I guess the point here is modern country music -the stuff you hear on contemporary country stations - is pretty much twaddle. I don't see what the heck Shania Twain has to do with country. Heck, I like Shania Twain but it's just hooky pop music plain and simple. You occasionally hear stuff that's both fairly…

Thank you Snape. I felt so smug in my originality and cleverness until I googled "Mormon Nailer" and found at least one band and assorted MySpace denizens with the same moniker. But at least it's mine on the AVC.

Wow.
After reading this I really want to see "The Whole Shootin' Match" but I don't see how it could be as awesome as this interview. Screw the movie, I wanna get drunk with these guys and give a beat-down to Chuck "Pussy Motherfucker" Norris.

Hatin' on the shaggy-haired comic
Demetri Martin seems at the very least, fairly likable. I'm surprised at some of the violent reactions to him. On the other hand…Andy Samberg? Don't get me started.

"Crank 2" gets a preemptive kudos because…
…at least they had the balls to follow through and kill him off in the original. And conversely: at least the have the balls to say 'eh, fuck that' and make a sequel with an outlandish premise.

I'm torn and fascinated by "Across the Universe." By almost any reasonable metric, it's a pretty big fail. You want to see textbook examples of being too-literal and ham-fistedness? How about singing "Dear Prudence" to a gay character who is literally in a closet? How about army recruits carrying a giant statue of…

Adam and them ants were part of a silly, quickly hyped-to-death, post-new-wave/post-Glam movement called "New Romantics." Others riding that horse included: Duran Duran, Visage, Spandau Ballet and lots of silly boys wearing guyliner and fou-fou scarves.

I'm confused about the concept…
Does an interest in French New Wave and/or Glam rock make you a geek? Are these discrete components of geekery or are geeks expected to like them equally? Geeks are pretty close to nerds. I think Star Trek and Black Adder fans can be pretty geeky. But French New Wave and Glam rock are a…

Reading Howard Zinn always gave me impression that he was a lot smarter than me — but maybe I should spend time reading people smarter than Howard Zinn.

copyeditor
Actually, according to the AP Stylebook "copyeditor" is two words. And apparently the built-in spellchecker in Firefox agrees. Paradoxically, I'm not sure about the proper form of "spell-checker." I guess I just talked myself out of a job.

Stay Sick!
The Cramps were the best rock and roll ensemble to ever walk the earth. You and your digital internet arguing will never convince me otherwise. Probably the best starting point for neophytes would be the multi-volume bootleg series "Songs the Cramps Taught Us" - a collection of strange and diverse songs…

I can't wait for this…
I love Pixar and all but I'm so psyched to see something that actually looks like a human hand touched every frame. A rare bird these days.

I never watch TV. And it bugs me. I WANT to watch more TV! I don't have cable or a TIVO and I'm always missing stuff. But not watching movies is something I usually hear from older folks and it usually translates to not actually paying money to go to a theater and watching stuff blow-up while teenagers text their…

Country Music
Sort of tangential to this theme is people who say something like "I listen to every kind of music but country." And then they always, ALWAYS throw in something about "…except for Johnny Cash." It drives me batshit crazy. It's a red flag for hipsterism at it's most reductive, lemming-like mentality.…

Nuking the pig lips
1. Chucking the pig lips in the microwave was probably unnecessary, if something's pickled that's pretty much the same as cooked. Nuking might kill off some random spores gathered in transit so might not be a bad idea just the same.

Bring back laser pointers! Those were the days.

I had a painting class at the School of Visual Arts with the late, great, insane painter Jack Goldstein and not only would he encourage everyone to light-up during class, he would often send someone out for a beer run.

I had a painting class at the School of Visual Arts with the late, great, insane painter Jack Goldstein and not only would he encourage everyone to light-up during class, he would often send someone out for a beer run.

I can trace a distinct line from "Mr. Mike" to "Tim & Eric." O'Donoghue was the weird edge of early SNL and Lampoon and when he was gone, the edge was pretty much gone too.

I saw "Mondo Video" at the Sommerville drive-in in NJ when it was first released. I wish I could remember what else was on the bill. I had a bootleg a few years ago and while it's still fairly interesting it hasn't aged particularly well in the same manner that plagues a lot of SNL stuff. The Sid Vicious segment was…