3 minute ditty ... they take the time to develop their themes and fully explore what they want to express.

In 2002, Dream Theater released Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. The second disc of the album is the title track. It's tracked into 8 parts, but it's one actual song, according to the band. It's very similar to TaaB, and if you liked that, I highly recommend you check it out.

Movie

Hands down, my favorite movie released 1970 - 79 was Blazing Saddles. I honestly can't think of a more quotable comedy ever released. More than that, it was really bold. They said some of the funniest shit I have ever heard in my life, but if they tried that today? Someone would be arrested. Hell, if they tried that in 1974 without Richard Pryor writing, someone would be arrested. My dad first showed me this movie in about 1989, and before you get all indignant about the smut my father was showing me at such a young age, all I remembered was the fart scene around the fire, and "Candygram for Mongo!" I was 8, what the fuck do you want from me?

They said Baby Huey was hung, and they was right!

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So this being Horror Week and all, we decided to keep the theme going for one last night.

If you didn't know this was horror week, that's ok. We forgive you. If you missed it this week, we have been running a new box in the side bar with our weekly poll. Click on it to see the topic and make your nominations and Friday, which I think is today, we post them all and you guys all vote on them. Then they win some prize or golden watch or something like that. Maybe our forever adoration. Idunno.

Anyways, back to what we are doing this week. We have already covered scariest movies so that one is done. So, since we are not going to be making a poll on scariest scene in a movie, we decided to run a post on that topic and ask you guys about yours.

You know. The scariest one. Maybe it was just a creepy scene. The music building up. Something was going to happen and you aloready knew what it was. You just had to watch it again for that adrenaline kick.

Yes. We like adrenaline.

These are our kicks.

Turtle goes first.

John Carpender's The Thing - The blood testing scene

Jesus christ. I've done this movie three times this week. Grrr. OK. One vote for non-originality on my part. One more time.

The scene where all the guys are tied up. Kurt Russel (yeah, I know) is testing their blood to see if any of them are (or is?) the alien. By heating up a piece of copper wire and sticking it in the blood of the tied up Arctic employees (that's fun to say. Arctic employees! Arctic employees!) they can see who the alien is (are?) because their blood reacts with the heat of the copper. I'm not going to explain it anymore cause most of us know the scene. Well, the one guy they thought wasn't the bad guy (guys?) was the bad guy (guys?) and proceeds to fuck a lot of them up while the other guys try to escape the ropes that hold them all together. Flame throwers don't work. Bad things happen to people. Just an all around "oh shit" scene.

Really fun to watch if you are addicted to that rush of "Oh crap. Well that didn't work out the way we planned it. What the fuck now?"

It's also kind of funny that the guys who were tied up right next to him (them?) didn't get hurt. Or did they?

I love the scene. - T

You can watch that scene here.

Michele:

My scary scene comes from a movie I really didn't like all that much. Thing is, I like creepy more than I like scary. Gore and guts and blood and monsters popping out from nowhere may give me chills or make me jump out of my seat, but it's the creepy things that stay with me and keep me from turning the lights off at night. While I get immense enjoyment from great horror films like Dead Alive or Evil Dead, it's movies like Session 9 and Event Horizon that stay with me long after the credits roll and give me nightmares.

I did not enjoy Blair Witch Project. I thought it was long and drawn out and really boring in too many parts. I struggled to stay awake for most of the movie. Yet the film has one redeeming feature. It contains what, in my eyes, is one of the creepiest moments on film. The ending, where Michael is standing completely still and facing the corner. It was so unsettling, so unnerving that it made sitting through that entire movie worth it. I can't even explain to you why I found it so creepy or why I saw that scene when I closed my eyes for many nights after I saw the movie or why I still get chills when I think about it. I think it was the ambiguity, the absence of any explanation, the total unknowing feel about it that gave me the creeps.

I do have another one - the scene in the Hitcher when Jennifer Jason Lee is tied between two huge trucks and pulled apart. You never see what happens - it all goes on off screen - but you know it's happening and what you imagine in your head is probably as bad as it would have looked if they shot the scene. What a way to go. -M

Baby Huey goes all religious on yo' ass:

No question for me. The scariest thing ever for me was the scene in The Omen after the priest explains what is happening to Mr. Thorne. By this point in the movie you've seen the photographer's pictures with the ominous lines near relatively vital parts of (soon to be deceased) people's bodies. The wind starts blowing hard, and that poor bastard priest knows exactly what's going down. He needs to get himself to a nunnery on the quick.

JUST as he gets to the church and all seems well, the goddamned door is locked, and he left his key in his other ... whatever the hell priests wear. Looking up to see the spire of a church just as it's about to impale you is NOT my idea of an ideal way to go. All I have to say about that is, if I do die the way I want to, don't let my mother see, don't clothe me, and don't wipe the smile off my face.

thefinn is ready for his closeup:

There’s definitely a delineation (at least in my head) between creepy and scary. When I get scared, it’s usually only for a second or so. A quick jump, a missed beat in my heart and that’s it. Over. Done. But being creeped out can last forever. The subconscious feeling of something crawling up your back. The “I know it’s not real, but that really makes me uneasy” feeling in the pit of your stomach. You know what I’m talking about.

And that’s why “Audition” is a creepy fucking movie. The first half isn’t that creepy. It’s actually a well written, character driven romantic movie that doesn’t make me sick to my stomach. But there are a few hints in the first half that lay the groundwork for the creepiness to come. Essentially the movie boils down to an older, widowed film producer (Aoyama) who takes the advice of a friend and starts holding audtions for his newest film. The auditions are just a ruse, however, as he’s actually looking for another wife. And it appears his dreams come true when he meets Asami, a pretty young woman who’s very respectable and a little enamored of him. The pair starts dating and things seem to be going very well.

I’m not going to ruin the film for you, but one of the creepiest scenes in the movie is also the shortest. When Aoyama finally decides to call Asami, the scene shifts to her tiny and sparsely furnished apartment. As soon as the phone rings, we see a very large canvas bag (behind her) begin to twitch and spasm about. A smile comes across Asami’s face that can only be described as ruthless and suddenly you realize that you’re not watching a cute little romantic movie. --F

So those are our scariest scenes. Some are just cool and others are really scary. I don't know. I guess it is all how you look at it. Really doesn't matter though. As long as it got your blood pumping and the little hairs standing up, it worked.

So those are ours. You guys know that you have yours.

What are they?

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

You know the drill by now.... You got to read about Turtle and Michele's favorite arcades and now it's time for mine and huey's...

-F

I’ve been playing video games an awful long time. Scientists can tell you all they want
that more than half of your mind set comes from the environment that you’re brought up in. I’m not buying it. Sure, I come from a pretty wired household, but entertainment from our electrical devices was never a priority to my parents or my siblings. I made it one for us. As soon as the old man came home with an Apple (our first home computer), I called up my Uncle and asked him to send me some games.

My first arcade was one on base. We’d just moved into a new house on a new base and, while wandering around one day, I quite literally stumbled onto it. I was looking for the entrance to the convenience store that was located right next door and walked right into the arcade instead. I never made it to the convenience store and ended up spending most of the afternoon playing Spy Hunter when I should have been unpacking. That arcade was fantastic, simply because I was in a pretty confusing time of my life and the arcade gave me a little time to completely escape and live out all my childhood fantasies. I got to be a super spy every time I threw a quarter into Elevator Action, a heavyweight boxer in Punch Out and that retard from The Last Starfighter whenever I got down in Defender. I’d spend a lot of afternoons, if I wasn’t working or doing chores in that place. If I was by myself, I’d get in a lot of time with Outrun or Rampage and if I was with friends, we’d play Gauntlet until I would wake up in the middle of the night, mumbling about the Elf needing food badly. On days when I couldn't get near the arcade machine, I'd play pinball until the late evening, when I knew my mother was going to kick my ass for coming in late. It was a good, pre-teen time. Not long afterwards, we moved back to Germany and there wasn’t another arcade to be found unless I went to Munich. So, I played games on the family’s computers until I moved back to the States and started playing Street Fighter 2 (you might remember me writing something about that here).

As I got older, I started playing more and more games in places I could drink and smoke. I was already spending a good deal of time there and striking out with the ladies, so I might as well do something I was good at. So, once in a while, I take a shot at the Golden Tee machine or one of the Megacrack machines. They just weren’t the same though. Neither one really appealed to me (sorry kids, but I’m not a duffer and the Megacrack is just annoying), so I started checking out some of the other bars in the neighborhoods around mine, finding a good pinball machine here, and a Ms. Pacman/Galaga tabletop game there. There was a period in my life when I would strictly go out to get loaded and play games. Where I went that night totally depended on who had what games and what kind of crowd I was feeling like. If I wanted a moderately quiet night and some Elvira pinball, I went to Mom’s. But if I was feeling a little more raucous and wanted a night of booze and a PacMan/Galaga machine, I went to Ray’s Happy Birthday bar. For a while, these did the trick, but there’s only so much time you can occupy the quieter hours of your life with hooch and games. I mean, eventually, you have to move on to hooch and chicks.

Lately though, I’m old. I don’t get out to the arcades or the bars like I used to and right now my favorite arcade is in my living room. We’ve got seven console currently connected to the receiver and a handful of handhelds laying about. Everyone in the house plays games to some extent (my wife has currently taken over the Wii as I write this and my housemate is upstairs playing World of Warcraft), even the baby has a couple that I let him play with me. When he was smaller, I’d give him a controller that wasn’t connected to the console, but now he and I play a couple of racing games with each other. He’s two and cars are his favorite thing, so for him it’s a giant thrill to get to drive. And that’s what I call father-son bonding time.

thefinn still plays. Sometimes a little too late into the evening.

Baby Huey talks of a very scary experience ...

I wanna tell you about the scariest place on earth. It's not some slaughterhouse, or torture chamber, or Sigfried and Roy's house. Let me explain some of the horrors:

- pizza
- video games
- skeeball
- cheesy prices
- ball pit

Figured it out yet? Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about Chuck E Motherfuckin Cheese. Now, you are probably saying "Oh, those things aren't scary. What's up, pussy?" I left the worst part of all: the furries.

Yeah, that's right. I don't care if you try to tell me that giant mouse isn't a furry. He hangs around with a bunch of other people in giant animal costumes. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. It'd be better if the scorpions from Aqua Teen Hunger Force were there with Zakk Wylde. That'd be pretty sweet.

Sexual deviants aside, CeC had some pretty sweet games. I grew up in the boonies and the nearest one was 45 minutes away in Columbus, so we only went for special occasions -- birthday parties and the like. Seeing as how my shithole town didn't have an arcade, this was the only place with more than 2 or 3 cabinets at once. I got introduced to games like the Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it helped me hone my unbeatable strategy on Street Fighter 2.

I'm still old school, though, and even though I liked those games, I still preferred games like Breakout, Frogger, and analog shit like Skeeball and Whack-a-Mole.

So there it is. My first experience with many of my still-favorite video games AND furries. All in one convenient location.

Baby Huey had his first date in a long time last night. He had fun, but should have taken her to an arcade.

Posted by thefinn at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

We had a general theme of arcade games in our mind when we had our team meeting deciding on the editor's picks column for this weekend. So we figured what the hell, let's make this easy. Arcade memories.

Thing is, Turtle and I both had wild and crazy weeks. He had a big interview. And landed the job. I was pushed out of my job and into another. Kind of stressful, but everything worked out for the best in the end. I think. But no matter how good things turn out, the stress kind of killed us. We are exhausted. So we're thinking, how are we going to write our usual amazing, killer stuff if we are so mentally tired? And that's when it hit us. We already wrote about this stuff! Both of ours were posted a while back, so maybe a lot of you haven't read them yet.

