No More Parents!

Christmas Time Is Here

2007-12-14T12:25:00.000-05:00

anyone who knows me knows that i love christmas. i LOVE christmas. i fucking love it.

so you better believe i'm gonna blog about it. below you'll find everything you need to make this christmas better than last christmas (or at the very least, better than "last christmas")

alright, let's get down to business. the first thing anyone needs to make the yuletide gay (yeah, i said it) is a collection of sweet tunes. one option for the christmas 2.0 generation is an internet radio station, and for this i'm gonna recommend b101 from philadelphia (thanks for the tip, libby). if u play for keeps, you can pick up a halfway decent christmas collection anywhere or virtually anywhere (internet!) this time of year. there is, however, one disc that rises above the others, if mostly in concept and album art:

home alone christmas. i guess this is a soundtrack of sorts to home alone, my favorite movie ever by far, but it's more of a materialization of everything the culkin christmas stands for. my only qualms (which, i should add are rendered completely irrelevant by the sweet hand painted album art) are the lack of "jingle bell rock," and the inclusion of tlc's unbelievably horrible version of "sleigh ride."

so now your home sounds like christmas but does it smell like christmas? if it smells closer to a combination of 32oz miller high life bottles and open ramen noodle flavor packets, this next one's for you.

santa scents. with six fragrances to choose from, you'll smell more like christmas than a nordstrom's floor manager. the website says that all the fragrances come from "highly concentrated extracts from the aromatic parts of herbs, flowers, trees, grains, spices and powders," which makes me a little curious where the "santa baby" scent comes from... scents also come in 3/4 oz. roll-on form, in case you want to make your private parts smell like mrs. c's cookies for the holidays. enjoy responsibly.

next on the list is santa claus. you cannot have christmas without santa. but how do you know you're getting the right santa? well, let me put your worries at ease, because such a santa has found me- or rather, my coworker sally. she was on a catalog press check in chicago and happened to be staying at a hotel next door to a santa convention. a SANTA CONVENTION. needless to say she received many a business card from an out-of-town santa that weekend, but one especially poorly designed card caught her attention enough to share with me...

...well we can't find the card itself anymore but here's the poorly designed website that recreates the experience as best it can.

as you can see, a real santa knows the real reason for the season: PRAYING. if praying ain't up your alley (and i'm jewish so i feel you there), just check out his credentials and you'll be convinced that it's a compromise you're wiling to bear:

Charter Member: Just Be Claus.Net
Member: Amalgamated Order Of Real Bearded Santas
Member: Santa America
President: Santa Claus & Company
Honors Graduate: Santa Claus University

he is an HONORS GRADUATE of SANTA CLAUS UNIVERSITY. you simply cannot get better than that. so book him for your fishing club's annual holiday gala and never look back. instead, look here: further santa investigation opens up an american subculture trumped only by furries and juggalos in absurdity/creepyness. there's website for the amalgamated order of real bearded santas, which does a decent job of reminding you that, "real bearded gentlemen always make the best santas. especially when they are wearing the appropriate vests."
delving further still, i hit the motherload- the aorbs FORUM. here you can talk about anything related to beards, santas, or bearded santas (it's creepy- there is a section solely dedicated ventriloquism, ok?) word of warning- once you start exploring the forum, you may find it very difficult to return to the normal world.

now, as i leave for the holidays, some of you may be thinking... christmas? but wasn't it just hanukkah? and isn't asher jewish? and why didn't he do a cartoon instead of this post? and what about kwanzaa? for those of you asking these questions, i'm not even going to bother answering them. MERRY CHRISTMAS.

