Enkidum's right—the best thing he ever did careerwise was get shot up. His flow—to the extent that he has one—has always been what I would describe as "clunky".

Stevie Wonder
I don't know if anyone's put that out there, but I can't tell you how many times in the late 80's (and into the 90's, although by then it was less of an uphill battle) I had to play 'Innervisions' for somebody who thought Stevie was best known for being the blind guy Eddie Murphy made fun of, the one who…

I'll admit to liking at least the singles (and the videos) from '7 and the Ragged Tiger' at the time, although I wouldn't have said so aloud until I was in college and no longer worried that liking certain things could make me uncool. But if you'r going to trace Duran Duran's DNA you can't skip Japan, who did…

Actually it wasn't Fox it was the (then) SciFi channel:

I think Shyamalan got too much acclaim too early and his work has suffered for it. It's partly his own fault, but I don't know if it was he or the studios who keeps putting his name above the titles on posters and so on. That inevitably invites a comparison to the phenomenon that was '6th Sense' that will hurt…

As a society, haven't we reached the point yet where the conventional wisdom about the Beatles no longer blames Yoko for the breakup, thinks Ringo can't keep time, and hates McCartney for his addiction to saccharine? If we haven't, please don't wake me till we have, because there's no argument about the Beatles that…

I'm not going to fight this whole fight again, but 'Combat Rock' is a great album, it just was not what most Clash fans wanted or expected in the midst of the Disco Sucks backlash. But it is what is what it is, and it is far and away better than most Punk Rocker forays into full-on Dance Music Funk, and R&B (see also…

"the best trip-hop album ever made"
Seems like somebody forgot about Portishead's 'Dummy'. 'Maxinquaye' may be a deeper, trippier, moodier head fuck (and those are the hallmarks of the genre to be sure), but 'Dummy' is both a flawless Trip Hop album AND a flawless Pop album which means it wears much better (and…

I just wish it was even more random—Okay there he is in Jarmusch again, and that's him in another Coppola film, but wouldn't it be great if Tom Waits just stumbled into 'Sex in the City II'?

That was one of the earliest and best of that kind of tribute album—I remember Los Lobos did a great version of 'I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)' from the 'Jungle Book' on that.

I'm pretty sure the reason why I love 'Jockey Full of Bourbon' so much is because I associate with 'Down By Law' and his performance in it. Well, that and because it's awesome.

Shtick—there was an interview with him in the mid 80's where he was talking, very deliberately I thought, about why he left the piano days behind. Apparently it was due to the squareness of the instrument—by which he meant that the notes you hit were the notes that sounded—There was no real bending or in between (like…

Also—I can see how 'Rain Dogs' and 'Swordfishtrombones' are comparable, and I love them both, but to me the former was always just the sound of drunkeness—despite the fact that it has some of my favorite Tom Waits songs on it (in particular 'Jockey Full of Bourbon')—while 'Swordfishtrombones' was always a more…

In my first week of college I picked up a copy of 'Small Change' and was playing it in the dorm. When 'Step Right Up' came on the guy across the hall looked in and told me how much he loved Louis Armstrong.

I don't see how Kubrick "missed it entirely" about the theme of family, especially since that's exactly what I got out of the film prior to reading the novel. I don't remember how much the book uses the term "caretaker" (as in "No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker") or the rhetoric of…

Whichever side you come down on, I think it's important to remember how each medium makes different demands of the material. Much of the time, if you have a preference for one, what you find missing in the other can be traced back to those differences—the roque mallet being a prime example. Not better or worse, but…

I have reiterated 'The Shining' book vs. movie argument too many times to remember, so for the moment, barring any really egregious defenses of the book, I'm just going to weigh in on the mallet vs. axe controversy:

Wasn't 'Count Sukula' a Gay porn star?

I thoroughly hate them both—but I appreciate that 'Hostel' wears a veneer of satire and social commentary while the 'Saw' series hides behind a precious cleverness it thinks is profound. But before I decide what film is the premier example of Torture Porn (which term I also hate), I'm waiting for the inevitable big…

My card is made from Botan rice paper and uses soy ink so if you don't eat it right away it will melt in your wallet and stick to your bills.