User Comment Rodeo:

It may perhaps be biased to even glance at such a story. Low-hanging, insignificant, too significant, wildly polarizing, etc... Imagine an undergarment modified with toy firearms, worn by yesteryear's darling at a backwoods concert. It could be happening all around you. You are too late to prevent it. How does it make you feel? How would you articulate your throwaway internet response? Which season of the news cycle is it?

Would you dabble stylistically with poetry? Insist upon your innocence? Would you highlight the absurdity of the situation? What can one do but look towards better times? And where are they?

And what is nostalgia? It is not a refuge for everyone, and it is only comforting insofar as it is delusion. The debate will always rage, and its warriors will remain eternally insufferable.

Sensitivity is passe except at extreme proximity, it seems. Someone should ask Doris Day about this whole thing: she will hopefully possess a superior perspective and greater wisdom. I fear she won't – then again, she never had to resort to gimmicks and never earned nine million (USD $9,000,000) 2011 dollars* in one year. The whole numbing madness of the world is nothing new, after all.

* estimate based on hearsay

RIP MCA

First of all, Hello Nasty was the shit. I don't care who you are or what you're doing, fuck that, it was the shit. I don't think there was anything else that year that I heard that was in any way close. That album on repeat was golden for me, and "Intergalactic" was the fucking song to get hyped to. If they'd have released the same album this year I'd probably be just as happy with it. That's more than a decade late and I would've still bought two copies.

I only heard, outside of my own music playing, three Beastie Boys songs on Friday. Lots of people, of course, didn't have a clue who MCA was. Squares, hipsters, you name it - the critically uncool didn't know about anything and weren't the least discouraged. One car, at least, drove past me blaring "Fight For Your Right"* which I can't disagree with at all. I wasn't going to party on Friday, but anyone who was should have at least heard that song. If not: for shame. (*"No Sleep Till Brooklyn" is arguably a better anthem but I'm not going to argue about things I love anyway. That would be childish of me.

There's not much to say. Literally any other place on the internet will give a detailed biography send-up, information about Adam Yauch, tell personal stories and all that. Even Wikipedia put up the news. So there's nothing to do but cast this tiny, shitty, sloppy blog post into the void, with a few words of praise.

Fucking righteous, awesome music that never wore out its welcome by anyone with an open mind and a working set of ears. Sick rhymes and flowing, all around illest contender.

It seems like the true end of an era. To say there are or were no bands like the Beastie Boys is ignorant, but they were still unique. Nobody else ever wrote a song called "Egg Man", for example. If there was, it was either in another context entirely or it was ripped off of the original – or it simply wasn't as good.

That's all, then. There's at least one Beastie Boys album I haven't listened to, and I guess it's time to take that final plunge, except I have to wait at least six months to buy it at a mainstream record store, and at least a year at independent record shops. Otherwise I just know the looks I'll get.


That's a shit Friday, right there.

Conan Attacks the Youth, DC Comics

I had to laugh at the Thursday episode when I caught it on the web just now. Somebody points at Conan and he points back, then a whole row of audience members point back, and it begins a thing. Leno does the high-five thing and contributes the flu, everyone claps, but Conan O'Brien consistently involves the audience some types of chicanery. Not all types of chicanery, of course.

Then Conan actually, if you'll believe this, told a member to point at the stage for the entire show. I don't know if it's just me, but when Conan said "That's what's wrong with your generation." I laughed but moreover, was deeply offended. Nobody can hold up their arms that long... it's discouraging to see him promoting this kind of angst just about finger pointing.

The entire DC Comics segment was great. The criticism of various lame superheroes and Conan even made the artist laugh. Or payed him to laugh. Either way, the criticism part made laugh heartily, though it was as heartless as his assault on the youth during the opening. Sarah Silverman is the kind of guest who is bound to act funny and kind of steal the show, and Michio Kaku is the intellectual twist and obligatory science guest. Sounds like a good Thursday night to me, except, well, the e-show delay. It's still good a day later.

Obligatory science guests, in this case speaking about sacred quests. Bit of rhyming. Really a good guest though, you really don't hear enough about Unified Field theory these days.

EDIT: If you look right now (Sat, ~4 AM EST) on the film & animation section on YouTube you can see a large amount of trailers posted for the new Transformers movie, and to be honest the number is not what you'd expect after Transformers 2. This fan enthusiasm has to be synthetic as the robot monster it has become.