You Know What This Is

2007-12-03T12:43:00.000-05:00

well it's december, and if you've ever been to the blogosphere before you know what that means: year end music lists. as much of a music geek as i am, even i am aware that these things are almost always more fun to make than to read, and more fun to argue about than to make, so if you don't enjoy this post, i'm sorry and you don't have to read it next year. lists are in countdown order to give the effect of intensely dramatic suspense. i'm leaving vampire weekend off of the album and song lists because their official album doesn't drop until january 29th (not that it stopped david byrne and grizzly bear from including them) but get that when you can because it's excellent. i should also mention that my two most listened to albums of the year, neko case's fox confessor brings the flood and nikaido kazumi's mata otoshi mashita yo, are not on here because they were released before 2007 and i was behind da times and just discovered them now. enjoy, and feel free to leave arguments in the comments if you feel like it. (note: list is frequently updated because i get bored at work and have no self control.)

top albums of 2007:

50. tenniscoats: tan tan therapy
49. jesca hoop: kismet
48. andre ethier: secondathallam
47. the hives: the black and white album
46. burial: untrue
45. amiina: kurr
44. bon iver: for emma, forever ago
43. art brut: it's a bit complicated
42. the white stripes: icky thump
41. les savy fav: let's stay friends
40. dan deacon: spiderman of the rings
39. justice: †
38. midnight juggernauts: dystopia
37. i'm not there original soundtrack
36. chromatics: night drive
35. st. vincent: marry me
34. spoon: gagagagaga
33. wilco: sky blue sky
32. map of africa: s/t
31. miracle fortress: five roses
30. the veils: nux vomica
29. menomena: friend and foe
28. david vandervelde: the moonstation house band
27. battles: mirrored
26. the new pornographers: challengers
25. blonde redhead: 23
24. paul duncan: above the trees
23. ghostface killah: the big doe rehab
22. black moth super rainbow: dandelion gum
21. dr. dog: we all belong
20. vieux farka toure: s/t
19. daft punk: alive 2007
18. bullion: pet sounds in the key of dee
17. jay-z: american gangster
16. studio: yearbook 1
15. jens lekman: night falls over kortedala
14. radiohead: in rainbows
13. celebration: the modern tribe
12. the national: boxer
11. arthur & yu: in camera
10. lil wayne: da drought 3
9. pharaohe monch: desire
8. feist: the reminder
7. white williams: smoke
6. cass mccombs: dropping the writ
5. dirty projectors: rise above
4. panda bear: person pitch
3. animal collective: strawberry jam
2. lcd soundsystem: sound of silver
1. mia: kala

top songs of 2007:

100. the 1900's: bring the good boys home
99. wu tang clan: the heart gently weeps
98. iron & wine: flightless bird, american mouth
97. mgmt: time to pretend
96. the bees: left foot stepdown
95. hot chip: my piano
94. !!!: must be the moon
93. neil young: the believer
92. the hives: you got it all wrong
91. modest mouse: steam engenious
90. architecture in helsinki: heart it races
89. the acorn: lullabye (mountain)
88. a sunny day in glasgow: 5:15 train
87. kanye west: good life
86. windmill: tokyo moon
85. gui boratto: beautiful life
84. dizzee rascal ft. lily allen: wanna be
83. simian mobile disco: i believe
82. deer tick: art isn't real
81. lucky soul: aint never been cool
80. miracle fortress: this thing about you
79. new buffalo: cheer me up thank you
78. lavender diamond: you broke my heart
77. cloud cult: chemicals collide
76. caribou: melody day
75. akron/family: don't be afraid, you're already dead
74. bjork: innocence
73. yeah yeah yeahs: down boy
72. andre ethier: don't let this mean old world swallow you
71. les savy fav: what would wolves do
70. the draytones: time
69. clap your hands say yeah: mama, won't you...
68. bon iver: skinny love
67. jesca hoop: seed of wonder
66. emily haines: bottom of the world
65. bonde do role: marina gasolina
64. handsome furs: hearts of iron
63. patrick wolf: accident & emergency
62. andrew bird: heretics
61. the arcade fire: my body is a cage
60. joanna newsom: colleen
59. yacht: see a penny (pick it up)
58. midnight juggernauts: roads to recovery
57. the clientele: isn't life strange
56. beirut: nantes
55. basia bulat: i was a daughter
54. map of africa: plastic surgery
53. deerhoof: matchbook seeks maniac
52. amiina: rugla
51. art brut: post soothing out
50. mum: marmalade fires
49. burial: archangel
48. the veils: calliope
47. st. vincent: landmines
46. chromatics: in the city
45. battles: atlas
44. ugk ft. outkast: int'l players anthem
43. spoon: don't you evah
42. black moth super rainbow: sun lips
41. alaska in winter: your red dress
40. studio: west side
39. dan deacon: the crystal cat
38. ghostface killah: we celebrate
37. super furry animals: run-away
36. jay-z: roc boys
35. wilco: impossible germany
34. dr. dog: alaska
33. paul duncan: the lake, pt. 2
32. vieux farka toure: dounia
31. asa irons & swaan miller: abacus
30. arctic monkeys: flourescent adolescent
29. the white stripes: a martyr for my love for you
28. arthur & yu: lion's mouth
27. lil wayne: dough is what i got
26. jens lekman: a postcard to nina
25. justice: dvno
24. the new pornographers: myriad harbour
23. radiohead: reckoner
22. the go! team: grip like a vice
21. blonde redhead: 23
20. david vandervelde: nothin' no
19. celebration: heartbreak
18. lil mama: lip gloss (party time 2000 remix)
17. santogold: shove it (kmf remix)
16. mark vida: homily
15. the national: fake empire
14. tenniscoats: oetsu to kanki no nanoriuta
13. pharaohe monch: desire
12. feist: i feel it all
11. yeasayer: 2080
10. menomena: muslce n' flo
9. cass mccombs: windfall
8. white williams: violator
7. panda bear: bros
6. dirty projectors: rise above
5. air france: beach party
4. animal collective: peacebone
3. lcd soundsystem: someone great
2. kid sister: pro nails
1. mia: paper planes (diplo street remix)

