You know, you can have art and the joys of violent spectacle in one place. These are not mutually exclusive ideas. In classical and Elizabethan tragedy, bodies pile up by the acre and the audiences enjoyed every last bloody minute of it. That doesn't mean that Hamlet or Titus Adronicus or MacBeth are cheap, artless…

Why can't you help your kids while bullying and emasculating someone else? Sounds like killing two birds with one stone to me.

I think the best way to think of the last episode is a sort of denouement. The tragic climax was really this whole half season, and the wages of sin were mostly paid in the preceding episodes. This mostly existed to bring the story to a definitive close and tie up loose ends. There is a disappointment from people who…

Into the Abyss I'll fall - the eye of Horus
Into the eyes of the night - watching me go
Green is the cat's eye that glows - in this Temple
Enter the risen Osiris - risen again

Cultural degeneration and decadence: they're things baby. I know most people don't care about it, but to me it's a real concession to the terrible state of the world and the general attitude people have toward it these days. The grimdark is getting really old, and it would have been nice to at least present some beam…

Yeah, these shows never go for idiosyncratic taste either. Somehow I doubt there will be a Diamond Head-listening hesher or some crazy guy into electro. It's going to all be super-familiar stuff everyone can relate to. HEY GUYS IT'S THE EIGHTIES! (cue the new wave one hit wonders and the Miami Vice pastels) REMEMBER…

I also imagine they're convinced that Hollywood are left-wing monopolists(or "commie Jews," as these latter-day John Birch motherfuckers used to call them), and products of crony capitalism.

Ninety percent of any thread about China will be full of Sinophobic bullshit. The Chinese have become the contemporary equivalent of Japan in the 1980s in the American mind. I wonder what that could mean…

Let me tell you about my music project. It's dirty retro (late-seventies-style) metal, and it's called JabbaThrone. On the cover Jabba the Hutt in pimp regalia has two of those pointy-headed chicks, topless, on a leash. The logo is in the Boogie Nights style. Inside are 1970s grindhouse-style pictures: Han Solo…

Of course, bald people don't consider Walter White to be part of the bald community because, with all due respect, Walter is not bald. He chose to shave his head, it's a look he's cultivated to look fashionable, and bald people don't really consider him a part of the bald community. With all due respect.

That was already achieved by Larry David and George Costanza.

Yes, you're absolutely right with respect to this review (and I should have clarified that), but I was speaking more generally. My statement is based on several of his reviews, most of which are negative or fixated on small flaws—I had never commented on them before and thought this was a good place as any to mention…

The problem with Dowd is that he doesn't seem to be passionate about film or interested at all in genre. It's almost as though the limitations of the medium itself bother him, like a movie can't please him unless it's perfect. The best film writers/critics are those who actually love film, and can enjoy the essence of…

As someone who favors the 70s and 90s, I'm going to have to stand up for 80s music here. The very qualities that a lot of people hate about it is what sets it apart and makes it a unique thing. The clean, shiny, minimalist quality was what really sets apart from 1970s excess—you listen to it for what isn't there than…

I love seventies analog synths. I wouldn't describe them as thin or weak, especially when run through amps and distortion. The early digital synthesizers on the other hand…

I like men who shoot from the hip.

Yeah, probably. But fuck it. Have another.

The overthrow of Arbenz in 1954. That's a good angry/passionate drunk one.

Nothing to apologize for. Cute, funny and passionate. Good combo, drunk or sober.

The reason conspiracy theorists don't have insurrections is because conspiracy theories are primarily about powerlessness and passivity. If great men plot to control the course of history and have powerful levers of influence (controlling governments and other institutions of power) what can a few men really do to…