Tuesday, February 9, 2010
He didn’t get the “American Gangster” soundtrack, but wrote a record anyway. On Sunday, Jay-Z likely missed out on halftime to The Who, but sang a joint anyways. Why not? I would have been more into a classics set from UNLV, but it might be a better idea to save that kind of forward-thinking for a Patriots-Buccaneers Superbowl.
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Friday, February 5, 2010
Our good friend Josh Feola, from Seravia, helps out with some heavy lifting as we try and get ourselves incorporated.
Science marches on to increasingly meta and postmodern frontiers. This week a few lazy chemists created self-stirring liquids. Meanwhile, a Japanese physicist with a higher ambition to laziness set the ball rolling on the one thing besides flying cars that we all thought would have arrived by this millennium: teleportation. Actually, his achievement (which if I understand correctly is basically just an idea I’ve also heard explained by the wisdom cube) is more philosophy than physics. Basically, you have these theoretical particles floating around the universe, that you measure somehow, and then “the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system …. [and] by carefully choosing the measurement to do on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy.” Dude. If we continue at this rate we may soon surpass plants in quantum efficiency.
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Thursday, February 4, 2010
Back for more, are you? Wielding our camera like a rusty machete, we crudely bushwhack further into L.L. Bean’s hunting section to bring you photographic evidence of some very special products. Dog boots, magnum honkers, and a cornucopia of wild animal scents. I bet this girl’s mom is on Bean’s mailing list … where else is she going to find shit to stuff Wolfie’s stocking with for Christmas? We’ve also captured some historical images from the company’s 1912 Cafe. But you don’t have to go back in time to find a good pair of boots — Bean’s Freeport store is open 24/7, no kidding, and they still make ‘em like they used to.1
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Wednesday, February 3, 2010
click for slideshow
You know how it is when you’re home, for the holidays, and you just need to get the fuck out of the house?
Welcome to Freeport, Maine, famous for its outlet shopping and being home to the great American outdoor wear and boot manufacturer, L.L. Bean. Freeport is a coastal town in Southern Maine, though its retail center, bisected by Route 1, is not oriented on the waterfront. It is home to the world’s tallest Native American (pictured above) and Joan Benoit Samuelson, the Olympic marathon champion. There is an area of land protected by the Audubon Society called the Mast Landing Bird Sanctuary located just one mile east of downtown Freeport. The preserve is oddly juxtaposed with L.L. Bean, who sells everything you or your dog would ever need to trap, confuse, or assassinate any type of foul that might even consider sticking their beak in Mast Landing. I don’t know why you’d want to do that, though, so just take it easy, man.
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Wrecking Crew, meddling with metal
The many lives of Celtic Frost’s “Dethroned Emperor” riff
I’ll always remember the day I walked into my best friend Tom’s room about a decade ago, and he held up an album called Balance of Terror. He looked at me with an excited glance and said, “Dude … just listen”. He put the needle on the record, and the next minute was pure bliss in the form of ridiculous, ignorant, hard riffing. It was a harder intro than anything I’d ever heard. It sounded like it was written specifically to blow up your mind, to rile up your senses and get your body to fill up with adrenaline, forcing you to go outside and punch someone in the face for doing you wrong. It was “Why Must They” by Wrecking Crew, Boston’s late-80s answer to Agnostic Front. I had never heard the band, but right then and there I knew I’d never forget them.
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Monday, February 1, 2010
To the list of things I have in common with Jimmy Rollins, one may add the fact that, Saturday last, we were both of us on Grand Cayman’s Seven Mile Beach: he at the Ritz Carlton, on the occasion of his wedding; I at the nearby Ocean Club, trying, vainly, to my and my dad’s chagrin, to convince the bartender to make me a milkshake. I didn’t come to know of this coincidence until two days later, when, while seated in the holding area adjacent to GCM departure gate 3, waiting to board a Charlotte-bound USAIR flight, there occurred the following:
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Friday, January 29, 2010
Hey, 48 hour party people (because we all strive to go harder, don’t we?), here’s what went down this week on the Web:
Famous People Category: Fever Ray won an award and gave maybe the best acceptance speech ever, “grotesque fancy”, post-next lev, etc. DJ Drama once taunted: “WE GOIN’ AVATAR ON THESE BITCHES……BIGGEST MOVIE EVER!” What he said came true. Pitcher Bill “The Spaceman” Lee, one of Major League Baseball’s freest spirits, weighed in on Andre Dawson’s controversial HOF selection and supplies us with the best quote of the month: “I was really the only commie on the team. They’re all entrepreneurs, capitalists now.”