Michele tilts first:


I was about 13 years old when I first entered the Palace. I was a tag-a-long to an older friend who was going there just to score a nickel bag.

Pinball Palace was a small, almost hidden place, tucked between the Jerry Lewis Movie theater and a specialty bra shop. From the outside, it looked forbidden and dangerous, two things that combined to point a beckoning finger at me.

Gina opened the door and I followed, knowing that this was exactly the kind of place my parents warned me about. Which made it exactly the kind of place I wanted to be.

As soon as we stepped inside my brain went into sensory overload. The smell hit me first; cigarettes, pot and teenage sweat all mingled together. That sounds nasty but it’s really a powerful, enticing aroma to a 13 year old who was already dabbling in the dark side of suburbia.

The noises. The clacking of pool balls as someone yelled “break!” Dings and whistles coming from the mess of pinball machines that lined the walls. Bikers cursing. Quarters jangling in the pockets of Levis. Fists banging on plexiglass as a machine tilted. And David Essex's “Rock On” on the jukebox. The combination of those sounds and the smells was intoxicating. Overwhelming at first, but so intoxicating.

This was my first time in the Palace and, I have to say, the sensory overload, plus the bikers looking like they were about to start a brawl with some potheads, made me a little nervous. So instead of digging for some quarters and trying out a game, which is what I wanted to do so badly, I kind of just hung back while Gina made her deal with guy at the change counter. When she was done, we went behind the movie theater, smoked a joint, and then snuck in the back door of the theater. They were showing Shampoo. We watched Warren Beatty, naked on the floor and humping the daylights out of the poor girl underneath him and all I remember is a person was watching them through a window and said something like "Now that's what I call fucking!" Gina sat gaping at the screen, taking in every word, every movement, probably taking notes in her head, and all I could think about was going back to Pinball Palace. The sounds played in my head. Pinball machines. Quarters. Rock On. That place was beckoning me like the sea calls to a sailor. Or something like that.

I went back with Gina the next Saturday. This time, I brought quarters. While Gina flirted with her dealer, I made the walk toward the machine in the far corner, toward the thing that haunted my dreams the entire week. It loomed there like a god calling me into its temple. Or maybe it was like a monster luring me to its lair. I stopped. Stood in front of it. Sucked in my breath and admired the beauty that was the Bally Wizard. Pinball Wizard. Tommy. Ann Margaret with her legs spread on the backglass. Tommy.

I hesitated for a split second, then put the quarter in, knowing full well that I would become addicted to the flashing lights and turning numbers. The quarter dropped. I hit the reset button. The silver ball popped into place and I slowly pulled back the lever, feeling the resistance of the coiled spring. I let go. The tip of the lever and the metal ball connected and as that ball went around the curve on its journey towards the playing field, it took with it my grades, my social life, my allowance. From the first loud ding when the ball rang up my first score, I was obsessed.

My fingers worked the flippers as deftly as Gina’s fingers worked rolling joints. I moved back and forth, swinging my hips and nudging the machine a little to the left, a little to the right, careful not to piss it off enough to make it tilt. My eyes darted between the ball and the scoreboard and my heart skipped a beat as I saw the paper taped to the top of the glass with the high scores for the week listed. My name would be up there one day. Yes, it would. A girl’s gotta have goals in life. Some of my friends wanted to discover a cure for cancer or find life on Mars. I just wanted my name written in magic marker on top of that piece of paper. I’m pretty simple like that. You want a higher education? Rip it up. I just wanted a high score.

An hour later, Gina had to drag me out of the Palace. Even when my quarters ran out, I wanted to stay. I wanted to watch the masters play, the guys who turned over the numbers over. The guys who could smoke and drink and play at the same time.

Going with Gina on her Saturday deals wasn’t enough anymore. I started walking to the Palace after school. If Gina wouldn't go there was always someone else willing to hang out and watch me play pinball with me instead of going home. I’d bribe them with a couple of cigarettes and the promise that there were older, hot guys/girls there. We would throw a few quarters into the jukebox (three plays for twenty five cents) and play the same tunes over and over. Black Betty. Trampled Underfoot. Slip Kid. Have A Cigar.

Sometimes I would ask my mother for a ride to the library and when she pulled away after dropping me off, I would duck out the door and run across Front Street, straight to Pinball Palace. I mean, mom never wondered why I went to the library so much because, despite what you may think you know about me, I was really a bookish kinda kid. I liked to read. I didn’t really like lying to my mom, though. Catholic guilt. It wears you down. So I rationalized my lying by, well, justifying it. See, I wasn't out on the streets doing drugs - no respectable 13 year old considered pot a real drug - and I wasn't out getting pregnant like Mrs. Winslow's daughter. I was just playing pinball. Besides, I kept a copy of The Chocolate War tucked into the back of my jeans. Sometimes I read while waiting for the Bally Wizard to free up. So I wasn’t totally lying. Right? That Catholic guilt. It’s still there.

My trips to the Palace got less frequent as the weather got cold. No one wanted to walk that far, not even for a bribe of a cigarette, a few quarters and a slice from Pizza King. Once in a while we’d get a ride to the movie theater and slip inside the Palace instead. Each time I walked through those doors was like the first. The smell, the sounds, the adrenaline rush as I stared down the Wizard. Ann Margaret with her legs spread.

They closed Pinball Palace before the warm weather came back. Neighbors were complaining. Community action groups were picketing. Churches were praying for the souls of the kids caught up in the glare of those flashing lights. They claimed Pinball Palace was a haven for dirty, unkempt teenagers who cursed and drank and smoked. It was stealing the life and soul of the community's young adults. Well, yea. Not to mention my allowance. But hey, it was my choice. I kinda liked having my soul eaten away by the Bally Wizard and Grand Slam and Atlantis.

And then, it was gone. I cried, I mourned, I laid in bed at night, my fingers twitching to imaginary flippers, the game playing out in my mind. We had to find another place. I was an addict looking for a fix. I needed it. I craved it. I played entire games of Grand Slam in my head, complete with tilts and free balls and high scores.

That summer, my parents decided I needed an “attitude adjustment” and pulled me out of the "terrible" public school system. Catholic high school would surely lead me on the path to a righteous life. I would make new friends. Better friends. Friends that didn’t reek of bong water and hang out in pinball places. Friends who wore skirts and ties and gave their quarters to the collection basket instead of jukeboxes and games.

So the new school year starts, I make some friends and mom and dad are happy. I’m staying after school to study and umm...attend chapel.

Not quite. See, the 7-11 across the street from school held a deep, dark secret in its back corner. A Bally Wizard pinball machine. My new friends, who hated ties and skirts and hoarded their quarters like gold, would watch me play for hours each day, taking bets on whether I would break the high score or not. I had a following. I was the Pinball Wizard. 7-11 wasn't quite the same as Pinball Palace, but Kevin had his portable cassette player and we listened to Thin Lizzy and Wish You Were Here while I worked the flippers. Every day. Bell rings. Class dismissed. Walk across street. Smoke joint. Drop quarters. Special when lit!

Pinball eventually gave way to other video games. Asteroids. Galaga. Space Invaders. Arcades started popping up everywhere. My pinball skills were ancient history. Nobody cared about the high score taped the Bally Wizard. There were aliens to fight. Spaceships to pilot.

I’ll never regret all those hours and quarters spent feeding my pinball frenzy. Learning the exact angles of each machine, getting a rush when my name went up on the high score chart. Those were good times. My mother told me that I was wasting away my life playing those games, that I would never get anything useful out of it. Hah. What does she know? If it wasn't for those quick reflexes and the incredible hand-eye coordination I developed at Pinball Palace, I wouldn’t know the joy of kicking my kid’s ass at Street Fighter. -M

Turtle is next.

I need a job. Dammit. I'm broke. I need something easy to find. Bands were just starting in our neighborhood and strings don't grow on trees. Plus, I needed a job cause the summer was boring. I wasn't one of those kids who ran out and played in the water. If it didn't have to do with beer or a skateboard, I'd be sitting in front of a TV or in some warehouse packed with mics running thru guitar amps. Well, running thru them till the guitarist got there and bitched at us for using his equipment. Guitarists are sucky little whiny bitches when it comes to that stuff. "You are gonna blow my amp! Stop it!"

Meh.

But I needed something to do. Sitting alone in a garage playing for four or five hours a day gets old. Especially when you suck balls on bass. Everyone was working at one place. Well, what the fuck. Let's get a job, turtle. Might as well.

It really wasn't that bad of a gig. I was working in an arcade. Giant one. White pants and blue shirt. Fixing arcade games that had broken to keep them running. Which I really think is kind of illegal. Having a kid work on a busted board while he doesn't even have his driver’s license? Is that legal? Many hot wire burns later, I figured out it wasn't legal, but the damage had been done. But, I learned I could work with an iron and put these things back together. One of the machines that constantly broke down was an old set of Skeeballs. I always had to pull out the boards and work these back together. One thing I always noticed was the amount of change that was in there. In the machine. My friends were all about stealing the quarters, but I never did.

Well.

Maybe once.

Or twice.

But that was over soon. My fingers were burned and my pockets full of change every night. Wait. I just said I didn't do that. Well, hell. You caught me. Or rather, they caught me. Pretty soon, because of my fuck off attitude I was pushed out in the heat. Given a new shirt. A Camo style shirt, and told to go work in the tanks. Out there. In the heat. Past the carnies. Past the kiddie pool with beer cans floating in it. Out there.

Where I was sent to work was supposed to be a punishment. But it seemed like heaven to me.

The Tank Ride

This was one of the most popular rides and one of the few at the park more dangerous for employees than patrons.

In a chainlink fence-enclosed area, small tanks could be driven around for the proper fee for five minutes at a time, with tennis ball cannons that enabled riders to shoot at a sensor prominently mounted on each tank. If hit, the tank stopped operating for 15 seconds, while other tankers often took advantage of the delay to pepper the stricken vehicle with more fire.

Visitors on the outside could also join in the fun through less costly cannons mounted on the inside of the fence. When workers had to enter the cage to attend to a stuck or crashed tank, which usually happened several times a day, they were often pelted with tennis balls from every direction despite prohibitions against such behavior that could result in expulsion from the park. It is not known if this resulted in any serious injuries, but it made the tank ride the least popular place to work in the park.

Well fuck yeah!

About 20 of these tank like things. One passenger would be in a turret on top. The other would be below driving them. The gun shot tennis balls. The tennis balls went fast. The tennis balls hurt. The driver of the tank would have just a basic peddle. Back and forth, and a wheel to turn the damn tank. Six of these would go out at a time and shoot at targets on the others riders tanks. When the target was hit, the tank would stop for 15 seconds. But they could still fire their tennis balls. At us.

Oh, what glorious days! When people would ram each other after we told them not to, we had to come running out with a baseball bat to whack the side of their tanks to stop them from moving. Catching a high-powered tennis ball in the face and pulling some asshole kid out of the fucking gun and putting his face in the dirt. Parents yelling at us to stop stop hurting their kids when my face was full of welts. Oh, fuck you.

Oh yeah. The dirt and dust. On weekdays, no one would show up for hours. No customers. No kids. I backed my CRX into the tank area in the shade and drank beer with whomever I was working with. Cranking the stereo thinking this isn't such a bad gig. We were drunk the whole time. Dust flying and the stench of carnies.

If you guys don't know, carnies have a tendency to do a lot of meth and they like beer. So we became friends with them. Duh. The exciting world of the carny! I learned many things about that lifestyle. How to cut speed while you still can weigh it down so you can put some in yourself and still make a profit. I learned about the "Jesus Key." If you don't know, the Jesus Key holds the track together on those mini roller coasters. That key was the only thing keeping you from meeting Jesus.

Carnies are funny.

But anyways, every day tanks would stall and I had to work on them. To get them running again. So people could ram each other. So I could get hit in the face with a tennis ball. So I could drink beer. Maybe this job kind of sucked.

