Midsummer update festival!

Well, I've been short of time as of late and short on motivation for writing, however, I decided to do a comprehensive update 0f sorts tonight. So let's begin as I know you've all been waiting with baited breath for me to return.

First off, this post gives me a reason to post this gif I made recently.


I watched the entire "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" series this summer over the course of a few weeks and this is the only episode that weirded me severely out. There are a few that still get to me and bring back nightmarish images from my childhood, but this doll is the bane of my existence. Even making the gif from the movie took all my might. I recall posting about the glory days of Nickelodeon, and this show is one of the programs that occurred during these times. This show would never be allowed on today, probably most of the "SNICK" shows wouldn't, however, this one was different. This was a sort of "Twilight Zone" for kids, except every once in a while they'd come up with a horrible, mind-twisting, spine-shivering freakish episode that would make you be thankful you had a week before the next one. This episode is by far the worst for me, however, because I fucking hate dolls and a lifesize doll talking in a little girl's voice weirds me out for some reason. The lifeless stare and incredible awkward walking motion combined with the perfect atmosphere in the episode make me cringe everytime I see it. Not only does the episode combine an incredibly freaky basement with weird old-timey music, but it also ends on an incredibly sadistic note which (I'm going to spoil it so stop reading if you don't want to know) leads you to believe that the kid that discovers the evil power of the radio is going to fucking feed his neighbor, a bully, to the demonic forces within.

So yes, "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" is one of those pieces of nostalgia that you figure would be boring and trite when revisited, however, upon watching it it's still an incredible show and I can only hope that it's eventually put on DVD and hopefully end up having kids of my own that I can traumatize with this brilliant show.

Next up, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. This is a hot topic right now and I figure I should tackle it. I've seen plenty of movies this summer, however, not even Superman or The Da Vinci Code were hyped and anticipated as much as this film. I want to begin this film by saying I really enjoy and love the first film, I find it funny, entertaining, and overall the epitome of what a summer blockbuster film should be. I did not, however, see the movie till well into it's release and the only draw for me was Keira Knightley as I absolutely am in love with her as everyone that knows me can vouche for. I was surprised to see how many people had been going to the film and decided I should jump in as I had been cleaning it for weeks and just rocking out to the fun score by Klaus Badelt. Once I saw it, I decided I enjoyed the movie and after multiple viewings on DVD I still enjoy the movie.

After random delays, I finally managed to see this movie the other night after hearing both sides of "I really liked it!" and "Nothing happened!" Going into this movie knowing full well who the forces were behind the film and knowing who had concocted this trilogy, I was expecting to be spoonfed more of the same from the first one. And what I got, was exactly more of the first one. I completely agree that not much happened through out the film, and a lot of the entertaining sword fights had been removed, and a trivial "plot," if you can call it that was created, however, in the end I still enjoyed it. I wanted to see pirates, an incredibly good-looking Keira Knightley (and jeez did she look good in this one, whoever did her boob make-up shading in this one must've been practicing between shoots), and pirates.

To criticize this film for being whipped together quickly solely to make money, "the soul of a cash machine" -Duane Dudek from the Journal-Sentinel, is one of the most asinine claims I've ever heard in my entire life. In basic film class I took at college which immediately ranks me as an expert on the subject, one of the first things they state in the class is that "Every piece of cinema is created as an economic venture." While that is definitely an objectionable statement, it stands very true for every piece of commercial cinema, independent or not, that is released in theaters and reaches a broad audience. Next, did he not realize that the first film was created solely based off a popular ride from Disneyland and therefore was created to cash-in on this popular attraction even if it was solely to hitch onto the household name? The first film had just as much the soul of a cash machine as this one, hell it's Disney, what else would you expect?

The other major criticism is that "nothing happened." I totally agree with this statement. However, I understood that going in this film was going to be the one that was forced to be the whipping boy for a trilogy to be created out of a film that wasn't originally written as an entrance to a trilogy. I expected a bridge and a lead up to a third film and that's exactly what I got. I was pretty much going in knowing that this film should be considered Pirates 2 (part 1) and that's exactly what it is. This may infuriate some people and cause people to throw out any shred of respect they had for my opinion, however, I feel that I really need to reserve judgement of the film until I'm able to view the third one. The film you can tell has all the flash and is basically all spectacle with absolutely no substance, however, what else can you really expect from a summer blockbuster? It had plenty of jokes and things that had me chuckling similar from the first one and I can assure you there was no forced laughter coming from me, and I also enjoyed seeing money being blown on huge sea monsters attacking ship crews, however, I really would have liked to see more of the Kraken rather than just tentacles flailing everywhere. The third one, I would expect, would have the Kraken finally being defeated (hopefully) and (hopefully) an incredibly awesome, large scale battle where Davey Jones unleashes everything he possibly can against the crew of the Black Pearl and Tortuga and what not.

In the end, I felt that the film was a standard middle film of a trilogy. Besides The Empire Strikes Back and The Temple of Doom it's hard for me to think of a second film in a trilogy I've ever really enjoyed. That said, Temple of Doom is definitely my least favorite of the three Indian Jones films. "But what about The Two Towers?" you might ask yourself. I'll say this flat out, and not as a fact but flat out as an opinion. I enjoyed it the least, just like I did with the books, out of the three and while the film may have solid starting and ending points, I feel exactly the same way I felt about Pirates 2 and that is that it's just a massive build up to the third portion.

I hope everyone is watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia because I just got caught up on the last 2 episodes and that show is by far one of the most hilarious shows I've seen in a long time.

Finally, on to music news since I left that list of 10 bands in the dust a while ago. To pick it back up, I'll write small blurbs about three bands I deeply, deeply love.