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
Andre Dawson, but no other player, was elected to the Hall of Fame in January, and it was announced today he’d go in as an Expo. I was disappointed Roberto Alomar, the overarching athlete of my youth, was not elected, but Dawson’s election and the franchise’s attendant publicity has been pleasant. The week of the election, Tyler Kepner of The New York Times wrote an excellent article about the Expos, a great but difficult read. It has been difficult to look back on the Expos. Dawson stated today he didn’t want to be remembered as one. Indeed, almost everything that went wrong did:
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Jonathan Lee Riches is a federal prisoner nearing the end of a sentence for wire fraud in a medical facility in Kentucky. Along with a nod from Guinness as the world’s most litigious man, he is in possession of what we call a beautiful mind. In his fourth letter to us, Riches begins to open up about his life and quotes Method Man.
Nov 1, 2009
Owen,
Responding back.
Again, sorry this is unorganized. My attention is focused in this Drug Program. I had to write a one page report on why I had expired Honey Buns in my locker from 2006. I tried to explain that I hoard food, because you never know if we will get a nuclear attack and rationing food would be survival. I saw the movie “Empire of the Sun,” and the boy was in search of food in his home.
I remember the Nintendo game Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! If you want the code to get to fight Mike Tyson it’s 007 373 5963. I also remember my ninth grade locker combination: 16-31-6. So if you need something just let me know.
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Last Tuesday, Martha Coakley, she of the wooden personality and Curt Schilling mix-up, lost a special election for Ted Kennedy’s vacated Senate seat to Republican Scott Brown, ending Massachusetts’ 30-year run of sending two Democrat senators to Washington. The loss has been roundly rejected as a disaster, but the Commonwealth has known plenty of Republican governors. There is a strong Catholic base there, and, simply put, not everyone in the state is a liberal. The election was called a referendum on health care, but with Massachusetts boasting the most progressive system in the states, it’s hard to say whether this was the case. The New York Times breaks things down in a graphic. We spoke to some citizens,1 asking them their opinion.
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Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Xuxa (above, left) is best known as the children’s show performer in Brazil. Generations of South American children grew up watching her shows and listening to her records, though she never really did well in North America. Unlike most children’s show hosts, she posed for Playboy in 1982, dated Pele and Ayrton Senna, the F-1 racer, and allegedly had sex with a kid in a movie. She is everywhere in Brazil and is worth over a quarter of a billion dollars. She was spotted in Brazil hawking beverages both healthy and non-, knowingly and unknowingly:
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Friday, January 15, 2010
How’s everyone doing? Hope you didn’t terribly mind the absence, we were just preparing for the new (now released) Cam’ron mixtape. You know, re-painting the house, installing new wainscoting, ordering new ponytails, stuff like that. I treated it like we were having guests over. But we are back, in earnest, and next week will bring (moderately) full content. So let’s get to the best of the rest of the ‘net.
The greatest tweet ever? A: Yes.
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Jay Schroeder is a regular contributor to Trumbull, and had things to say about Google in his last go-round. Funny enough, The New York Times is leading its technology page with a story on the Google phone. If you want to argue with him, he can be contacted by e-mail and Twitter.
Throughout history, some of the strongest alliances have been forged by those with little in common but a common enemy. Do you think Hitler was down with the Japanese? I doubt it. But he worked with them. Do you think the owners in baseball all get along? Nope. But none of them liked Barry Bonds, once he broke the record, and he sat. And so it is with alliances in the Valley.
Google has been making some new enemies for itself lately, with expansions into things beyond the Internet search. Google Chrome (the browser) and Google Chrome OS (coming this year for netbooks) put a lot of pressure on the Mozilla people, who make the Firefox browser. And with the new Android OS, Google isn’t making any friends with Apple, Microsoft, or Palm. (But Palm won’t matter soon, they’ll be bankrupt.) And of course, Google has its enemies in the search world, mostly Yahoo. I’m going to focus on Yahoo and Mozilla, and suggest how they might be able to succeed against the formidable offerings of Google.
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Monday, January 4, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
These appear to be the final year-end lists, but for some stragglers. I’d like to give a gracious thank you to the writers here who submitted their lists early or on time. We didn’t forget about you, you’re just anchoring the joint. I hope everyone enjoyed reading and got turned on to new (old) bands, records, sporting events, snacks, what have you. Of course, if something on these lists does not come with a hyperlink, google the boy. It can’t hurt. Thanks again, everyone. Happy new year!
(Continued)
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Thursday, December 31, 2009
Yet more lists. Deep thanks to everyone who contributed. Hope everyone has been into them so far! They are winding down.