The dust blocked up the air filter. Everyday I had to pull an air filter off, park the tank and dump gas on the filter to clean it out. But, there was one thing. I had to pull it off and put it on the ground. The air filter would be dead for about five minutes before it was dry enough to be useable again. Then I could put it back on and be good to go. Exposed for five minutes. Those little bastards shot the shit out me while I just waited for it to dry off.

My last day working there, I threw a filter on. Just after it was cleaned. Still too wet to get oxygen to the engine. The engine started but stalled. Friday night. Kids waiting on me. I popped the back compartment and grabbed it off. I was going to run it without the filter. I know that's bad but we were in a bad situation. We only had five tanks running and the line was long. Tennis balls shots beside me. Filter still covered in gas. I pull it off. It stays on. The gasoline had made it slick. Too slick too pull off. Fuck that hurts. I look down at my thumb and see the bone in my hand.

Well.

This sucks.

Keep in mind that this was well before I learned how to stitch myself up so I was kind of scared. I could see the bone. The outer metal ridge on the air filter had torn straight into me. Really deep. I took my shirt off and walked into the main arcade. Walked up to the deli. Shirt wrapped around my thumb. Blood coming out everywhere. I grabbed a coke and sat down while the deli girls freaked out after they figured I wasn't joking around.

The Manager was called.

Asked me if I could finish my shift. The deli girls looked at her in shock and explained what had happened. She looked at me and said...

"Well isn't that nice. Can you finish your shift?" - T

So those are our arcade memories. The other two editors, Finn and Baby Huey, will have theirs tomorrow.

What about you? Got any good arcade memories?

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

There were a lot of ways to interpret today’s editor’s picks theme, so I think you’ll get four totally different takes on a subject here.

The idea was to riff off of this week’s Lo-Fi article, in which Joel wrote about the embarrassing music of his youth. We all expanded on that idea a little and went off in our own different directions, but I think that makes it a bit more fun to read, no?

So here’s Michele and Turtle's. Baby Huey's and The Finn's are in the next post over.

Michele gets furry:

CDs In My Collections That I Swear on My Mother’s Soul Are Not Mine

This is not the same as CDs I Am Embarrassed to Own. See, I am never embarrassed about the music I like. I am loud and proud about all the emo, hair metal and Air Supply in my collection.

But there are some discs that appeared mysteriously in my house. No one will take the blame for them or accept responsibility for them being here. I keep saying they aren’t mine, but I get suspicious like looks when I try to pass the buck.

“What the hell is this CD doing here??”
“Hey, whoever smelt it, dealt it.”

You know how that goes.

Nickelback

I hate this god damn band with the hatred of a thousand hateful people. Everything about them - that dude’s voice, his fugly ass face, the insipid lyrics, the same-shit-different-song style - makes me want to stab someone in the eyes. Just because. So trust me when I say this CD is NOT mine. Why is it here? Because I used to hang with someone who worked for their record label and it’s a promo CD. DID. NOT. PAY. FOR. That’s gotta count for something.

You know what I’m gonna do with this thing? Take it outside and see if I fling it like a frisbee if it will stick in a tree trunk.

Cats, the Original Cast Recording
Listen, I love musicals. There, I said it. But not this one. This thing has “furry lovin” written all over it. People dressed up as cats? Humans with swishy tails? No thanks. That gives me the creeps. This musical put a respectable face on furryism and I ain’t having none of that. And really, does anyone want to hear that broad from Eight is Enough sing that Memories song again? You do? Come over here so I can smack you.

Insane Clown Posse - The Great Milenko
I will deny this is mine harder than Peter denied Christ. Three times, a zillion times, whatever. This is NOT my fucking CD, man. I swear to you. I know nothing about ICP. Nothing. I don’t know what a juggalo is and I don’t know the words to Lords of Illusions and I was never Down With The Clown. Fuck no. Nuh uh. No Way.

Why is this CD in my house? I don’t know. I really don’t know. Maybe the evil clowns who hide in my closet at night left it here once. Yea, that’s the ticket. -M

Turtle gets all eyeliner and shit on y'all.

I have no ideas where I am going to go with this post. Let me just say that I have lost more CD's then I could ever count, been given more CD's than I remember and had to many stolen to remember. I am not innocent in the whole thing either. I stole alot of CD's. Everyone did. That is just the way it was. I mean hell, when you have so many people around and so many people working at record stores, shit is going to happen.

Now I look back at what I still have around and wonder what the fuck I was thinking when I aquired them. I must have heard something on them I liked. I guess. Something about it called to me but what it was is anyone's guess. Just something that flickered in my eye for a moment then lost it's shine. I guess.

I know I've been through a lot of different musical likes and "my favorites" over the years, so it's really no use asking me why I have this or that. At a certain point in my life, I liked it. I guess I did. Sure, most of it I can't stand anymore, but thats just what happens with music. Well, to me that is.

Some of the music does have some good memories. I can remember good times with certain songs and some songs bring up vivid memories that sometimes I don't want to remember. Just a moment on my life that was recorded on my brain, hitting playback as soon as the music starts.

I don't want to remember some of those things.

So what songs do I have that I am ashamed of?

None really.

Just bits and pieces of the person I once was waiting to be played again.

/I get all moody when it's my birthday. - T

So that's our take on this week's editor's picks. Feel free to interpret the topic at hand at will and tell us your angle on this.

Michele and Turtle are going listen to Pure Disco, Volume 5 now.

Archives

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Baby Huey wonders--

Wait, what the fuck is THIS?

I have excellent taste in music, and I'm not afraid to tell you that. I also have a buttload of hard drive space -- about a terabyte between all my computers. It's kind of hard to justify deleting anything I've got on my machine.

When it was suggested we go through our CD collections, and find shit that embarrasses us, I was presented with a serious problem: all my CDs kick ass. Seriously. I don't pay for CDs anymore, so when I get promos from labels that suck, I just give them away and only keep the stuff I like. What was I going to write about? Then it hit me. While I will give away CDs like they're candy, I never delete MP3s. Time to fire up my filesystem and see what pap has been on there for years.

Boy oh boy, did I hit the jackpot. I found 2 CDs that not only suck, they suck so bad that I will break my normally tolerant (heheh, good one, right?) form and mock you mercilessly if you are caught with it entering your earholes. Keep in mind that I haven't actually listened to these in forever. I checked the stats on them, and the last acccessed time for either of those albums was 2005, which is when I upgraded my server.

Let's bring on the shame spiral, shall we?

Hoobastank

I blame my friend Brad for this. Junior year (or thereabouts) of college, he tells me about this up-and-coming band that's gonna turn the metal scene on its head. I'm intrigued, as he usually has decent taste in music. He sends me a zip file with the album in MP3. I unzip it and look at the title. Hoobastank? HOOBASTANK? That's not a band name, that's a fucking euphemism for feminine odor.

Whatever. Metal bands are not known for their poetry. I put the album on and HOLY FUCK IT'S TERRIBLE. It's whiny. It's poppy. It's that mix of pseudo-acoustic and pseudo-heavy that no one, no matter how hard they try, can pull of, because it's lamer than FDR's legs. And yet, for whatever reason, I didn't delete it.

I bet you thought I'd learn from that experience, wouldn't you? Read on...

Ra

Named for the Egyptian sun god, I was interested in hearing them after Brad told me about them (after ragging on him for hours for the Hoobastank debacle). I mean, Nile sings about Egypt, and they kick fuckin ass, right? Anyway, he sends me their first album, From One, and I put it in.

The first song, "Do You Call My Name?" is kinda lame, but I gotta admit, it was kinda catchy (I still think it is. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's in my iPod's workout mix). After that though? HORRIBLE nu-metal. That hybrid of rap and rock that is just. so. terrible. ICP bad. Fork in an outlet bad. Karen Carpenter's diet plan bad.

I have never, nor will I ever, let Brad live these down.

- Baby Huey wonders if you call his name ...

And finn brings up the rear--

“I listen to everything.” Everyone has at least one friend who says it and doesn’t mean it. Not really anyway. They wouldn’t be caught dead with Britney Spears album or the new Nickelback. I don’t listen to everything. But I listen to a lot of it. And quite often, someone will be browsing my CD’s or flipping through my MP3’s and I can see the “What the fuck ?” moment as it crosses their faces. I love it. I love it because every so often they come across something that’ll completely blow my street cred. Because what you may see is me, a typical South Philly scumbag walking down the street, bobbin my head and listening to my headphones. And you’re sure that I’m listening to some feedback laden guitar masterwork or old school hip hop. What you don’t know is that I’m listening to ABBA and I’m getting down, jack. So here, they are, a few things from the shelves that always make people look at me funny.

Electric Light Orchestra – The Essential Electric Light Orchestra

Go ahead. Snigger if you want. Guffaw, if you feel you must. But bear in mind that these picks only get worse from here. That’s right, ELO’s at the top of the crop. And Jeff Lynne, as I’ve said on multiple occasions, is a freaking genius. The man writes catchy, stick in your head all day pop songs that won’t leave you alone. Sure, I hear the arguments all the time about the disco influence and the inanity of the lyrics. But remember this; the lyrics for “Obla Di, Obla Da” are inane as well, but it’s catchy. This collections is in now way complete, but if you just need a quick and dirty ELO fix this is a fantastic place to get it.

Jean Michel Jarre – The Concerts in China

Pretentious Frog Alert! Pretentious Frog Alert!

Kruder and Dorfmeister – The K & D Sessions

Is it hip hop ? Is it electronica ? Is it trance ? Well, I don’t know what you’d call it but I’ve got two words for you, Booty and Music, and that’s what I call it. I couldn’t single out one thing that makes these two Austrians mesh so well. But mesh they do. Rock and hip hop and jazz and oh so much more make this a great way to chill or a get with the bacon makin’. K & D have ninja level remix skills and even if you recognize one of the tunes that they’ve included on this double disc set, you’ll do so halfway through it. The mix itself is smooth and seamless, often leaving you wondering exactly where they’re going to go next. And if you’re looking for just the right thing to seal the deal with that lovely young lady who’s too young to have an appreciation for Barry White, here ya go kid. Thank me later.

--F


And there you have it. Four completely different takes on what’s on our CD shelves. And how about you ? What makes you embarrassed even though you sing along every time it comes on the radio ? What will you never admit to owning and stash under your mattress ? And what will you shake your butt to, regardless of who’s in the room ?

Posted by thefinn at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

The editor's picks this weekend was my idea. Pick a fictional place from a tv show where you'd like to live. So why did I have such a hard time coming up with something? I hate when that happens. But after agonizing over it (I was sure I was going to pick some cartoon world the whole time then decided at the last minute that I don't want to live in a 2D world, although it would be kinda cool to live in Marioland or something like that), I came up with my ideal fictional television place to live.

Full House.

That's right. I said Full House. Now, before you go and make fun of me, you should know that I'm not really, nor have I ever been, a huge fan of this show. Sometimes I just watched it because it was on and I was too lazy to click the remote. Or maybe I was drunk. I was still relatively young when this show started, so I can theoretically blame my viewing of it on alcohol.

Lately, I've been watching it because my son and his friends have, for some reason, become obsessed with it. Whatever. 13 yr olds are weird.

So why would I want to live in a place that is the home of a show I don't really care for? Well, there's a couple of reasons. And I think I'll make a good case here so you will have to refrain from making fun of me.

1. All my problems will be solved in half an hour.

That's the best thing about tv shows. No matter what crisis comes up, be it a dating disaster, school problems, getting fired, drug addiction, a crisis of faith, divorce, death of beloved pet, friend or family member, murder, suicide, trouble with the law, cheating, fire, tornadoes, burned dinner, bullying, gang rape, coming out of the closet, etc., it can all be solved in half an hour. Maybe an hour if you're living in a drama, but half an hour for most sitcoms.