top eps of 2007:

10. beirut: lon gisland
9. joanna newsom: ys street band
8. junior boys: dead horse
7. sigur ros: heim/hvart
6. emily haines: what is free to a good home
5. grizzly bear: friend
4. vampire weekend: ep
3. kid sister: control/pro nails
2. santogold: i believe in santogold
1. air france: on trade winds

top shows of 2007:

10. the walkmen at avalon
9. menomena at the south street seaport
8. girl talk at studio b
7. animal collective at webster hall
6. mia at terminal 5
5. neko case at central park summerstage
4. vampire weekend at the music hall of williamsburg
3. dirty projectors at death by audio
2. kid sister at studio b
1. daft punk at keyspan park

Made For These Times

2007-11-14T10:44:00.000-05:00

hey i was going to write about something else today but i just discovered this on gorillavsbear and it was too good not to share. a british producer/dj named bullion has created an incredible work entitled "pet sounds in the key of dee." you clever ones may have already put together that this is a mash up of sorts (though once you hear it you'll agree that mash up is not an adequate description) of the beach boys' seminal album and pieces of late beatsmith j dilla/jay dee's entire body of work. the result is something pretty spectacular- not in competition with pet sounds or j dilla themselves but certainly greater than the sum of its parts. is it the new grey album? not really... it's not as tied to the original songs as danger mouse's work was to jay-z's, or as accessible, but artistically it's leaps and bounds above. if you are into the beach boys or j dilla or beats or interesting things, i cannot recommend this highly enough. alright i am going on and on when you should just hear the damn thing for yourself. this is my favorite track so far, but choosing one to rip out of the whole was not easy.

and by the way, THE WHOLE ALBUM IS FREE TO DOWNLOAD ON BULLION'S MYSPACE.
download that shit right away and make your day better than it was.

Videos All Over The Place

2007-11-12T17:59:00.000-05:00

yoyoyoyo, firstly, thanks to the channel 4 evening news, who showed my cartoon on the news for like 10 ridiculous seconds last week in a feature about internet productivity (or lack thereof) related to that lifehacker article. i cant get the video to embed on the blog so you'll have to watch it there if you care enough. who knew the channel 4 evening news even had a website, i assume they made it just so people could upload photos of their dogs in halloween costumes.

in other news, my boys vampire weekend just released their first music video, for the "mansard roof" single. congrats guys, i think it's great. just some dudes yachting on a saturday off the coast of new jersey, ain't nobody got a problem with that. also my cousin ezra is sporting some sweet shades that he may or may not have picked up during the motown portion of my bar mitzvah party ten and a half years ago. enjoy.