(Continued)
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Here are more lists. And more are on the way! I just saw the Cro-Mags and they were great. Happy New Year!
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
And we are back with more best of the year whatsis. The below lists are submitted by people we are proud to call our friends. It is them we call crew. Enjoy!
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Monday, December 28, 2009
Below are the first of many lists breaking down the best stuff from this year and the decade. Ten years, during which we were blessed with an Uppercut reunion, the demystification of skinheads, the growth and shucking of ponytails, hamburgers with five burgers on them, and a couple of Gauze LPs. The below lists are from our friends who have written for the site this year. If we didn’t already thank them privately, or with taco-grams, we’d like to, here, profusely. Thanks for writing, and thanks for writing these lists. If it wasn’t for you all, our readers/reprobates would probably be reading something about baseball right now. Or the Clippers. Or Uppercut. Anyways, hope you (readers) like the lists! Stay tuned this week for many more, including one from Ian Larrabee. Thanks for reading! And Happy New Year!
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Friday, December 25, 2009
This season means different things to different people. For me, a Canadian transplant living in New York, I mostly just miss Boxing Day. Today is Christmas, which I don’t celebrate, though I do celebrate its arrival and the opportunity to listen to my favorite holiday poem, “Twas the Night Before Christmas, Philly Style,” by Henry Livingston Jr. and Roy Ziegler.
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
You are not a game changer. I can say that without knowing anything about you, and I will be right billions of times, and wrong only a handful. When I think of game changers, I think of Michael Jordan. Basketball and the NBA are completely different now than they were before he arrived. That said, when Jordan tried his hands at baseball, things changed not so much.1 So when the Internet collectively shit their pants a bit over a week ago over this supposed “game changing” phone, I responded with a *snort*.
Has Google changed the game of the Internet, or the Internet search, or anything? You could argue both sides. People were searching ably before, and of course, they still search now. Current search are a whole lot better and more accurate than they were before Google’s arrival. One can argue that they’ve created an ecosystem in which all are welcome to participate, what with gmail, Google Docs, and a list that goes on. So if you want to call Google a game changer with respect to the Internet, I can spot you that one.
But that’s where it ends.
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Monday, December 21, 2009
I apologize for only getting to this now, but the pile of mail on my drafting desk is both impressive and beckoning. Well, mostly beckoning. It might be impressive to you, though. Anyways, I was going through my personal video recorder (as in, we were playing tackle football, and I lined up in the slot, took the pass and barreled through the young fellow who personally records my videos), and he (Phil) mentioned a going-on in the Association he thought I might be interested in. To be sure, I haven’t watched much basketball since Penny Hardaway‘s second retirement, but Phil was bleeding, so I humored him.
After some hot toddys and an organic chicken burrito, I rolled Phil into the chamber and let him set up the video. Here it is. Jarrett Jack, who I went to boarding school with (though I didn’t know him personally), was playing point for the mighty Toronto Raptors, in relief of the efficient Jose Calderon. Facing the Bulls on Dec. 5, Jack moves the ball upcourt, and as the offense sets, he bends down and ties his shoelaces. Not sure why he did this. The other four move around but nothing happens. The play then stops. Jack had nine assists and a +/- of +13, but this play was confusing.
But then, we know the rumors that allege that Jack came to Toronto to keep his best friend Chris Bosh happy and keep him from leaving the Raptors, like so many have in the past. Maybe he can do whatever he wants?