Life happens in a blur. You start off your episode with some kind of conflict and before that 30 minutes is up, everyone on your show has helped in some way to solve your problem and end the conflict in a way that brings happiness and joy to everyone around. Find out your best friend is a serial killer who stuffs hookers in his trunk? Don't worry. Danny and Uncle Jesse will take care of everything. Got a big zit on the day of a big date? No problem. DJ and Kimmy will find a way to cover up that nasty pimple. Feeling down, depressed, and suicidal? Never fear, Joey is here to tell a really stupid joke and smile in the offhand, smirky way, that makes you forget that your period is a week late and the guy you slept with has herpes.

It's like magic. Pure, television magic.

2. Kimmy Gibler.

Brazen, annoying and god damn nerve-wracking, Kimmy took the cliche of "quirky neighbor" to new heights. think Andrea Barber, the actress that portrayed Kimmy, felt seriously threatened by those cute, darling Olsen twins. She must have known that some day those adorable girls would grow up to be two anorexic, drug addicted babes who run their own media empire from the confines of their rehab center and poor Andrea would be left with nothing but a future episode of Where Are They Now? or a bit role in Skateboard Kid 2.

I can't say that she doesn't deserve that shitty fate. Maybe if she didn't overact in every scene and steal the thunder from the other fine actors of Full House, and maybe if she didn't do such a crappy job piericing Steph's ears (which I think was intentional because everyone knows that Steph hated Kimmy and maybe Kimmy was hoping Steph would get an ugly infection and die), well, maybe she would still be acting. And maybe I wouldn't have to be writing this thing where I want to live in the Full House world just so I can take a steak knife to Kimmy Gibbler's voice box. It would be a Very Special Episode, indeed. One in which the whole "com" part of sitcom goes out the window as Kimmy lays in the Tanner kitchen in a pool of blood and no one moves to call an ambulance or anything because hey, it's Kimmy, and she's god damn annoying and maybe not having her around anymore wouldn't be such a bad thing. So they all stand around and watch Kimmy thrash around the floor and listen to her blood gurgle as it pours out of her throat and Steph maybe kicks her a couple of times and says things like "That's for my earlobe infection, you filthy whore!" And DJ says something like "I never liked you, I was just your pity friend!" And then at the end of the episode, when the medical examiner comes to take the body away just as Joey is standing over the corpse saying Cut. It. Out! Danny and Uncle Jesse come on the screen and say something like "What you just saw was fiction. But it could happen to you. Don't be that girl. Don't be an annoying, wacky neighbor. If you do know someone who is an annoying, wacky neighbor, call 1-800-Kimmyisdead and we'll help you with your problem. We here in the Tanner house care deeply about you. Don't end up like this."

The more you know.

3. Joey

Pretty simple here. A really good reason to live in this house. See, I'm going to punch him in the face every time he says Cut. It. Out. It will only be a matter of time before he has this Pavlovian reaction every time I walk in the room. That's right, Joey. You better flinch. Cause my fist is itching for your mouth. I'd also make sure to spend every episode telling him how much his jokes suck and how unfunny he is and I'd leave want ads for fry cooks in his bed with the words "don't quit your day job" written on them. There would be some point in every episode where I would make Joey cry. Eventually, the futility of his life and chosen career will smack him upside the head like a brick and he'll lock himself in his room and write really bad poetry and one day we'll be looking for him and Steph will find him in the bathtub, the words Cut It Out sliced into his arm, blood everywhere. And Kimmy will say something like, "Is this because I told Dad about how you asked me to dress up in that Sailor Moon outfit last week?"

4. Uncle Jesse

I just want to prevent him from marrying that washrag of a woman. Has there ever been a sitcom character so lacking in personality? Really. What the hell was her name anyhow? Becca...Becky...Rebecca....hey, wasn't Stamos's wife's named Rebecca in real life? Weird. Anyhow, I just can't stand that chick. No idea what Jesse saw in her. She didn't even have big tits. And she looks like the kind of chick you'd pick up at a NASCAR thing. I have no idea what that means.

Also, I'd tell Jesse that his Elvis-type rock music that Jesse and the Rippers play is fag and he should consider shaving his head, getting some tattoos and starting a punk rock band. Jessie and the Jackboots or something. Because I'll be honest with you, the only thing that kept me from having any kind of sexual fantasy about Jesse was the whole crappy music thing. What? Oh come on, like you didn't have the hots for him when he was bad boy Blackie on General Hospital.

See, I have good reasons for wanting to live in this place instead of somewhere like the land of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (I'd so party with Carl) or some Batman cartoon series just so I could have a hot, lesbian fling with Harley Qunn. Those things are all well and good, but I'd get no lasting lessons out of them and everyone knows that tv life is all about lessons. Sure, Meatwad might teach me a valuable lesson about making the homies say ho and the girlies want to scream and Harely might teach me a thing or two about what it's really like to fuck a cartoon, but that just doesn't compare to what you get out of Full House:

Everywhere you look , everywhere you go.
There's a face
Of somebody who needs you. -M

Michele named her vibrator Master Shake.

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

What time of day is it? Guess I'd better start this. After a late night of cold sweats and bad TV, there is nothing like sitting down and typing something out. Since I think I may have finally hit the "bad" stage with my leftover sauerkraut and sleeping with the TV on, this post might be a little weird.

I know the rules to today's post are something like "pick a fictional place from TV or comics or something like that and tell why you like it" or something like that so I'll stick to that main theme. Idunno, it was something like that. But since I can't remember where I was last night, I am going to go with the ol' standby excuse. "I can't remember what the theme was so I just went out on my own." It works sometimes. All I have to do is avoid any conversation about what we are supposed to be writing about, then give that dumb, confused look when all of the Editor's Picks get published the next morning. You know that look. It's kinda like that "You didn't tell me I was supposed to be sober. What am I? A fucking mind reader?" look. Ceptin' this one is more like, "We were writing about what? Oh. Sorry about that."

So since I already told you what I will be looking like when you are reading this, I figure I might as well go all the way.

Sure. Everyone thinks I am going to write about Walnut Grove from Little House on the Prairie. What a wonderful place it would be to live with all those little life lessons and shit. Well fuck that. I ain't no one's patsy and I don't flip like a dog. I am not your puppet and all those early 80's hair metal bands song titles. Cause If you are going to pour some sugar on me baby, you are going to find out every rose has its thorn.

So let's get back to the topic. Walnut Grove. Shit, I think I spent a few paragraphs talking about not doing Th' Grove and I am going to end up doing it anyway. Oh well. I would like to live there. Sure. But it would have to have a few changes. So stick with me as I wave my magical wand over this quaint little town and turn it into Turtleland. You know. Turtleland. A nice place to visit but a shitty place to ride. So let's do this.

Nellie would be dead.

I don't wish on her a painful death. I mean hell, she was just annoying. So nothing gruesome has to happen to her. Just a public death that makes you stop and look at her body for a few seconds before moving on thinking to yourself, "I never thought about it like that before," and continue humming some fucked up version of "The Entertainer" from The Sting. Speaking of the Sting, did anyone else ever wonder exactly what year they cut off Paul Newman's balls and he started making salad dressing for poor people? I mean, I know the 70's were rough but fuck man, it's like he marched his way into old age with a chastity belt on. Every time I buy his salad dressing I don't know whether I am supporting poor people or NASCAR so I just avoid that stuff like the plague and stick to Best Foods Salad Dressing*.

Let's get back to the story.

This town's main business looks like mischief and, well either stillin' moonshine or farming. Still haven't figured that out. Hell, I still don't even know what the hell Charles is farming. He is always out tilling or whatever farmers do, but for some strange reason, they never grow anything but good, wholesome values and blind kids. Fucking freak farm out there filled with junkies and orphans. If they had welfare back then, this place would be a gold mine of barefoot kids, cashed government checks and Kool cigarette butts. Charles seems to spend more time at the lumber mill in town anyways. And really, if you think about it, he is a little too goody god damn two shoes for my liking. In fact that whole family is. So they need to go. Now I don't want them dead. That would be mean. Without that family, the present day as we know it would not have blind people and junkies. It's kinda like Back to the Future. You can't kill them off cause without their offspring, we would have no blind people to make fun of. Plus I can't think of any more songs from the Sting, so they could live.

Yes, I can make fun of blind people. The fuck they gonna do? Put their fingers on the monitor and Braille this shit out? Fuck the blind!

So the Ingalls would have to go.

Let's get back to the town.

Simple enough. This town has resources that could better go to use in this time of great American Expansion. This town just needs a product that involves grain and metal working. Something that every town seems to have. And they have a lot of sugar. Well this is going to be easier than I thought.

Moonshine.

Have you ever thought that there is a reason that most of life's problems can be solved with that little word? There is a reason for this. Say it with me. Moonshine. Moonshine. It almost rolls off the lips. Well as far as I can see it, you could plant everything around that town and it would grow, so the possibilities of flavors are endless.

So there is the plan.

Now we need to put the plan into effect. Or is it affect? I always get those two mixed up. But we need to start cooking. This shit ain't gonna make people go blind on its own.

So with a plan in place, we can now start. Mr. Henson would provide the metal materials for the still. Mr. Olsen would provide the sugar. Someone could blow glass for the containers. We could use the children for that. Children have a higher sensitivity to pain and heat so they would be perfect plus they are expendable. I mean hell, every time a new kid comes on that show, it is titled "The New Kid with Some Incurable Disease Who Will Die Before The End Of The Show" so they must be pretty used to kids flopping around like fish out of water.

So I got that covered.

I guess I would have to bring back Charles to grow the crop. Dammit. And I liked him gone. This might be a problem.

But as Momma Turtle once told me, every problem provides you with a new solution. So we bring Charles back but cut out his preachy ass tongue. Maybe snag his kid or something to shut him up. Idunno. We could figure something out.

I didn't say this plan was perfect.

The next thing is the school. It would have to go. Or...we could get all Saddam and shit on the rest of the world and cook the 'shine in the school house. No one would ever look there for it. If it is illegal that is. Shit. Never thought about that. This might be another big problem. Never sell anything to anyone that they can make or produce themselves legally. Basic rule of thumb that everyone needs to know. Kind of like "Never Sue Poor People." Man, if the guys on People's Court ever figured out that rule, I would lose all my daytime TV so maybe I ought to keep that one quiet. Did you guys know Rusty from the People's Court is dead? Pretty sad if you ask me. Plus it fucks up more of my plan.

Geez, I'm not even done yet and my plan is falling into the shitter.

Ok. No Rusty. I can refigure (?) this plan and move on. We need help to get moonshine illegal. Rusty is out. He can't go to congress and petition them to make it illegal to save the children from the demon seed known as booze so I am kind fucked there. Otis from Mayberry is dead too. So can't bring in a Master Stiller to finish the job. I am pretty sure Charles is dead too.

Crap.

Ok. I can get over this. All I need is Merlin Olsen and everything will be cool.

Oh christ.

I hope he's not dead.

So I guess my plan of turning this town into a moonshine distribution hub for the entire country is going down in flames fast.

But, I still have Merlin.

I guess we could sit around and grow flowers all day taking turns having sex with Nellie but since I already killed her off, that would be kinda gross.

I mean what kind of lesson could you take from that?

Fucking the dead and growing flowers for FTD would not make a good TV show.

Sometimes life isn't like the A-Team.

Sometimes plans don't come together.

Hey! Did you guys know George Peppard is dead?

Damn shame, if you ask me. - T

*Known as Hellmans East of the Rockies.

Turtle is going back to bed.

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

So Michele asked us where we wanted to live, if we lived in TV land. After thinking, I came up with 3 ideas.