War Dance

2007-11-07T11:06:00.001-05:00

Hey people, sorry for being slow on the updates, but I got something a bit serious that means a lot to me and I want to share with you... I need you to see this movie, WAR DANCE, made by my family and friends. It is an amazing documentary about children living in Uganda. It's beautifully shot and really moving and involves a pretty excellent country-wide children's music competition. IT OPENS IN NYC AND LA THIS FRIDAY (NOV 9). THE OPENING WEEKEND IS CRITICAL TO THE SUCCESS OF THIS FILM, PLEASE PLEASE TRY TO SEE IT THIS WEEKEND. It's been making all kinds of oscar buzz-worthy news already:

18 film festival awards (check out all those golden leaf parentheses!) including the Directing Award at Sundance

“Heart-rending.”
-Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Striking. A hopeful message.”
-Anthony Breznican, USA Today

“Very moving.”
-Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

See the trailer and get more information at www.wardancethemovie.com

TO MY NEW YORK CHILDREN:
OPENING THIS FRIDAY, NOV.9 AT THE ANGELIKA AND LINCOLN PLAZA CINEMA

TO MY LOS ANGELES CHILDREN:
OPENING THIS FRIDAY, NOV.9 AT THE ROYAL THEATER

Again, please try to see the film this weekend. I and a lot of people I care about have been involved with it since the beginning, and it would mean a lot to me if you supported it. If you need more info let me know. I'm going Saturday night (probly to the Angelika) if you want to go on a date or whatever. And thanks a lot.

TO MY CHILDREN ELSEWHERE:
Future “War/Dance” Theatrical Run Release Dates

16-Nov —Pasadena—Playhouse 7

16-Nov —Washington—E Street Cinema

30-Nov —Boston—Kendall Square Cinema

30-Nov—Seattle—Varsity Theater

30-Nov—Philadelphia—Ritz Theater

14-Dec—San Francisco—Lumiere 3 Theater

14-Dec—Berkeley—Shattuck 10

14-Dec—Minneapolis—Lagoon

Boys Becoming Men, Men Becoming Wolves

2007-11-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

happy halloween everyone. yes, i forgot to write this yesterday... well actually i ate nothing but candy and doritos all day and had too much sugar in my system to keep my fingers steady on a keyboard. in the belated holiday spirit, however, here's the ghettotastic music video for "werewolf bar mitzvah," a joke from 30 Rock entirely conscious of the fact that it is being taken way too far. anyway, it's tracey morgan and a halloween jewish rap, so you can't really complain.

so how did you celebrate the pagan harvest of evil? as for me, i dressed as jared from kid nation, to which my boss replied, "you look like a slightly retarded 10-year-old," so i'd say it was a success. i watched the parade from a weird party in an office furniture showroom, and got there after they ran out of beer and pizza, so...yeah. the parade was ok, i thought it would be crazier and more impressive, but i did enjoy the 50-person thriller dance complete with a moonwalk duel between michael jackson and his evil twin.

When You Hear That

2007-10-23T11:55:00.001-05:00

in case you haven't heard the news, oink, your likely source for unreleased free music on the internet (whether you realize it or not) ended this morning in a very dramatic raid in amsterdam which may or may not have included the following: monster trucks, assault rifles, speedboat chases, night vision, scuba gear, nicholas cage, large animals, ninja robots, topless dancers, radiohead, and nazi mutants. if you don't know what oink is, you have nothing to worry about. if you had an oink account, well fingers crossed you will not end up in a mexican prison begging for seventy five cents so you can get a bottle of sprite for the week. and if you like free music that gets released early, shits gonna suck from now on. this calls for an emoticon... :(