The Lawrence Arms and Tuesday - Yes, more punk. And I know punk is dead and punk isn't real music and punk doesn't take any real talent to play and is technically boring. Well fuck you too buddy! The Lawrence Arms are a band from Chicago and I've got a long history with them. The bassist, Brendan Kelly, was in a ska-punk band called Slapstick in the early/mid 90s with a bunch of amazing musicians, most notably Dan Andriano and Rob Kellenberger. Shortly after graduating high school, the band split and Dan and Rob went on to form Tuesday while Brendan went on to form The Broadways. Tuesday played a melodic form of punk rock that most people today would classify as "indie rock with emo influences" while The Broadways continued with a more gritty, punk rock style similar to Jawbreaker. What's interesting, in my opinion, is that Slapstick has a pretty clear split in their lyrics, half being written about regret, love, personal experiences, and other high school junk while other songs are written about political opinions and critiques of modern society. The former were almost always written by Dan Andriano and the latter almost always by Brendan Kelly. When the bands split, it's obvious who wrote which because Tuesday's songs are all about girls and The Broadways are all about corruption in governments, critiques of the education, the government, and all sorts of things in society. Unlike many punk bands, however, The Broadways were actually literate, did research, and held opinions backed by strong arguments rather than just screaming "FUKKEN ANARCHY DUDES FUKK DA SYSTEM." Anyway, these two bands eventually depleted as well and...let me stop here for a second. I'm going to list a bunch of bands and you're not going to care, but someone might so I'm going to do it anyway. These bands all contained or were created by members of Slapstick:

Tuesday, The Broadways, Colossal, Duvall, The Lawrence Arms, The Falcon, Alkaline Trio, Less Than Jake, The Honor System, The Smoking Popes, The Chinkees, Tricky Dick

If you've heard of any of those bands, good on you! Anyway, Dan went on to join Alkaline Trio and still remains with them, while Rob Kellenberger has gone on to do a billion other projects, and Brendan went on to form The Lawrence Arms. The Lawrence Arms continued the lyrical ramblings of Brendan Kelly, however, Chris from The Broadways finally started to balance the grating voice of Brendan with a smoother side that most people consider the "emo" side of the band. Nuts to that I say, anyone that considers emo bands like My Chemical Romance needs to seriously do some research or else have a little pow-wow with me and let me ramble. Anyways, basically The Lawrence Arms are much more accessible than The Broadways but just as angry, intelligent, and fun to listen to.

Tuesday, on the other hand, really didn't reach much of an audience. After their first EP, they released their only LP which is incredibly melodic, really slowed down, and in general just fucking awesome. I've never really been able to squeeze them into a genre which is one of the reasons I really love their stuff. I could go on for days about this band but I'm tired and want to sleep. If you really care, you can drop me a line and I could do an entire update about either of these bands.

Dan and Brendan have recently gotten back together in a project called The Falcon which combines elements of Tuesday with The Lawrence Arms and right now they've only got an EP out, however, it's totally rad and they're releasing a full-length this fall called "Unicornology" which is a kickass name and I'm incredibly excited for it.

Anyway, both bands were introduced to me by my brother when I was a wee lad and I've basically grown up with them, so there's a major nostalgia connection with them both.

For more information, here are two Wikipedia links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawrence_Arms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesday_%28band%29


Don Caballero - Abso-fucking-lutely incredible. Damon Che is one of the best rock drummers ever, and he recently reformed the band and I was finally able to catch them live. It was the best drumming performance I've seen since Hella, and equally as mind blowing. The band started with a much darker, metal influence math-rock (another complicated term that upsets me and we can discuss it over some tea, an abacus, and many sighs of frustration from me) but in their later albums turned to crazy guitar noodling continuing increasingly mind-blowing drumming. If you're going to give them a shot, listen to the full song. Many of them are 5 or more minutes long and can turn into something completely different from what the song started out at. I can't even begin to describe this band besides saying that everyone should at least give them a try to see what bands are out there that they're missing out on. Also, if you're ever around any hipsters or that cute, shy, artsy girl in your philosophy lecture and you get to talking about music, name-drop this band and she'll instantly fall in love with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Caballero

As always, the best way to form an opinion of these bands is to ignore everything I've said and just listen to a few songs for yourself. Here are some of my favorites, which isn't really true because just about everything these bands have released is incredible I just picked the first handful of songs that happened to come up. I really urge you to just take 20 minutes or so and sit down and check out at least one song by each band. As always, I've bolded the songs that I could lose my hearing except being allowed to hear these songs at least once a day and still be happy.

Don Caballero - American Don - Details On How To Get ICEMAN On Your License Plate
Don Caballero - American Don - Fire Back Aout Your Baby's New Sex
Don Caballero - American Don - The Peter Criss Jazz
Don Caballero - For Respect - Nicked and Liqued
Don Caballero - World Class Listening Problem - I Agree...No!...I Disagree
Don Caballero - What Burns Never Returns - Slice Where You Live Like Pie
The Lawrence Arms - The Greatest Story Ever Told - Alert The Audience!
The Lawrence Arms - A Guided Tour Of Chicago - Detention
The Lawrence Arms - Apathy And Exhaustion - Boatless Booze Cruise (Part 1)
The Lawrence Arms - Apathy And Exhaustion - Navigating The Windward Passage
The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta! - Great Lakes/Great Escapes
The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta! - The Devil's Takin' Names
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - Disappear
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - My Mess
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - Sixty-Eight
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - Everything Left Out

Chances are you didn't like any of that, and if so, well then fuck you because I do! Well, that about wraps it up for now. I figured I'd like to put out an update so I just typed this flat out in a matter of minutes and I'm sure it's full of typos, incoherency, and any humor that may have been present in previous posts is now absent, but I don't care because I'm tired and want to go have a nice cup of warm milk, hang up my booties, and cuddle with my pillow.