- Sarah Chalke (Dr. Reed from Scrubs)'s pants. Oh my god, if I lived there I'd never leave the house. But it was a copout and kinda lame. Not to mention the fact that there's no way I'd get a full post out of it.

- In the world where Dethklok is king of all metal bands. However, I'm not actually *in* the band, so my life expectancy would be approximately 12 minutes. That's no good.

- The bar from Cheers. That's IT.

Let me tell you why. First things first: I don't mean I want to live in Boston and frequent Cheers. I mean, I want to live in the bar. My liver is evil and must be punished. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to live there because it's where everyone knows my name. Fuck that. If I'm in a bar, if I want to talk to you, I'll start. I really don't want to you to start talking to me out of the blue. Unless you've got some sweet tits. Anyone who shouted "Jooooooosh" as I walked into the bar would be getting a punch in the crotch. Goddammit, I know my own name, and I'm home now! Let me get somethin to eat! Let me get somethin to drink! Let me take a shit! Go in the kitchen and get me my big piece of chicken! (apologies to Chris Rock)

I would want to live at Cheers because there are some pretty cool folk that work/drink there. Let's break down what they'd be in my world:

Norm
Oh, Norm. My mentor. You fat, drunk fuck. I have so much to learn about being drunk and fat from you. Your one liners are second to none, and I'd imagine that none of your jokes were longer because you'd be out of breath.

Sam
I like a bartender who knows how to pour a beer and I could probably beat up. Seriously, Sam's a wuss. Unless he tried to bludgeon me with his fivehead. That would suck.

Diane
Ooooh, my Diane. You would so be my concubine. I would violate that innocent body in so many ways. So pure, so beautiful. I love you Diane. So much better than that fat cow Rebecca (more on her later).

Carla
Carla would be security. Sure, she's small, but that crusty old bitch is wiry. Seriously, would you fuck with a pre-menstrual Carla? I'm 275 lbs, and I wouldn't go near her if she told me to back off.

Cliff
Dude. He'd be my mailman, and he'd drink in my house. How cool would that be? He'd always have my mail on time, and I could totally threaten to shank him if he ever brought me junk mail. That shit would be sorted on the quick, I tell you what.

Woody
Seriously, fuck that patchouli stink hippie.

Rebecca
She'd be in charge of keeping the place clean, and occasionally getting Sam's dick wet so he wouldn't be so irritating. So, basically what she did on the show. God I hate her. Maybe she can go on Jenny Craig and lose all her weight and die.

Frasier
Isn't it obvious that I need some psychiatric help? However, the fact that a doctor frequented that shithole of a bar really made me skeptical towards the veracity of his medical credentials. That doesn't matter. Barroom psychiatrists are the best in the universe, MD or no. And he'd make housecalls! How cool is that?

So, there it is. My burgeoning drinking problem would be full-fledged alcoholism in a few short episodes. I'd have people to sex, people to knife, and people significantly more pathetic than I am. How could it be better?

Baby Huey once bombed a patchouli factory

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So when the question floated out at our Editor’s Meeting (held, as they always are, in the stately boardroom at FTTW World Headquarters) “What Fictional Place From Television Would You Like To Live ?” I knew that there was only one choice. Out of all the TV I’ve watched in my ninety some years, there has only been one place where life would never get boring, where there would always be something new to check out and there would always be a new problem to solve.

Moya. Just thinking about it gives me chills. In case you’re not a giant sci-fi geek like me, Moya is the name of the living ship that acts as a home to a group of “criminals” in Farscape. Yes, I said a living ship. She eats, respires, communicates (sort of) and even gives birth to others of her kind. But she looks like your standard metal ship, so there’s none of that unsettling squishy stuff. She’s huge and fast and contains very little weaponry, only what she needs to deter someone looking to blow her outta the sky. And she’s home to one of the most diverse crews I’ve ever borne witness to. Moya was originally a prison ship and home to a number of creatures that had been locked away for violating one galactic law or another. Through a series of strange events, her prisoners became her crew and they became family. Sort of.

Pilot : is just that, the ships pilot. He’s hardwired (literally) into Moya, kind of like a parasite. Parts of his anatomy are grafted, physically into hers and he’s got a direct connection to her nervous system. He feels what she feels, knows instinctively what she needs and helps the crew take care of her. He and Moya don’t fully trust the crew (and once you meet them, you’ll understand why), but they will do everything they can to help them.

Rygel the XVI : is the sovereign ruler of an entire planet. And, due to a coup that was orchestrated by his cousin, he found himself turned over to a militant race called the Peacekeepers and dethroned. The Peacekeepers held and tortured him for over three hundred years before he was finally released from his captivity. He’s arrogant, mean tempered,farts helium and believes all other living things are beneath him. And yet somehow, he manages to get along well with the crew and eventually becomes a strange sort of father/creepy uncle figure to them.

Ka Dargo : is a big motherfucker. A member of a warlike race called the Luxans, he's the type to shoot first, then beat the hell out of whatever’s left. Questions never even enter into it. He represents the most basic of the instincts (eat, fuck and kill) and had been imprisoned for killing his wife. He and the main character John Crichton eventually come to an understanding of sorts and wind up acting more like siblings by the series end.

Zhaan : is the spiritual center of the crew. A member of a race of aliens that are incredibly spiritual and peace loving, she also acts as the medic and doctor when the situations are called for. Oh yeah, she’s also a plant. No, really. She has no bones and is instead composed of fibrous tissues and photosynthesizes. She resembles a blue woman in her early forties and even though she preaches peace, love and understanding, there is a dark side to her that emerges from time to time.

Aeryn Sun : is, or rather was, one of the Peacekeepers, a humanoid race that shares many of the same characteristics as humans. She’s a warrior and an aces pilot. She can hold her own with the men and the women and she was immensely proud of the fact that she was so hard core. But, due to her prolonged contact with the very prisoners she swore to keep caged, she became “contaminated” by the prisoners and was rejected by the rest of her race. And so, she became part of the crew. Her first instinct is usually to fight, but as time goes on, she learns that she is capable of so much more than that.

John Crichton : is one part astronaut, two parts Han Solo, one part Mad Dog Murdock and has a little mad scientist for flavor. He’s the only human for billions of light years in any direction, due to a little malfunction that involved the experimental ship he was piloting and a wormhole. He’s trapped aboard a living ship with a bunch of ex-prisoners and an entire race of people is looking to kill him. And the people he’s living with aren’t too fond of him either. He’s slightly crazy but also crazy smart. He’s a brilliant tactician and a very reluctant leader, but the other members of the crew come to follow and respect him once they all finally realize that he’s more than just some talking ape.

To have the width and breadth of the universe available to me, to be able to explore and fight. Yeah, that sounds pretty good to this old mick. Although, I do have to say that living on the “Serenity” came a damn close second while writing this. But that’s a post for another day.

So once again, we ask you… If you could pick any television show to live in, where would it be ?

-F

thefinn is only one part Han Solo and thirty parts Big Giant Nerd. Archives

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So today we are going back. Back to the old school Warner Brothers cartoons for a little list. No, not your favorite Warner Brothers cartoons, we will do that later, but something else about those cartoons.

Acme!!

Yes! A name you can trust and believe in. Something that would always had your back if you used it right. For whatever you wanted, Acme had what you needed.

So, we found a list of all the gadgets that have been included in the old cartoons and decided to go through them and tell you ourTop 5 and why they are so important to us and to humanity.

If any of you need any help remembering them, here is a list.

Acme Products

Have fun going through them and join in to tell us what your favorites are.

Ready?

turtle has his ideas..

Off the top of my head.

Instant Girl! It's an instant girl! What else can you say? Imagine one drunk night with a bottle of these. You would destroy the prostitution, escort, massage, and porn industry in one shot.

Plus you could always have someone make you dinner. At the very least, you could have somewhere to put out your cigars and instant girls feel no pain.

They don't have any souls, either.

Super Speed. Legal speed. Dope. Late night poker games just got a new burst of energy. Think you can't play that last hand cause you drank too much vodka? Think again. Pop a few of these back with a cold King Cobra and get ready to see the sun rise.

Trick Balls! They are balls! They explode! And they are called trick balls! Pretty tricky if you ask me.

OK. So they don't do too much, but they are exploding trick balls and that names is just too much fun to say. So I want some. Bottom line. Saying "balls" in any sentence is funny. Add the word "trick" into the same sentence and you have comedy gold.

"Exploding" is just icing on the cake.

Acme Whipping Cream. Maybe not good for much except to get a quick nitrous high. I'll bet the fine people at Acme wouldn't bitch like some people do around here if their whip cream goes flat. Someone has to inhale the stuff and it might as well be me. Besides, the jury is still out on if inhaling nitrous really constitutes not being sober as far as AA purposes. I think it counts. Others may have a different opinion, but until they make a NOA (Nitrous Oxide Anonymous) I'm still going to be sucking your Ready Whip dry, baby.

Earthquake Pills. More pills for more fun. You know after reading this whole list, I am starting to think Acme is really some mob front for dope and broads. Most of these things on here really give you the impression that they took their ideas from Godfather 1 and 2. Or maybe it was the other way around. No matter. Just reading these names gives me a feeling that whomever made this list was part of La Cosa Nuestro trying to expand their market into cartoons.

I now feel I need to go gamble in Las Vegas.

Or kill Luca Bratsi. - T

michele has been watching too much 24:

My name is Jack Bauer. I used to work for the Counter Terrorism Unit, but I retired on disability. Everyone knows the goverment pays shit, so my disability pay isn't really that great. Which is why I now work as security guard at the local mall. Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

This is my official report of what happened on the night of December 28, 2006. In short, how I saved the mall and everyone in it (and probably the entire free world) from certain disaster.

I was working perimiter detail at the Macy's entrance when I got a call from the Big Boss that there was a suspicious person walking around in front of Sharper Image. When I got to the scene of the crime, I realized that this was no ordinary robbery. In fact, it wasn't a robbery at all. I recognized the suspicious man as a TERRORIST! Ok, he looked like a terrorist I thought I knew.

I had to act fast. So I brought out my bottle of Instant Girl. In just two seconds, Chloe was standing in front of me. I handed her my cell phone.

"PATCH ME THROUGH TO THE PRESIDENT!" I shouted this to her because I always shout to show how important a directive is.

While Chloe was getting the president on the phone, I scoped out the terrorist. He was holding something that looked like a remote. I figured it was a detonator and he was gonna blow up the mall or release some nerve gas or something. I do have experience with this stuff, you know. That's what I acted so quickly. I approached the terrorist from behind and grabbed him by his neck. I then brought out my ultimatum gun, which issued the order to "PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON." I repeated this, for emphasis. "I SAID PUT. DOWN. YOUR. WEAPON."

The terrorist elbowed me in the gut and I lost balance for a second. In that instant, the terrorist was able to escape. He ran down to Hot Topic and tried to hide behind the My Chemical Romance t-shirts. I heard the beeping of his detonator. He spotted me and said, "At 9pm this mall will be blown to pieces, Mr. Bauer."

I asked Chloe if she got a hold of the president yet. "I'm trying, Jack," she said. "But CTU just issued an order for your arrest!"

"What is that, the fifth time today? Just get me the president, Chloe! WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"

"Then use your time space gun, Jack!" Of course! I reached into my bag of tricks, pulled out the time-space gun and set it to a half hour before the call came from the Big Boss about the terrorist.

I went up to the Big Boss's office and told him, "I have to use the building disintegrator right now!"

"Are you being delusional again, Jack? I know you miss your old job, but you work in a mall now. You're a rent a cop, Jack."

Chloe came in to the office and had the president on the phone.

"Mr. President, this is Jack Bauer. You are also on the line with head of mall security!!"