Nobody Is Not Lovin' It

2007-10-21T08:38:00.000-05:00

advertising a fast food restaurant is hard. you have to constantly come up with new and exciting combinations of cheddar goo and rubbery mushrooms, you have to make sure that your happy meal toys don't suffocate the many dumbass children that will inevitably try to swallow them with their nuggets, and you have to basically live in the denial that you are not catering primarily to stoned college students at 3am. plus, when you run a classy place (or 30,000) like mcdonalds, you've got to make sure that your advertising is hitting every possible audience. so what do you do? you make custom websites for everyone- or at least "everyone" as is defined by the ethnicity identification survey at the beginning of the sat's. so let's throw some micky d's on this bitch and see how they're advertising to YOU:

ASIAN AMERICANS:
www.i-am-asian.com

you know right off the bat that something is wrong with the pr of the asian american community when i-am-asian.com leads to a mcdonalds website. regardless, you go to the site and you see that mcdonalds has created a mirror of your very own room, mr. asian american! but wait, how did mcdonalds know what your room looked like? how did they ever figure out that you, as an asian american, love lava lamps and video games? don't worry, they have plenty of authentic things too, like godzilla action figures, some year-of-the-pig thing, and enough paper cranes for a fourth grade classroom. also, they have a fun minigame involving the spiritual journey that every asian american must make at least once in his or her life- crossing a makeshift wooden bridge from the mcdonalds in hawaii to the mcdonalds in los angeles.

AFRICAN AMERICANS:
www.365black.com

from the intro line alone, you know that mcdonalds took absolutely no chances with the black community. i found this site by clicking the "havin' fun" category on the mcdonalds homepage, but as you can see, this site is the opposite of fun.

i dare you to look for a minigame.

LATINOS:
www.meencanta.com

parrots! fuzzy dice! ay yay yay! this website has so much latin flavor, it makes me want to run out and grab some taco bell. you've got soccer, graffiti, music, everything! plus they have some really awesome minigames involving these totally wacky characters:

this website is the polar opposite of 365black.com.

CHILDREN:
www.happymeal.com

say what you want, but nobody thinks more of the children than mcdonalds. games, coloring, social networking... there is so much fun 2.0 to be had on this site, you almost forget the friendly reminder ronald has left for you in the top right-hand corner:

WHITE PEOPLE:
basically anything that has the mcdonalds logo on it and hasn't already been covered in this post. but if you need to see the absolute whitest example it is definitely this:

HOMELESS/CRAZY PEOPLE:
.....huh? there's no advertising directed towards the homeless/crazy? but they are some of the most frequent visitors to mcdonalds! i guess we will have to change that.

MIA and Crabs

2007-10-19T11:46:00.000-05:00

Two things last night worth writing about:

1. mia christened the so-new-its-bathrooms-are-clean terminal 5 last night with a pretty awesome performance. the highlight was definitely the 100+ person rendition of bird flu on the stage- hearing the entire audience pretend in all seriousness to be chickens is just hilarious.

(picture credit)
also afrikan boy made his us debut, and the video art throughout was pretty much prefect- especially the scrolling mario clouds during paper planes. also i heard daft punk played a late-night dj set after everyone left... true?! terminal 5 as a venue itself is nice and big and fresh and clean but so far away from anything that unless a really awesome show was going on there, i'd say it's not worth the long trip home.

2. on the retardedly long walk back to civilization, i discovered that lays has a new flavor of chips called crab spice. CRAB SPICE.

CRAB SPICE.

so obviously i had to get it. i said to my friend, "hey, it kind of tastes like crabs!" to which he replied, "it tastes a little like crabs if you eat ten at once and think really really hard about eating crabs." and then i realized he was right. it's basically half salt and vinegar and half barbecue seasoning- not bad but NOT CRABS. not that i like crabs so much, but still, if you're going to risk freaking out your audience by putting a fucking sea creature on your packaging, you might as well go all out.

Lifehackerz

2007-10-18T11:11:00.000-05:00

big thanks to the folks at lifehacker for giving me some unexpected publicity yesterday- it's weird to be reading a blog and suddenly come across a drawing you did three years ago, but that's the wacky internet for you...

anyways, since they linked me, i'm gonna link them, and we're all gonna link each other. read the article, it's actually a very useful guide on how to keep yourself from getting distracted on the internet (which, if you're reading this blog, is a problem you definitely have).

more writing on the way... hope at least some of you are having fun at cmj this week.

and also there's a new comic up.