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Friday, December 18, 2009
Gucci Mane, now behind bars, is no longer coasting on reputation garnered from “So Icey.” Still, the heir apparent to Juvenile has put out a good record — albeit less a 400 Degreez than a G-Code. The albums’ respective production both share an in-house feel. Juvenile, and I have no way of confirming this, received the best of Mannie Fresh’s beats during his Cash Money tenure. (400 Degreez was as much a debut record for the label’s in-house producer as it was for the rapper, or even the label.1) I feel like the same goes for Gucci and Zaytoven. Our esteemed contributor AJ calls attention the signature producer’s subdued presence on the record, and while I can’t argue with facts, I don’t think it makes for an unrepresentative listening experience. This sounds like a Gucci record — or, more specifically, it sounds like a an album version of a Gucci mixtape.2
For all the money behind the album — Scott Storch, and yes, Mannie Fresh, chip in on some of the 19 other, non-Zaytoven tracks on TSvRD — Gucci’s bubbly and effortless rhymes flourish unrestrained and quite close in subject matter and style to the stuff on the mixtapes. Gucci’s free and easy routines are represented as well here as anywhere, better than could have been expected. Indeed, this is no average rapper. The lights are shining bright, and there are more distractions when making a proper record for a proper label, but you couldn’t guess it from listening.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
I confess that I didn’t become properly acquainted with Gucci Mane until early 2006. I was at the mall, buying work clothes, and during a quick detour to HMV I happened upon the Trap House CD. I further confess that at the time I took little more than momentary interest in what I saw. I did recognize Mane’s gold frames and Andruw Jones jersey from the previous year’s “Icey” video — which I had only half seen only one time, at a friend’s house in Massachusetts (he had MTV Jams; Canada, you understand, has former-East-Bloc-grade rap radio and music-video stations), and which I, along with many others, had blithely assumed was a Jeezy track — and I do remember thinking to myself that Gucci Mane was the best of all possible names for a Southern rapper (probably for any rapper, period). But as for the CD itself, well, the iconography, the song titles, the vibe of the thing seemed to be of a moment that was either passing or already in the past. I remember feeling a vague and fleeting pang of pity for him: “His name is pitch-perfect and he looks totally cool on the cover of his album, but by next year he’ll be as well-remembered as Mystikal.” People remember Mystikal, of course, but mainly in terms of squandered momentum and unrealized potential.
It bears pointing out that I was thinking these thoughts in the immediate aftermath of 2005 – the year of “Mic Check,” of “Draped Up,” of “And Then What“; the year of “Fireman” and Wayne’s verse in Paul Wall’s “March & Step,” of We Got it For Cheap Vol. 2, and of, it has to be said, Late Registration; the year of “Stay Fly” and of good old Pitchfork bending the rules such that December 2004’s Purple Haze could occupy #9 on their year-end top 50. My personal 2005 ended at a New Year’s Eve house party in Toronto at which not one but two of the male guests were clad in Juicy J’s green-ghoul all-over-print T-shirt. It had been a monumental year for a type of rap that hadn’t yet been condescendingly saddled with the putatively affectionate but actually dismissive label of “ignorant.” But from where I stood, on that February morning in that record store, mere weeks before Three 6’s spot-blowing, era-ending Oscar win, I believed, in the sweeping, self-satisfied manner of a dilettante attempting to stake an intellectual claim on something he’s only recently discovered and thus doesn’t understand,1 that a critical backlash against materialistic bounce music was imminent (it was) and that, ipso facto, I was taking my first and last look at an also-ran, a bit player, a never-was (I was not).
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Fact: My friend Danny and I were stuck on a yacht.
Fact: We had a machine gun with a case of 10,000 bullets.
Fact: We only ate what we killed with the machine gun.
Fact: We only listened to Gucci Mane’s The State vs. Radric Davis.
Note: For the purpose of this review, all “Interlude: Toilet Boy Shawty” tracks will not be reviewed.
Track One: “Classical”
I think we killed and ate three salmon when we listened to this song. I’m not sure if they were salmon. They kind of looked like the fish in this picture. We didn’t kill a lot of fish when we listened to this song because it was early in the morning and we had just woken up. For the majority of this song my friend Danny shot the machine gun in the air. It ruined the setting, but we laughed anyway. The water was very calm in the morning.
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Monday, December 14, 2009
Patience is a virtue rarely rewarded. Instant fixes and satisfactions come and go. But we’ve been patient with Gucci since the beginning. “So Icey” was the first video I saw when I got off the plane and arrived in the United States for good. His songs would come in and out over the years, improving and fading away. Time passed, and all of a sudden, Gucci came back, and then left again and then came back. But his stream of mixtapes, guest appearances and videos this year was sumptuous, hinting at — indeed, showing — an absolutely ridiculous world of constant fun. It’s been five long years, but The State vs. Radric Davis, Gucci’s proper studio album, dropped Tuesday. Gucci Week is here. There is too much happening on this record to leave it to one reviewer, so we’ve enlisted several. Take it away AJ.
⁂
Gucci Mane La Flare was released from his most recent prison stint sometime in Spring 2009, and from that point on just owned the rest of the year.
Writing On The Wall, Gangsta Grillz: The Movie Part 2 (and then Part 3), guest verses on Mario’s “Break Up,” Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed,” Cold War mixtapes (three of them), and Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow.” Gucci was now signed to a major label (Warner Brothers) and finally, last week, we were blessed with a major label record that had the money invested in it that you would expect from a major label. Polow Da Don (probably not cheap, post-Fergie), Usher (never cheap), Keyshia Cole (I guess that hit with Diddy was a minute ago now?), Lil Wayne, Bun-B.