"You don't understand! I just came from the future! There is going to be a terrorist attack on the mall! I have to disintegrate NOW!" Again, I yelled the "now" part for emphasis. It seemed to make him pay more attention to me.

"You're crazy, Jack. There are thousands of people in the mall right now!"

"Yes, but I have an integrating pistol! As soon as it passes 9pm, I can integrate the building back together!"

The president said, "Jack, this plan is insane!" Chloe rolled her eyes.

"YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME! You have my WORD, Mr. President, that this will work!"

The president reluctantly agreed. Chloe and I went out to the parking lot by Applebee's. We looked at each other hopefully. Chloe made that look she always makes when I do something that puts her life on the line. I fired the disintegrating pistol. The building shook and then vanished.

We waited in the parking lot until after 9pm and then I pulled the trigger on the integrator. There was a blast of heat, and then the building and all the people inside it were back.

"Is everything ok, Jack?" The head of CTU was on Chloe's speakerphone.

"Everything is good, sir The mall is now safe."

"Is Auntie Em's pretzels still there?"

"Of course it is."

"Can you bring me a cinnamon pretzel with cream cheese when you come back to CTU please?"

"Well, it's 9:20 now. The mall closes at 9:30."

"Better go, Jack. You're running out of time!"

I winked at Chloe and patted the space-time gun in my pocket. I'll never run out of time again. -M

So those are the picks of Michele and Turtle. The other two editors, Finn and Baby Hue, have their picks up in a separate post.

We had a whole list to go on, so you can too! Tell us your favorite Acme items and how you think they would benefit the world.

It's easy and fun. Feel free to make up your own while you are it. Hell, if Acme can make them up, so can you.

Michele and Turtle are going to spend the night dropping anvils on each other

Archives

Posted by Turtle Jones at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Baby Huey and I had been out drinking and whoring all day when the email came in from Michele. We were late with our columns for the Editor's Picks post. We had known that they were due earlier today, but tequila and bimbos have a way of making a man's brain get a little fuzzy and you start to forget things that you normally wouldn't. Like how much money you left the house with and where you parked the car before you went into the strip club. So, half drunk and unable to complete a coherent thought, we asked Turtle what he and Michele had been writing about and completely and totally ripped off their idea. ACME Products!! Your faves and ours!!

-F

Baby Huey is up first..

The Female Roadrunner Costume

Is this first mainstream reference to furryism? I think so.

Hitchhiker Thumb

Made from 100% real hitchhikers! Accept no substitutes!

Iron Carrot

For the girl who scoffs at shower massagers, it's something a little more heavy-duty. Heh. Doody.

Ultimatum Dispatcher:

For when going on Maury's just too much of a hassle, fire your ridiculous demands like a fucking nag-missle!

Artificial Rock

Be just like all your heroes on the radio today -- Artificial Rock! - BH

and thefinn finishes us off with a bedtime story....

There was a time when my voicebox hadn’t been crushed like a beer can in a frat boy’s fist. There was a time when my back wasn’t a mess of pins and steel rods. I can remember when I hadn’t broken every bone in my body a hundred times over. And I vividly recall the days when I could speak without holding up these damn signs.

Like I said, it wasn’t always this way. When I first started with the ACME company I was a page boy. I ran errands for mid level managers and made sure that they’re coffee was always hot. In time I received a slight promotion and was transferred to the Research and Development division. I did odd jobs here and there before the head of the department recognized my unique talents in finding the design flaws in ACME Products. It wasn’t long before I was testing dozens of our latest releases. I was the first person to work with our ACME Eye Test Chart and I found and fixed the errors that caused blindness in our test subjects. I worked long and hard. Days and weeks went by but finally I was rewarded with the ACME Instant Icicle Maker project. My team and I worked for weeks, but we couldn’t nail down why every time we went to make an icicle, we make a small bowl of pudding instead. After about three weeks, we finally solved the problem (Funny story. We solved the problem by removing the chocolate from the equation. What do you want ? It was the Sixties, we were putting chocolate in everything. You ever wonder why the ACME Triple Strength Fortified Leg Muscle Vitamins taste like a chocolate sundae ?) and I was promoted to a middle management position in the company. For a few weeks, it was glorious.

I should have known that once I got the promotion, the problems would only get worse. I was given a team of forty five and for three weeks we worked in the ACME Do-It-Yourself Tornado Kit. Half my team died and more than 30% were crippled so badly that ACME still pays them disability. But in the end, we got it right. Upper management was so impressed with my determination that they asked me to head up the most secret of all our top secret projects. The ACME Jet Propelled Pogo Stick. It was to be the preferred method of travel for every man, woman and child in the future. ACME had sunk billions into the project and so far all they had was a stick and a piece of twine. It was my vision that led us to this precipice of modern invention. It was my engineering skills that got us over the initial problems that would send every test subject space bound in a matter of seconds. And it was my intestinal fortitude that led me to test the first fully functional prototype in the Arizona desert.

After I was released from the hospital, I took a sabbatical to concentrate on learning to walk again and to concentrate on my own engineering ideas. I came up with a few things that would eventually make it through the ACME labs and be released to our clamoring masses. The company was on a huge upswing at the time, money was being thrown around like it was toilet paper. The president of ACME sent me an email, outlining a problem his was having with his winter house in Nevada. He was quite distressed that a small pack of roadrunners had taken up residence on his property. They were doing quite a bit of damage, tearing around his gardens and upsetting his staff. He asked me to look into the problem for him and I was quick to say yes.

I did several weeks of research before heading out to his compound. The eating habits of the common roadrunner, the sleeping and mating habits. Every single fact that I could glean from a textbook or from the internet was committed to memory. I would catch these roadrunners. I would receive the highest praise from Mr. Acme, himself. And I would be given back my position as head researcher at ACME Labs. I had some very early successes. I wiped out a half a dozen of them with the ACME Strait-Jacket Ejecting Bazooka and killed another four or five with ACME Grease (when combined with a harrowing drop, it was quite effective). I killed them all, save one. He was the fastest of the all. But I was more cunning. And I would not rest until he was dead as well.

It’s been damn near sixty years. I have broken every bone in my body. My fur has been burned off and regrown so many times I barely recognize myself. I have utilized every piece of ACME technology at my disposal (and quite a few that were not approved). But I will catch those damn roadrunners. If it’s the last thing I do.

-finn

So, what do you think ? Not bad for a drunken, half baked effort by two people who will surely be paying for this in the morning... Or is it ? So, how about you ? What're your favorite ACME Products and how about a few that should have been created but weren't ?

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

There’s a time and a place for everything I suppose. And I’m sure that for the first billion of so miles that Santa put on his sleigh, it was a pretty comfortable ride. But after a few years, you know he got to thinking about how practical it was. Sure, it’s environmentally friendly to have a handful of reindeer pulling your fat ass around (no toxic emissions, unless you feed the reindeer chili…) and it’s only for one night a year, but how comfortable can a ride that was built a few thousand years ago be ? It’s got no shocks, a wooden bench and the headlights are contained in the nose of one mutated little reindeer.

Santa, it’s time for an upgrade. We took your busted ass sleigh and completely demolished it, FTTW style. Two tons of TNT and one FTTW Pocket Nuke later and that wooden antique is nothing but dust and memories. And in it’s place, we’re proud to present, The Present Flinger 9000.

Gone are the days when your butt would go to sleep somewhere over Greenland, because you’re be driving in style in these plush Captains Chairs that hug your ample Santa butt and have lumbar support that’s second to none. Bugs in your teeth are a thing of the past now that you have a giant, giant windshield that’ll not only block the wind and keep the bugs out of your teeth, but will also give you a crystal clear viewing area on those hard to see nights.

Feeling a little hungry and tired of the milk and cookies that everyone and their mother leaves for you ? Not to worry. The Present Flinger 9000 comes equipped with a fully loaded and stocked kitchen and a conveniently placed minibar located at arms length of the drivers seat. Now, if you’re hungry during your run, Ms. Claus can whip you up some scrambled eggs and Rooster Sauce, a dirty martini, or maybe a whole roast chicken. We at FTTW understand that a fat man’s gotta eat and drink, so we’ve planned accordingly.

But with all the eating and drinking you’re gonna be doing, you needn’t worry about having to find a Stuckey’s to stop at so you can do your business. The Present Flinger 9000 also comes with a fully equipped bathroom at no extra cost. That’s right, all the power of the Ultra Flush 450 for proper disposal of all your yule-turds and a full sized shower, so you and the Missus can clean up after a hard nights work. Speaking of “A Hard Night’s Work”, the Present Flinger 9000 also comes with a King-sized bed and the Comfort Excel Mattress system. You and your special someone can “get down” or just drift off to Toyland, knowing that you’re on the most comfortable mattress system available to man. And for those nights when baby oil is a must, not an option, remember that the Comfort Excel Mattress system does have an available vinyl cover for easy clean up.

Santa, we at FTTW wanna wish you a Merry Christmas and hope that you enjoy your new ride. Just remember that we worked long and hard to make sure that you were rode in comfort and style when it comes time for the gift giving. No, really. We mean it. There’s a bomb on this thing and if you don’t give us what we want, we’ll blow your fat ass up.

-F

Posted by thefinn at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

So today we were asked what we thought would be a cool car to get Santa around the world. Cause sleds kinda suck. Well, no.They really suck. Can't do anything with them. So let's upgrade this thing like on Pimp My Ride and get Santa rolling and looking good! Mine took a little thought and I broke some of the rules, but this is what I came up with for Santa to get laid and paid while making all the little children smile on this holiday.

Ready?

Santa rolls.

Asking what I think Santa should use instead of his sled is a little tricky. After thinking about all of the cool muscle cars built for speed and all the lowriders built for cruising, I had to make a choice between style and speed. His haul of gifts really doesn't matter cause we all know that shit is magical or something like that, right?

So he doesn't need a truck. Hell, he gets all his shit around in a sled anyways. And even that doesn't look loaded. Some of the kids around here get more shit in their stockings then he has in his sled. So he doesn't need some kind of semi. He has got his Santa magic.

As for speed, I am gonna have to say the same thing. Why bust his ass to make everything in on time? I mean it gets there right? Santa is the Postal Service of the holidays. It will get to you. Maybe a little late, but it will get there, god dammit.

I know he has to get around the world and all that kind of crap, so speed really should be a factor. He has got the whole time zone thing going for him though. And once he is done with the world. He has nothing top do but go home and work on it for the next years big run.

Technically he could just cruise around the world and eventually he would make it to your houses. Unless you lived in like Russia or something.

Santa does not like Communists and Communists do not like lowriding Santas. They would probably fire some missiles at him and then we would have to watch another god forsaken Christmas movie that somehow would mix the "No Santa" theme with a "Day After" theme. It would probably be in claymation, too with some has been actor like Mickey Rooney doing the voice of The Ghost of Stalin. Is Mickey Rooney still alive? No matter. I'm sure if that fat little bastard were still alive, he would hate lowrider bikes. Cause he just looks like he would. So the hell with the Russians and the Roonies.

This choice was easier than I thought.

He only really works one day a year. And he never really has any chances to show off his ride to all the bitches the world over. I mean, Mrs. Claus' pussy may be great, but come on. He has got one day out of the year to show he is vato loco. So he needs to slow down and cruise.

The only thing he would need would be a cigar hanging out his lips. And a fedora. And a wife beater. And some black pants and a pair of black converse. That would be a cool Santa. My god. He would look just like me. Maybe I am Santa! Weird how these thoughts hit your mind after eating bad Swiss cheese for dinner the night before. But, when an idea comes, I have to grab it. One day, I will tell you all about my "Grand Theory on the Universe Part Uno: No Mas Macho." But until I write my manifesto and move away to the hills to watch your capitalistic society eat itself, I'll stick to hating Communists and biding my time.

Sorry. Got off track.