With the Beatles

2007-10-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

i'm not done with my big post, but the beatles (or more specifically, their music) have been popping up more than once during my week in notable ways so i figured i might as well write about it.

firstly, i saw across the universe, mostly because i was with my parents at the time and they dragged me to it, and because a friend of mine had a small role in it. regardless, i can safely say that it was one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my entire life. it was like a comic book version of the sixties combined with a vh1 countdown of the twenty cheesiest music videos of all time. julie taymor accomplished what i thought was an impossible feat—making the beatles seem uncool. the point where i would have walked out if i had come in my own car was a scene in which a girl named prudence locks herself in a room and then her friends sing "dear prudence" to get her to, uh, come out and play, and then when she opens the door everyone is standing in a room with cgi clouds painted over the walls lisa frank style:

so really, don't see that movie.

secondly, i came across a new work by artist steve mclaughlin called "run for your life," in which he compressed all of the beatles' uk lp's by 800% to fit into one hour-long mp3. i wasn't able to listen to too much of it before getting a headache, but it's kind of cool when you're able to figure what song is actually playing (i caught on towards the end of revolver). here it is:

steve mclaughlin- run for your life

some fans of the work went in and decompressed some of the songs back to their original tempo to produce some seriously bizarre reconstructions of the originals:

julia
revolution
and my favorite, i will

even though it's easy to write this off as someone with too much free time on their hands, and i will probably never have the willpower to listen to these again, i really like the idea of taking something as ubiquitous and influential as the beatles' catalogue and distorting it to the point where its original intentions are lost. it makes you wonder if there's a certain transcendent quality to the music itself (or any work of art, for that matter) that holds up regardless of its manipulation. also, the project instantly brought to mind one of my favorite works of graphic art ever, by the design firm Foundation 33. they took the lyrics of every beatles song and typed them out in chronological order, creating one massive body of text. i think the point is basically the same, but the experience of seeing the beatles' entire body of work as one concrete visual entity is even more thought provoking to me.

on the Foundation 33 website, they even have all the lyrics as selectable, copy-able, cut-able, paste-able text, so you can have your own conceptual fun...

In the Meantime

2007-10-10T09:50:00.000-05:00

sorry for no updates y'all...and sorry for writing "y'all" back there- i was researching some vacation for a few days up in vermont, where foliage is apparently more important than food and water. anyway, i've got one of those big ridiculous posts on the way, but i need some more time on it when i'm not at work. so in the meantime, if you haven't heard the new radiohead i think it's pretty good but probably not their best but not really disappointing and this is my favorite so enjoy:

Radiohead: Reckoner

and if you need one more thing to keep you going how about justice's d.a.n.c.e. performed by imitations of everyone in the world that you hate to love (that would be michael jackson, prince, rod stewart, and rick james.)

Play-doh

2007-10-05T11:15:00.000-05:00

first it was balls bouncing to "heartbeats", then paint terrorism and now this:

somebody at sony has got quite the imagination. even though 90% of the art i do is on the computer, i'm really happy that there's been a bit of a resurgence of real-world special effects. while i'm sure there are many many artists responsible for this (including frank budgen, the director of this ad), the one that obviously comes to mind first and foremost is michel gondry. though he is probably best known for eternal sunshine, the lego white stripes video, and the incredible music video for daft punk's "around the world," my favorite effect he ever did was in the video for "deadweight" by beck. it involves shoes that look like they're walking one step in front of beck wherever he goes (check in at 3:47 in the video for the trick).

the genius of the trick is in its simplicity- in an interview, gondry explained that all he did was tie the shoes to beck's toes with fishing line and have him walk backwards down the block dragging them, and then played the clip in reverse. he also said that he got the beck video gig (one of his big breaks early on) by sending a home movie of him doing just this effect.