This is the treatment I hoped Boosie was gonna get this year on SuperBad, but didn’t.
Honestly, the record is about 100% of what you would expect with this much money behind it. Some of what makes Gucci so great has gotten lost a little, but many dudes who aren’t able to wade through D.J. drops and “pass the Grey Poupon” skits will be able to finally get on board.
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Welcome back, not sure what you all have been doing this week but we got some surfing in between other appointments. Collected here is our best of the rest of the Internet.
For an avowed eBay junkie like myself, this could be an excellent pickup. But this booklet is more about successfully incorporating The Machine into a life than it is about successfully taking on Edward Bay. Pros, stay away. Rookies and art lovers, enjoy. I also recommend the blog, which has been a bit furniture heavy for my tastes lately, but hey.
Readers of Guy Debord would agree that this might be the only cool museum out there. Actually, I think most everyone might agree that it’s the museum’s finest hour. That said, I went to this joint earlier today with a couple heads, and it was swarming with superbabes and wanna-be homeless looking post-skinheads. Good look? You decide.
Ohio. A Trumbull man (the county sheriff) will be the first to witness America’s untested new one-drug method of lethal injection when “dead man walking” Kenneth Biros receives a custom dose of thiopental sodium for the 1991 crime of dismantling a woman. Elsewhere in our sector, a woman was sentenced, fined, and barred from ever owning another animal on account of her neglect for 11 horses, a goat, a calf, three chickens and three guinea fowl. “We just don’t tolerate this kind of shit in Trumbull County.” — Us.
Trumbull Rideshare: Get your freak on.
Back to more familiar ground, former NBA center Luc Longley, whose career highlight until now was being traded for the draft pick used on Ron Artest, has made a name for himself outside basketball circles. The 7’2 Australian bought naming rights to a shrimp species on eBay. He joins in immortality the Simpsons writer George Meyer, whose daughter is the namesake of a Sri Lankan frog species. Meyer, however, did not pay for the honor — his daughter was presumably granted it out of respect for her father’s pizza centrifuge jokes. (Link is courtesy of contributor and all-around intellectual Josh Feola.)
It’s winter now, but it’s never too early to start planning your (hopefully carefully disheveled) spring wardrobe. There are some nice spring joints here and here.
Finally, we’d like to take this space to announce that GUCCI WEEK begins Monday. So break out your bandanas, it’s about to get icy in here.
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
D.C.’s Wale has been poised to be the next big thing for a while. From XXL Mag’s stamp of approval very early in his career,1 to the “W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.” single that displayed his party-rockin’ abilities, to the brilliant [The] Mixtape About Nothing, which introduced listeners to Wale’s theme of tackling racism in contemporary America, and juxtaposed Michael Richards’ infamous tirade against the “Seinfeld” theme.
At the moment, Wale is touring with Jay-Z. Before that, Wale played bandleader at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, and has recently released his highly anticipated debut studio album, Attention Deficit. The album doesn’t follow the usual criteria of major rap debuts, but it does suffer from some of the usual pitfalls.
Wale has enlisted some atypical producers for a rap record, UK producer Mark Ronson, relative unknowns Best Kept Secret, and TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek (who puts forth some of the album’s best sounds). The record also features some usual suspects like The Neptunes and DJ Green Lantern. Guest spots include everyone’s guilty pleasure Lady Gaga, as well as Bun B., and house favorite Gucci Mane.
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009
On Monday night, esteemed colleague and damn-near legend Mark Ryan celebrated his birthday at Motor City, one of our favorite watering holes. Fêted yesterday, we thought why not keep the party going by posting our now year-old interview with the man. Ryan, who grew up in New Jersey and spent a good chunk of his teenage years in the Lower East Side, sang for (in order) Death Before Dishonor, Supertouch, Steady Roosevelt and currently, Foreign Islands.
Mark, 15
What’s your favorite Bad Brains story?
I don’t know. Probably every single time I saw them in the early ’80s. Life-changing to say the least. We actually played with them in the mid-80s. Jimmy G. from Murphy’s Law hooked us up with the show — I still thank him. I fucking lost it [You lost it? — Ed.]. I was bouncing off the fucking walls. They were the one band i didn’t want to meet though, I was pretty intimidated, I mean how could you not be? But years later, Mackie and Chippy Love [who's this old boy? He sounds cool — Ed.] told me they were gassing me up at the show. I was rocking some crazy gear that show, I think. Georgetown Starter jacket, full Le Coq Sportif tracksuit, and probably Adidas Ewings or orange Spot Bilts or something.1
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