So if he is going to do this, he might as well try to go slow, low and down brown and proud. So the lowrider was the choice for him. Another theory of mine is that Santa has a thing for the beach. And let's face it, no one looks cool at beach. Swim suits look like hell and the only way you can look cool is if you wear pants and a wife beater. See above for my theory on what he looks like and why he is me. The easiest way to get around the beach is a lowrider. So what have you got? A cool Santa at the beach.

With a bike. Slammed down and fully loaded.

Merry Christmas, puta. - T

Posted by Turtle Jones at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Today's Editor's Picks are holiday related. Just a couple more days until Christmas and then this will all be over and we can all get the holiday crap out of our heads and out of our posts and move on to things like how much winter sucks and the high expectations of Valentine's Day.

But for today, I am keeping it simple. Simple for FTTW, that is.The other editors are going wtih something about Santa and cars. I'm gonna make a list and check it twice.

FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS

1. The lights. Something about driving through your otherwise boring neighborhood at night and seeing all the houses lit up with colors and decorations. I'm a sucker for the old fashioned kind of lights - the big ones that are just red, blue and green. Your white icicle lights look pretty and all, but there's something nicely nostalgic about those big, colored lights. (There is such a thing as overdoing it, though)

2. The traditions. I'm the kind of person who likes routine and familiarality. So it's comforting to know that every Christmas Eve I'll be at my aunt's house, like we've been since the 60's. And every Christmas morning we'll follow the same exact routine at mom's that we used to follow when we all lived there.

3. The food. Isn't that what holidays are all about? No? Well, it's a big part of it. Especially when you're Italian. Everything is about food when you're Italian. When mom's house smells like a weird mix of cookies and lasagna, Christmas must be here.

4. The week after Christmas. At my job, we're forced to take off the week between Christmas and New Year's. Using our own vacation time. Whether we want to or not. I bitch about this every single year, yet every year I'm pretty grateful to have that time off. When the kids were little, I'd try to use that time to do things with them, or just sit around the house with them in our pajamas playing with their new Christmas toys, but now that they are teenagers and have lives of their own, this week is MINE. So I sit around the house in my pajamas playing with new Christmas toys.

5. New Year's Day. This means the holidays are finally over and we can all get back to our normal lives of not spending every day bitching about how much money we are spending and how many relatives we have to kiss and how much food we ate and how cheap our bosses are. Well, we might still do that. But without the benefit of the spiked eggnog that usually precedes those rants.

FIVE THINGS I HATE ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS

1. The whole gift thing. I really do like buying gifts for people. But the stress of keeping up with my family who are notorious for overgiving, and the stress of trying to find just the right gift for everyone and the stress of spending all that money for this holiday is enough to keep me up at night. And the whole gift-getting thing too is kind of stressful, as I never know what to tell people when they ask what I want, plus with the way Christmas went for me the past ten years or so, the receiving part of give/receive is a sore point for reasons I won't get into. I do love Christmas Day. I just hate getting there.

2. The music. It's fun for a few minutes to sing a few rounds of We Wish You A Merry Christmas to get you in the mood, but about three songs into the "All Christmas music, all the time!" schtick, it gets old and my nerves. It's like Christmas is being forced into my head no matter where I go and I no longer hear "Oh Holy Night," but just a million subliminal messages saying things like "there's only three days til Christmas and you have four presents left to buy and you are out of money!"

3. The TV specials. Yea, I love that first showing of Year Without A Santa Clause, too. But by the time the week before Christmas rolls around, I'm tired of every single channel showing something holiday related. Frosty's New Year and the Rugrats' Hannakuh and the Very Special Episode of CSI North Pole and every single sitcom insisting on doing a ghost of Christmas past thing, I'm ready to put the Christmas tree through the screen.

4. The crowds. You already know I hate shopping. But sometimes you have to do it. So even if I just want to go buy some groceries, I have to deal with the fact that my grocery store is in the same lot as the local WalMart. Which means fifteen cars all vying for the same parking space, lots of honking horns and people cursing at each other, old people taking twelve minutes to pull into a parking spot that could fit a truck, soccer moms in their Hummers barrelling through the lot as if they were the only people on the planet, fat, lazy fuckers who follow you to your car trying to get the closest parking space possible even though there are 50 empty spaces at the end of the lot.....maybe I just hate parking lots. Or people.

5. The "War on Christmas." Ok, this may or may not exist, but I'll tell you something. I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination and Jesus is not the reason for my season, but I've got a problem with people who go out of their way to strip these holidays of everything they are supposed to be about. How could it possibly offend you when someone says Merry Christmas to you? I don't care what religion you are or aren't, would it fucking kill you to just smile and say, same to you? Why does it bother you so much to see a menorah or nativity scene in front of a building? How the hell is this affecting your life so much that you need to protest about it? What ever happened to live and let live? Why can't we all get along? Bah.

In the spirit of all that, I give you my nine favorite secular, politically correct Christmas carols:

1. I'm Dreaming of Many-Hued Winter Season
2.Rudolph, the Reindeer with the Facial Appendage of a Different Color
3.Oh, Come all ye Faithful, Agnostics and Atheists
4. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (but it was Grandma's fault for being in the space set aside for woodland creatures to run free without interference from human beings)
5. Frosty the Snowperson of An Indistinguishable Gender
6. I Saw My Parent/Step Parent/Guardian/Caretaker Kissing Santa Claus
7. I'm Getting Nothin' for Christmas (because my parents think the holiday is overcommercialized and co-opted from pagans and only capitalist pigs buy presents)
8. You Must Have Had a Terrible Childhood, Mr. Grinch
9. All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth (but because we don't have nationalized health care for everyone, my parents can't afford dental coverage)

Michele wishes you a Happy Festivus.

Posted by Michele Christopher at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

We’ve all got our favorite books and movies and TV shows. They inspire us, terrify us, make us weepy and bring a little sunshine to a crap day. And why ? It’s the characters. Something in them that makes you relate, excites or compels you to keep on with their story. But some of the best characters are not people you could hang out with. For example, how do you hang out with Batman ? Batman doesn’t hang out, there’s work to be done and cold hard justice to dole out. The same could be said for Ford Prefect. He's a hoopy frood and you could make the argument that all he does is hang out, but that would be underestimating him.

We posed the question to the editors of FTTW and here's what we came up with.

Michele does the meet and greet first:

Jesse Custer -

Jesse is a bad ass preacher (created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon) who set out on a journey to find God. Not in the usual way of "find God" though. See, God had abandoned his post. And he was on a mission to track God down and hold him accountable for that. Custer was possessed by a part angelic/part demonic being that gave him some quality powers. Custer just might be the most powerful thing in all of creation. I want to drink with this guy. Or just talk about religion and stuff.

Spider Jerusalem

Spider (created by Warren Ellis for Transmetropolitan) is a journalist in some future world. Spider is a hateful sort of guy, but most of his hate is warranted. Spider is violent, hot tempered and a stickler for the truth and an enemy of corruption. That's what I love about him. Raw honesty. Plus, he's got some bitchin' weapons. I'd like to hang out with him and talk about politics and the state of the world and maybe I'd get to play with his two headed cat.

Princess Leia.

Of all the Star Wars characters I'd love to meet (Vader, Boba Fett, Greedo...) I have to reserve my wish here for the princess. Because I need to ask her a few things. Like, what is up with that reaction after Alderaan was blown up? Yea, she was a little shocked and awed by the whole thing but, dude. Her family was killed. Her entire fucking planet was blown up. Gone. Just like that. And she not only watched it, but had a hand in it. Everything she ever knew, everyone she ever loved, gone in an instant. Asploded. Poof. Done. So much space dust. Is it me or does her reaction seem kind of...limited?

So I want to spend some time with her. Find out exactly how she felt when she saw the planet burst into flames. Did she feel guilty? Because she should. Did she feel horrified? Sad? I mean, a couple of scenes later she was playing the flirting game with Han Solo and making wise cracks to Luke. Doesn't seem like the normal reaction of someone who just lost their entire family. She doesn't even seem chagrined. More like...inconvenienced. Maybe a little pissed that her dinner plans were fucked up by the whole exploding planet thing. HER PARENTS (or whom she thought were her parents) JUST GOT BLOWN UP IN FRONT OF HER EYES. She's either emotionally stunted or just a cold hearted bitch. I'm thinking a little heart-to-heart session with miss "aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper" might clear the air here.

Yes, I know. I put way too much thought into that.

You don't know the half of it. That's been on my mind since 1977. It feels good to finally let go of it. Now all I need is an answer. -M

Turtle says “Hi”:

Egg Shen - Victor Wong's role in Big Trouble in Little China. For being a damn hippy, Victor Wong was a pretty cool dude. But team him up with John Carpenter and give him a bag of magic tricks, he becomes Master Egg. Egg was cool cause he had the ability to listen to you while ignoring you at the same time. Trust me. This is a hard feat to learn, and Victor Wong did it perfectly. Plus, he gets the nod cause he would always be in the Safeway parking lot at 1:50 in the morning when we ran in to get beer before 2. I don't know why he shopped that late, but he was always a cool guy. Never asked him to do Egg Shen for us, but he played along.

Strong Bad - I just like him. I don't go to HSR that much anymore, but when I did, Strong Bad was the coolest. I mean hell, he made Trogdar and anyone who can make a dragon using consummate "V"s must be cool. Plus he has the Cheat. More coolness points. Many a slow working days were passed watching those over and over on my bosses time.

Travis Bickle - This was hard. I mean Bickle is cool up to a point, but then he gets kind of annoying. So if there was a category for "someone I would like to hang out with for about 10 minutes" he would definitely make it. I mean he has a warped sense of right and wrong, which is cool cause in the end we define our own limits on what is right and what is wrong by the limitations our society has put on us. And yes, this is another rant on me getting arrested for indecent exposure to children last week. Just who defines "indecent" anyways? I was making a political statement about my testicles being Iraq, full of oil and my penis being the Bush war machine. See. Right there. Political statement. Maybe even modern art. First Amendment rights, dammit. Just because children below the age of 16 took an interest in my socio-political statement I was playing out with my testicles, as defined in the First Amendment, does not mean I should be booked as a felon.

Special Mention - Those bears from the Charmin toilet paper ads. You know the ones shitting in the woods. They look so happy when they crap. So happy, they want other bears to not only watch them take a dump, but also give them advice on who much shitter paper to use. See, that is a cool set of bears. I can only imagine how much better my life would have been if only my friends all came with me to watch and criticize the way I dropped a load. We would all have experiments that eventually would turn into some kind of scat porn and nowadays I would be the world famous shit eating turtle porn star. If only my mother would have loved me enough to to watch me every time I crapped as a kid.

Oh well. As they say. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

Have a nice weekend everyone. -T

thefinn sticks out his hand and says "Howdy":

John Constantine –

A chain smoking, hard drinking, foul mouthed magician who uses his head more often than the craft.
John Constantine is reckless and careless; the kind of guy who gets his friends killed. He’s dangerous and beat up and world weary and not the sort to walk out of any major encounter unscathed. This is the kind of guy you meet at a pub at two in the morning and you’re not sure which of his stories are real and which one’s are a result of the drink.

The Lone Gunmen –

I’m a nerd. I accepted that a long time ago. And I like to hang out with other nerds. These guys are the epitome. Melvin Frohike the hardware guy, Richard Langly the hacker, and John Byers the conspiracy theorist. I loved these guys and just sitting around a table in a diner with them would be an experience. I just know that I couldn’t invite them home, as the wife has had a thing for Byers since ’01.