Hulkamania at Webster Hall

2007-10-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

just to keep you up to speed on your favorite wrestler/rapper/balladeer , this went down at webster hall last night, in between sets by pissed jeans, celebration and man man. the two dudes spreading the hulkamania are comedian jonah ray and fat-dude-who-likes-man-man darren mabee. things get rowdy pretty fast... but then again, this is hulkamania we are talking about.

i hope everyone in the audience understood that this was a dying child they were singing about.

I Need Your Wit Bitches

2007-10-04T14:27:00.000-05:00

for reasons even i don't understand, i have been named the captain of my yet-to-be created 6-person soccer team for a nyc coed league. my current and hopefully sole responsibility is coming up with a team name. sounds easier than it is. the best i have so far is the New York HOLLAcaust (thinks tim). offensive? nah, my bubby's a survivor so i do what i want...

still, my future teammates may not go for it, so i need some backups. leave some suggestions in the comments, and i'll be oh so thankful. and try to keep it clean, though i doubt you'll do worse than hollacaust...

Oreo Pizza: The Verdict

2007-10-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

alright, i let my curiosities get the best of me last night and had to order the oreo pizza. after what i'm sure has been a riveting week of anticipation, all your questions about it will now be answered...

first of all, the oreo pizza is not very good. that's not to say that it doesn't taste ok and sound awesome, but combining oreos and pizza is like combining ice cream and pie- there should be no possible chance for failure. and yet, something's amiss.

the main problem is definitely the crust. there are so many ways this could have worked better- a graham cracker crust, a sugar/cinnamon crust, an oreo crust, hell even a pizza crust would have been ok. instead they created some kind of thin chewy tortilla thing that is not unlike the time when i accidentally cooked digiorno pizza in my oven with the cardboard packaging still attached to the bottom.

the other big problem, i am surprised to say, is that there are just too many damn oreos on the thing. everyone assumes that they could eat an endless amount of oreos, but the human brain simply cannot handle it. on top of that, the oreos are warm and thus substantially mushy, so it kind of tastes like you are eating cookies that somebody else has chewed up and spat out onto a shitty crust. on top of that, there's all this white icing marshmallow goop that tastes ok but looks more than a little gross.

final thoughts:
like oasis, y2k, john kerry, lindsay lohan and kid nation, the oreo pizza has been thrust upon it the responsibility of altering the path of our civilization, and has ultimately failed to deliver (pun intended, you jerks at dominos). perhaps we as human beings are not ready for the oreo pizza. or perhaps they should have just made it not suck.

All Tyrants and Chickens Fall

2007-10-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

yeah, that's right, kid nation. no matter how boring it is i'm not over it yet.
just to catch up, here's what happened in episode two:

they killed mad chickens.

i think there was a challenge and prizes and some cheering, but i wasn't really giving it my undivided attention. i did, however, catch the craziest line on television i have heard in a long time. it came after 95% of the kids decided they couldn't live for more than four days without chicken soup, and the other five percent freaked out and locked themselves in the chicken coop to protest. surprisingly, cbs knew exactly how ridiculous this girl in the green jacket's question was, and subtitled it to make sure nobody missed this shit:

they don't show what happened next in the conversation, but i hope the chubby girl slapped her.

Most Ridiculous Daily News Headline of the Week So Far

2007-10-02T15:24:00.000-05:00

it took me like ten seconds just to figure out how to pronounce it, let alone understand what it was trying to say....

Welcome to the Future

2007-10-02T11:36:00.000-05:00

well, it's finally happened. oreo pizza.

i honestly don't know what to say, but the Southern Maryland Community Forum does.

should someone be blamed or thanked for the oreo pizza? is it going to divide nations or unite us as one people? does it taste mushy? HAS ANYONE TRIED THIS THING?