John Crichton –

John Crichton was a perfectly normal Theoretical Physicist until the spaceship he was piloting fell into a wormhole and he was flung to the far side of the universe, cut off from everything and everyone he knew. Not only does he discover intelligent life, but he finds out quite quickly that they don’t like him and would prefer him dead. So, he does what any sane, rational person would do. He makes the best of a bad situation and goes a little crazy in the process. John Crichton isn’t the kind of guy you wanna go on a road trip with, but he’s one I’d want at my back in a bar brawl.

So, the question becomes, if given the choice, what fictional character would you like to meet and hang out with ?

Posted by thefinn at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Welcome to another week of Editor's Picks.

I guess we're still thinking about yesterday's cheesecake and apple pie and the fifteen other desserts that were on the table. All I know is that when turtle and I go back to my mom's for leftovers later on, there better be some of the good stuff left. Fuck the turkey. I want PIE.

So now that we are in dessert mode, our editor's picks for this weekend are.....go figure......favorite desserts!

Michele gets sweet on ya:

I like this topic. Quick and easy.

1. Apple pie. Preferably with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.
2. Blueberry pie. Preferably with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.
3. Chocolate pudding pie. Whipped cream. Hold the ice cream.
4. Pecan pie. With ice cream. Hold the whipped cream.
5. Cheesecake. Mom's cheesecake is good, but I prefer Italian cheesecake.
6. Cannolis. Leave the gun.
7. For certain days of the month only: Anything with the words "death by chocolate" in name.
8. Whipped cream. Hold everything. Add a body to lick it off of.

-M

thefinn get serious...

I don’t play around when it comes to dessert. Even after a big meal, I always make sure to save a little room for the good stuff. You might even say it’s my favorite course. Ice cream always goes over big, as does damn near anything with chocolate in it. But I have a list of three things that no “holiday” dinner should be without.

I – Chocolate Pie. Whether it be Mom’s (with pudding made in an iron skillet, a freshly baked crust and a tub of Cool Whip) or something I grabbed from the diner on the way home (twelve inches high and twelve inches across), Chocolate Pie is an absolute must. Cold, creamy and just a little bit dark and perfect with a cup o’ joe.

II – Chocolate Chip Cookie. There are two kinds of chocolate chip cookies. The right kind and the kind that are nastier than licking the Devil’s ass… When the cookies are done right, they’re still a little warm and buttery, the chocolate is soft, but not runny and the dough is just barely cooked. When they’re hard and crunchy, they’re right out. It may be a cookie, (and some cookie is better that no cookie), but no cookie is better than a hard, nasty one.

III – Termini’s Cannoli. Notice how I didn’t say “cannoli”. These are not your garden variety cannoli. These are your Grandmother’s cannoli, if she was the greatest fucking pastry chef that ever lived. Crunchy and crispy shells made from fried pasta and a filling made of sweetened ricotta. I honestly can’t tell you what the guys at Termini’s add that the other guys don’t, but I can tell you that every year around the holidays, they have a line that stretches down the block from open to close. They sell thousands of cannoli a day right before any festive occasion and an hour or two in line is a small price to pay for something that good.

-finn

turtle gets sneaky and paranoid

What can you say. It's that time of year and you know there is going to be dessert. I hate dessert. Well, that's not entirely true. I don't hate dessert, I hate the concept of it. The fucking rules drive me insane. The traditional bullshit. You have to eat this shit before you get to the good stuff. You have to endure a few more hours of family time to get some of that goodness.

There is always some old guy around too. Always wants his own pie or cake that no one has tasted since America hit the Industrial Revolution. I mean fuck, what the hell is mincemeat pie anyways?

I'll tell you what it is. It's an old trick used by people who want you to stay off their shit. When I used to order a pizza when I lived in band houses, I always got double anchovies on mine. No one ate that shit. This is the "stay off my shit" theory. You can see it in use anywhere. From hotels to restaurants to bowling alleys to pool halls. You can also see the "stay off my shit" theory in use on any globe you see. Ever wonder why Greenland is all ice and Iceland is nice and green? That's the "stay of my shit" theory.

So why bother with the bullshit?

Well, I don't. I don't need any one's dessert. I always bring my backup.

Hostess Brand Snack Cakes.

Shove a few of these in your pockets and be no ones slave to their dessert. Be your own person and eat the Hostess. Although this does toss some problems into the "stay off my shit" theory, I find a few well placed sneezes on your Hostess Brand Snack Cakes will generally keep about 90 percent of the people away from your dessert. Those other ten percent are usually kids and their taste buds have not yet been dulled because of over consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, so a well placed drop of Rooster Sauce tends to dramatically increase the number of crying babies who refused to stay off your shit and gives a gentle reminder that they need to stay off your shit.

So in the end, what did we learn?

A) The "stay off my shit" theory is still going strong today
B) Families are not worth sticking around for
C) Their desserts sometimes suck
D) It's fun to put hot sauce on your food to burn little kids mouths

- T

So those are our favorite holiday desserts and well anytime desserts. Pretty simple and easy. Although some of ours have some weird detailed theories in them, we would like to hear your favorite desserts.

So what are they?

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It

Ed note: Welcome to the new, weekend edition of FTTW. From now on, FTTW will publish 8 columns every weekday and leave you with four columns for the whole weekend - football, hockey and two fun-type items from the editors. Enjoy.

In a different world, Faster Than The World would be the website of choice for every web savvy intellectual who was looking for a good time. But how boring would that be ? It’s the different ideas and viewpoints that make the web so interesting and, while we try to be as diverse as possible, there’s a handful of websites that we don’t run that we love as well. Between the three of us, there’s probably a few hundred of them that we check every week. So we present, for your entertainment, a few of our favorites. We invite you to check them out tell us what you think. If you’ve got something better, interesting of just plain fun, let us know in the comments.

Michele's up first:

Play Infocom games online. That's right, nerds. Step right up and play some Zork. I spent many, many hours playing these games on my C64 back in the day and now I can waste away your hard earned tax dollars while playing these at work all day. Careful, you might be eaten by a grue.

Chucks Connection. Films where Chucks make an appearance. Details about who was wearing them and what scenes they appeared in. For the Chucks obsessive only. Because you needed to know that Pee Wee from Porky's wore white Chucks high tops.

Muscle Car Club- just so I can sit there and drool and dream about the stocked, 12 car garage I'll have when I win Lotto. I'm all about the 70 Chevelle SS, by the way. You listening, Santa?

Adult Swim. Do I need to explain why? I do? Then you aren't watching enough late night tv. Number 1 in the hood, G.

Also: We saw Borat last night and my god, was it funny. So there's something else you should check out if you haven't already.

thefinn's picks

Maybe it’s my unnatural obsession with Corey Doctorow’s writing. Maybe it’s because I still have copies of the first iteration of the BoingBoing magazine in a box, in the basement, because I can’t bear to let them go. Or maybe I’m just a big nerd who enjoys posts about governments gone bad, nifty sci-fi stories and Pastafarians.

My inner fourteen year old sometimes knows no bounds. It still giggles whenever someone says “boobies”, he still gets excited by the thought of fast cars and he loves to play video games. And 4 Color Rebellion definitely caters to the last. Up to the minute gaming news and innovative articles, delivered several times a day.

Where can I go, every day, to find insightful scientific questions, news about comic books, interesting photographs and body modification ? Strangely enough, you can get all that and more at Warren Ellis’ blog. It’s extremely well written, hugely entertaining and often disturbing.

It’s a rare thing when a couple of chuckleheads can make small fortune doing something that they love (I’m still looking for that “sit on the couch, read and drink coffee” job). It’s even more rare when those chuckleheads unleash their rabid fans on children’s hospitals and have them do good. The Child’s Play Charity started a few years ago by the fine gentlemen at Penny Arcade and it’s one of the best things I can think of to do with my money for the holidays.

Turtles picks

What am I into? Well, there's not a whole lot I'm not into at the moment. Or, maybe that's wrong. I'm really not too sure what would constitute a good pick for me might be a good pick for you.

But, what the hell. Here are few things I like. I guess.

Hidden Mickeys(pops)
I've been to Disneyland so many god damn times I feel like I should have some kind of Club 33 pass given to me for free. Seriously, I can't count how many times I have been told "I can't smoke here" by god damn Snow White. Anytime, any fucking person would come down to anywhere in California, no matter where I lived, they had to go to Disneyland with me. I mean, great, I did it too, but after awhile you start to figure some things out. Without the use of LSD, I would see that god damn mouse in shapes and stuff. Like built into the rides, cliffs, buildings, boats, everywhere. Just hidden. Little research and I found this site. So about 5 years ago, whenever I went to the Land of the Mouse and Del Taco, I would look for these guys.

It is really just a waste of time website that makes you think that even though you think your life may suck, at least you aren't looking for stupid mice around some theme park built for idiots and Canadians.... See how I snuck in my Pro-Mighty Ducks agenda in there to fuck with Deb, our Ice Hockey writer? I can do that cause I am an editor.

Turbojugend USA(pops)

Turbonegro

No big surprise here. I love these guys and always, well, not always have. They have put out a few stinkers, but they did put out Apocolypse Dudes which is one of the greatest rock and roll records of all time. Plus they talk funny. What's cool about this site is that it is a fan site and surprise, surprise, it is better then the official site which seems to change every, um, like three months. Surburban is the guy who runs it and he seems to know everyone who has any connection to this band from everywhere in the world.

And he is from somewhere in Arizona. They are from Norway.

Go figure.

Perkins(pops)

Hey, what can I say. I have to give them props for feeding me through the whole drive to New York. Seems every hotel in the midwest has a Perkins next to it. When my car broke down for three days, Perkins was there to help me out of it. Stick me in the smoking section and let me find where I was at on a map. It was kinda like homebase but with shitty food and a smoking zone. I like smoking zones. They make me feel special. Even thou I had never heard of Perkins before, I cherish them now. Still miss Del Taco, but I figure since their shitty tacos knocked about ten years off my life, I really don't think I'll be giving them a pick. Althou....3 soft tacos for 99 cents is kinda worth losing the last ten years of your life. I mean really, Del Taco was bad, but not as bad as I act like it was.

But Perkins was my beacon. When I found one, hungry or not, I would stop. It's always fun asking what state you are in, too. No matter what answer they gave, I always responded, "That's near Oregon, right?"

I think they got kinda tired of me when I stayed at one hotel for three days and ate there all the time. You could almost see the rolling off the eyes as they walked up to me asking why I was still in their town.

Good times. Good times.

Rooster Sauce, the Official Sauce of FTTW(pops)
Have I told you we are trying to sell out to Rooster Sauce? It's part of our marketing goal. I figure pretty soon we will be selling Rooster Sauce on our site along with T-Shirts. Sriracha goes great on everything. I've tried it on everything I was eating when a bottle of it was around. And it always worked. If you haven't tried this stuff yet, I strongly (is that a word?) urge you to go out and get a bottle of this stuff. It has a nice burn that cleans you out like piss thru a hot goat. Or goat piss thru a hot something.

hm....

Probably didn't make it sound to appetizing to you, did I.....

Well, it's good stuff and the more the better. It has so many chemicals in it, you could leave it out in the desert and a week later, it would still be fine. What's better is that it masks the flavor of less then appetizing foods. I hate scambled eggs, but somehow I can hold back my gag reflex and get the eggs down if enough of the rooster is put on it.

hm....

Probably didn't make it sound to appetizing to you, did I.....

Well, it's good stuff and to our friends at the Huy Fong Foods Company who read this post, feel free to email us at anytime. We are open to negotiations.

So those are them. I have no idea why we chose them. I guess we had our own different reasons, but meh, what the hell. Most of the sites we go on alot are pretty well known. If I had my way, I would still put Badger Badger Badger in, but you have all seen that a million times and you all know that it does finally end.

And what an ending!

But, like we said, these are ours.

You into anything cool nowadays?

Posted by Michele Christopher at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | Del.icio.us It | Fark It | Digg It