A/C and V/W Bring the Party to W/H

2007-10-02T09:18:00.000-05:00

spent my monday night at webster hall with Animal Collective and family n'friends Vampire Weekend, and they both killed. the sound was surprisingly good for a venue more attuned to four on the floor dance parties, perhaps because it was apparently so shitty the night before that a/c walked off the stage after an hour and never came back... anyway, the weekend continue to prove themselves to the masses, and the collective were in full force, bridging the gap from newbie "peacebone" (added to the crypod on the right) to oldie "leaf house" like they were from the same album. not to say that it couldn't have been better (the relentless strobe lights in the back often made the show overwhelming in a bad way, and i wanted much more panda bear), but complaining about a show like this only makes it more painfully obvious that i was in the vast minority of people who were sober enough to pay attention to those things. anyway, if you missed the show (and guests/royalty bjork and david byrne did not) you can catch an extremely recent one recorded in dc for npr's "all songs considered" streaming on their website.

oh and they had skeletons in tutus so no complaints there...

(picture credit)

Madd Rainbowz

2007-10-01T09:28:00.001-05:00

a lot of news in the world of rainbows this weekend... well two things but that's a lot in the world of rainbows.

firstly, who saw that insane rainbow friday evening that went from lincoln center to a possibly-metaphorical possibly-not pot of gold in the financial district? what was that about? here's a picture from my studio, where the rainbow was so big we couldn't even see the whole thing from our big ass windows.

secondly, radiohead radiohead radiohead. when one of the biggest bands in the world decides to, oh what the hell, release their first album in over four years (called in rainbows if you were still waiting for the segue) on no label whatsoever and with all the marketing power of a blog post ten days before the release, someone's going to pay attention.

i know the music industry is reacting to the internet shitting all over them in many different ways, but i've never heard of anything like this before. is it going to be remembered as the beginning of the end for the major labels (or any, for that matter)? and, more importantly, is thom yorke ever going to fix that lazy eye of his? only time will tell, but you can pick up your virtual copy of the album (with a cost of whatever you feel like. including free. really.) in the technicolor wonderland of a website they have going on. to tell you the truth, the payment system doesn't look like the most legitimate thing i've ever seen, but sources say it's all good.

Wes Anderson's Summer Vacation in India

2007-09-30T21:40:00.000-05:00

i saw darjeeling limited yesterday. out of a scale of 0-5 tweed jackets, i'd give it a solid 3.5. definitely one of wes anderson's more boring films to date, but boy did it look pretty. in the end, a disappointing wes anderson film is still better than 95% of the other films that come out over the year, and if there is ever an academy award for best perfomance by luggage in a feature film, it will most certainly win. thank marc jacobs and louis vuitton for this shit:

check it out in person at the louis vuitton store at 57th and 5th, and if you're feeling particularly rich you can bid on it and save all the children in the world (proceeds go to unicef). also, you can't mention a wes anderson film without also mentioning the soundtrack, which disappoints less than the film, especially since it includes "this time tomorrow" by the kinks (listen to the song in my brand new playlist on the right, or go to the film's website to listen to the whole soundtrack).

Dying is Fine

2007-09-28T16:45:00.000-05:00

Ra Ra Riot, my buddy wes' band, made a music video with nicholas gurewitch, excellent artist and creator of the very funny competition to my cartoon site, The Perry Bible Fellowship. below is the result. congrats to all involved, its charming. wes plays an orange-tinted zoologist quite convincingly. for a more long-winded explanation, go here.

A New Fragrance. And Some Waffle Fries. FOR FREE.

2007-09-28T14:21:00.000-05:00

i saw this ad on a website today:

stop me if you have proof to the contrary, but i'm pretty sure puffy diddy daddy combs' new fragrance was inspired by the unseen female character from the lovely piece of internet below. (by the way, if you haven't seen "unforgivable," and are easily offended, don't watch it and just deal with the fact that you wouldn't get the joke...)

either that, or its a hilarious coincidence. but who can blame such a forward thinker as sean john from capitalizing on a little viral sensation? is he paving the way for a new generation of internet celebrity based marketing?

if so, why doesn't this exist already?

Pretty Much the Best Thing Ever

2007-09-28T13:11:00.001-05:00

Faces in Places
i usually don't plug (no pun intended!) other people's work, but this blog is too good to not mention. a coworker tipped me off to it this morning, and i plan on checking it every seven seconds for the rest of my life. it basically sums up everything i love about being alive.

this is my favorite so far: