Unintentional Copying

After reading Kaavya Viswanathan's recent chicklit opus - 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life', I can't help but notice that she borrows a lot a passages and scenarios from other similar works I've read. I've logged some of the more egregious subplots for comparison.

1) Pg. 232, Opal Mehta reveals a massive Vatican coverup and discovers that the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdelene is alive with us. She does this by solving the "Michaelangelo Cryptic".

2) Pg. 122, Opal Mehta claims to have gone through jailtime while facing her own addiction to drugs, writes a book about her redemption and befriends Oprah. Later, in page 223, Opal admits to fictitious exaggerations in the book, and was really only addicted to Cocoa Puffs.

3) Pg 13, Opal's uncle murders her father, and marries her mother. In chapter 12, she asks "Is or ain't, that's the question?". In chapter 13, everyone dies.

4) Pg 67, Opal goes on unrelentless expedition to hunt a great white Whale she calls "Moogby Dick", which is really a pendantic metaphor.

5) Pg 330, Opal hides in attic during Nazi invasion, keeps a diary and reveals she's Jewish.

6) Pg 217, Opal encounters three ghosts of Christmas, and after experiencing the past, present and future, relinquishes her miserly ways.

7) Pg 200, Opal has a contest with her wacky friends, to see who can refrain from masturbating the longest, and be known as the "keeper of their kingdom".

8) Pg 23, Opal reveals she is from the planet Krypton, and can fly.

9) Chp 6, Opal changes name to Ishmael, and back to Opal in Chp 10.

Yo Mama Jokes

I've been compiling a list of Yo Mama jokes for the cultivated.

Yo Mama's so uncultured, she couldn't tell the difference between a Monet and a Manet!

Yo Mama's so obtuse, she asked why she had to pay 16 bucks for a 50 cent album!

Yo Mama's so befuddled, she was making all these cello jokes, and I asked why she was being so hard on cellos. She thought it was Yo Yo Ma jokes!

Yo Mama's so sexually promiscuous, I took a picture of her, and she gave my camera herpes!

Yo Mama's so obese, she auditioned for a role in Titanic, the musical, and the they offered her the part of the iceberg!

Yo Mama's so misinformed, she was recently offered the chair of the Psychology department at Yale, and she turned it down because she wanted the table!

Yo Mama's reputation is so sullied, she's often compared to the New York Times Monday crossword puzzle - fast going Down, and easy to fill.

Yo Mama's so corpulent, when she goes to the zoo, elephants throw her peanuts!

Yo Mama's so sweaty, after she goes jogging, her T-shirt enters a wet Mama contest!

Yo Mama's reputation is so notorious, she likes fast food, but that's not why her nickname is the In N' Out.

Yo mama's so old, they invited her on the View to make Barabra Walters look young.

Yo Mama's so sexually indiscriminant, she actually gave Rodney Dangerfield respect!

Yo Mama's so misinformed, when asked what she thought of Dick Cheney, she thought it was a chastity belt for men!

Yo Mama's so sexually promiscuous, I'm not saying she's easy, but she came with cliff notes.

This rap be the cat's meow!

Here are excerpts from my forthcoping rap debut.

My name be Curtis, you thugs don't try to hurt us; our reputation is at stake, just stay put and watch me rollerskate! Break it down, uh huh uh huh.

Duck Soup

i recently saw the Mexican movie Duck Season, and I think it's the best movie I've seen this year. First of all, I don't see a lot of movies, the other comparisons I have are Darwin's Nightmare, Tristram Shandy and My Date with Drew. While all fine movies, Duck Season really was fun to watch. It's about two teenage boys in Mexico as they plan to play video games all afternoon, but the power goes out and they have to find other ways to amuse themselves. Anyways, strangers drop in, one thing lead to another, and it turns into an afternoon of epiphanies and understandings of each other. I think it really speaks about the relationship these two boys had. It was mostly funny and a bit touching. Think of it as a Cat in the Hat meets the breakfast club. Plus, one of the boys, named MoKo wears a Rancid shirt throughout the movie, and it features a cute scene with Dance Dance revolution.

Beard touching

Recently, a friend of mine grew some facial hair. A beard to be exact. I ran into him in an elevator and I asked whether it's polite to ask to touch someone's beard. Not that I wanted to touch it, I was just wondering if it's polite for one man to ask to touch another man's beard (I'm discounting the need to touch a woman's beard for a moment). Anyways, this friend, while a bit shocked at the question, did want to ask some followup questions.

Under what circumstances would that be needed?

Well, for example, in a beard judging competition, it is not enough to just look at the beard, but one must also touch it, nay, stroke it, to judge other important qualities, such as girth, flow, volume, resilience, malleability, silkiness, waviness, curliness, thickness, wooliness, springiness and general beardliness.

Why are you asking?

I think it is possible to offend someone by touching thier beard, in that it may be against their religion. I suspect Zeus is against beard touching, or even Thor and possible Ganesh and the Dalai Lama.

Anyways,I didn't up touching his beard. But he did concede that it is more polite to ask than just to touch it without asking.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

What an amazing movie I saw tonight. Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know is a quirky and enjoyable indie film that satisfies like nothing else. Usually, the special screenings at UCLA are indie films that are dark and brooding and utterly depressing (ie. Mysterious Skin, The Ballad of Jack and Rose). So I went into this movie knowing very little about except it has roots in experimental and performance art. How delightfully surprised I was at this comedic gem that examines love, attachment and connection in the digital age. I laughed out loud at one particular scene. Laughed so hard that I didn't make out the dialogue for the next minute. Miranda July plays an experimental artist in this movie, and captures so much innocence that it's spellbinding. Elliot said the movie was like Ghost World meets Benny and Joon. I say the movie was Garden State meets Harold and Maude.

After the movie, the director, the writer and the lead actress, Miranda July, gave to a Q+A. One of the questions about the movie, "What themes were you trying to explore?", obviously upset her because she became defensive. I would understand that, because you'd want the audience to digest the movie for themselves, rather than have the director pre-chew and spoon-feed it. Anyways, I highly recommend this little gem, and it has fast burrowed into my heart like a flesh-eating tapeworm.

After I went home, I did some googling about Miranda July and her other projects. Turns out, we have crossed paths before. I once visited the website, Learning to love you more, where they give you little performance/ installation art projects to do, and you deliver the results. Projects are like, take a picture of your parents kissing, or drawing a scene from a movie that made you cry. Artsy, bohemian stuff like that.

Tullycraft

In a recent turn of events, I am well on my way to acquiring the entire discography of Seattle based Twee band Tullycraft. Their latest album, Disenchanted Hearts Unite, was really good times on a disc. While I was looking through their liner notes, I noticed that their email address was there. So I wrote tullycraft@gmail.com an unsolicited email of adulation, telling them how much I enjoyed their music in general and how their latest album really was good times. Anyways, in the email I also mentioned I enjoyed arranging their songs for ukulele, which was the truth because their songs transposed quite well to that instrument.

Weeks later, Sean Tollefson, front man for Tullycraft, actually wrote me back! In addition to thanking me for my support, he asked if I ever recorded these covers, because he would like to hear them. I was quite surprised, and immediately went ahead and recorded two covers from their older catalog: Bee Sting Stings and First String Teenage High

Anyways, you can now download and listen to these songs that I arranged for uke, by Tullycraft, for Tullcraft!

Crash into Me

I saw the provocative and utterly stressful film Crash tonight. This movie embraces without subtlety the topic of racial tension in America, to the point where everything boils over in yelling, screaming, name-calling, fighting and shooting. While I am not impressed with the cinematic technique the film used, which is in the style of multiple interweaved storyline that combine with serendipity and coincidence, I am very disturbed by the effective social commentary. This is similar to the genre of films like Magnolia, Pulp Fiction, Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels, Go!, Short Cuts etc., where coincidences occur as often as Stephen King uses italics. You'd imagine from watching this movie that the population of LA is around the mid-twenties and everyone hates each other, and they all drive black SUV's. The movie is both manipulative and realistic at the same time, dealing with issues that seem implausible but short reflection will find occurs too often. Black people get shot, Arabs are harassed, Asians are racially slurred, LAPD police profile minorities etc. All you need in this movie, is two people of different ethnicities and a gun, and the stress reaches an unbearable crescendo. I was stressed beyond belief at multiple points of this movie because I was so emotionally invested (both as viewer and a race researcher). While I am surprised at the frank and in-your-face displays of racism because it is an issue that is tiptoed around in cinema in general, I am also confronted with the thought that not ALL inter-racial contact is in the context of racism, as the film portrays. I can be wrong. The recurring theme is that racism is caused by fear of the unknown, self-anger and hubris. In one situation, one person might have power over another of a different race, but these can be quickly reversed. Regardless, the theme of the movie is straightforward. We're all victims of racism. We're all perpetrators of racism. There is good racism. There is bad racism. There is racism that destroys, that alienate, that kill. There is racism that leads to redemption, to epiphanies and to unity. This is a tale of one city where racial diversity is its strength and its own undoing at the same time.

Investigative Journalism

As I was googling myself out of boredom again, I found this trio of curiosity that was part of my Wesleyan past. This was, I think, the only article I wrote for the Argus during my Wesleyan tenure. This was the context, it was during the whole Asian/ Asian-American conflict during my sophomore year, and I was eating dinner with Bobby Zelliger, the editor for the Argus, and he broached the subject of me writing an article. I asked if I can write about anything, and he dais as long as it's well written. I think he was hoping I'd write a piece about the A/AA scandal, but I jokingly suggested a few unrelated topics. One of which was the garish green new plastic cups the dininghall recently adopted. He said, if I write a good article, he'll print it. So I guess another joke turned into a realistic challenge, and I did some investigative reporting about these new cups. As I read the original article, I was surprised what great lengths I went to, including interviewing actual campus managers and representatives about the topic, as well as quoting friends and acquaintances. I must have asked Bobby what he thought of the cups at the time, and even quoted him right there. Regardless, the article was surprisingly funny: Campus Center Rejoices in Reusable Cups. Well, the joke didn't end there, and there were two articles of aftermath. First was a letter to the editor I wrote in response to the editing done to my story. Two non-sequitors were added to the piece in jest, and I responded in mock indignity: Letter to the Editor. The other was even more unbelievable because someone actually wrote a response to my piece, condemning the very same garish cups. Whoever this David Harvey is, he indeed was a worthy archnemesis. Campus Cups Badly Designed. Anyway, I never met or ran into David Harvey, but there is an epilogue to this story, in that a month or two after these articles, the campus center stopped using these cups. Aaron Gilary would often quip that it was because of my articles, but I doubt that was the truth.

Mysterious Skin

Tonight, we saw a very haunting and distubring movie called Mysetrious Skin. It stars 3rd rock from the sun's moppish regular - Joseph Gordon-Levitt. While it was traumatically disturbing at times, I thought the movie was quite beautifully done. So while the ending was beautiful, the journey was painful to watch. As a special treat, right after the movie, the film's 2 leads, including Gordon-Levitt, joined the audience for a Q and A. Man, how can an actor, after such a traumatic film where he revealed so much to us, face us afterwards? Actually, he was nothing like he was in the movie. In person, he was nice and wore glasses. Unlike his co-star, Joeseph was really quite unenlightening in his acting process. He said he didn't do too much to prepare, and just focused a lot. When one of the audence members asked him how he acted through one of the most traumatic scene in the movie, his answer was basically "ACTING!" Anyways, in front of the theatre was a bunch of girls who undoubtedly was the JGL fanclub, and I was surprised they were still fans after this disturbing movie. But during the QA they fawned like little fawning fawns. Anyways, I would recommend people to go see this film.

Dance 360

As I type, I am watching one of my favorite program -- Dance 360. The concept is simple -- people dance and compete in dance offs. Tonight is a particularly gnarly episode, as the final dance off features two excellent breakdancers -- Mookie and Legacy. They broke out some wicked swank head-spinning rotor moves against each other in addition to wanton aerials and flips. This was truly an excellent and well-matched dance off. Both party did the serving, and neither was in recieving ends of said serves. Those (ie "party people") who know me know that I am well versed in the b-dancing colloquialism, and that I can "get down" when I need to be "off the hook".

New Blog Redux

I've decided the my old way of archiving my blog (using home made XML) is antiquated, so I've decided to combine the RSS feed power of blogspot as well as their archiving prowess in combination with the flash! Exciting. However, this may not make a better if the content is lacking.

Bush and Bad Intelligence

Bill O'Reilly brought up a good point during his debate with Michael Moore that I felt Moore did not address sufficiently. This is also a main point in refuting reasons for mobilizing war against Iraq. While in hindsight, it seemed that Bush has acted hastily on bad intelligence. As O'Reilly points out, he didn't 'lie' per se, but really just acted on bad information, which was corroborated by British Intelligence and elsewhere. It seemed the world fell prey to the sly country of Iraq, which fooled the world to think it had WMDs and links to Al-Qaida. Is Bush absolved? Is he at fault at all? Would anyone given the same information he had act similar? I would say not.
Enter Social Psychology. It seems obvious now that there were multiple sources of intelligence that were wrong about Iraq possessing WMDs. Think for a moment: before the war, was there any reliable agency that reported that Iraq did not indeed have any WMDs? Think carefully... I put forth that there was, and in fact the Bush administration chose to use confirmation bias in building it's case for war. For those who don't know, confirmation bias is the prejudice of gathering information that only finds facts to support one side. In addition, it tends to ignore flaws of evidence that support, and also discredits/ ignores evidence that does not support one's hypothesis. It took me a while to remember that there was plenty of reasons to doubt the existence of WMDs, and his name was Hans Blix, of the UN weapons inspection team (who had the clearest picture of Iraq's weaponry since they were actually in the country), who was forced out of Iraq because USA demanded to attack. The intelligence was hardly unianimous, nor were the conclusions indisputable, as can be seen by the utter lack of support when the case was brought before the UN. It makes sense now, that Bush in his haste to make war, would purposely ignore antithetic evidence that would weaken his case. I would suppose a dilligent leader would consider evidence from both sides before waging war. Reliable information that Iraq did not have WMDs were available, but Bush chose to conceal the truth and brought a lop-sided case to present to the USA, the UN and the world. Bush might not have 'lied' but he didn't tell us the whole truth. Not only did he act on bad information, he also acted on bad judgement. He chose not to pursue evidence that might weaken his warmongering goals (even though it would have established a better perspective of issue), which is detrimental to his credentials as a leader. There's really no way around it, as it's obvious Bush should not be trusted, and really is the worse president. ever.

2 Films

A quick rundown of two films I've seen recently.
Gus Van sant's Elephant is one of the most original movies I've ever seen. It's unlike anything I have ever seen. A colorful, intriguing, documentary-like, and thoughtful movie shows the lives of multiple highschoolers on moments leading to unspeakable atrocity. As I watched this movie, I am reminded of just exactly how much walking is involved in highschool. This movie is definitely not for everyone, as I would suggest only those who are open-minded about new cinematic techniques to watch it. A film that does not answer questions, does not glorify violence but does provoke us to think, Elephant is truly surprising.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, on the other, is a silly straight parody of black and white B-movies. It purposely carries some poor screenwriting to be too long for comic effects. Sometimes it works, and I found myself laughing at the pure silliness of the movie. They make sure people know who is serious about science during an alien mutant attack and a plot to revive a dead skeleton by giving those characters a testtube rack and a kid's microscope. They always talk abouting "doing science". A scene about a farmer being horribly mutilated becomes entertaining when it goes on for way too long, when Ranger Brad says "I hope telling folks about his horrible mutilation can prevent other folks from meeting a fate of being horrible mutilation." "Horribly mutilated? That sounds dreadfully horrible." "We take our horrible mutilations seriously around these parts." This kind of repetitive humor is my cup of tea, and I enjoyed the movie, but too much.

The Barbarian Invasion

I just watched the Barbarian Invasions, the Quebec film about a man who's coming to terms with death. He lived a colorful, hedonistic life, and now faces death with dignity and scathing wit while coming to terms with everyone close to him during his life. The film begins with scathing satire against the Canadian health care system, beauracracy, Unions and even narcotics, which punctures our rosy stereotype of Canada being the socialist Shangro-la. While I myself am a socialist, I must admit these are scenes that are well done. Then we see the man, who was a history professor, try to put in perspective his terminal illness by lecturing about 230 million people's death in the 20th century from massacres. The film flashes through vignittes where we encounter philosophy through leftist politics, and we catch glimmers of the man's life. The film also reminds me of Wit, with Emma Thompson, who is also a professor who has to deal with terminal illness. They can expound a witty and literate tyraid, and at the end of it, bleakly admit that they are afraid, that they are not prepared, and can admit they have not done anything worthwhile in life.

www.CurtisYee.com

So much has gone into my website, that I have been totally jaded from flash. The music page is also still incomplete as I just rushed it to get it live. At the same time, I just got more work from Jesse K, which is great! Moreover, the good thing is that I can also reuse the code for these things I program and offer them cheaper/ free to people I want to work with. For example, Dave from work does some excellent photography of punk bands, and I think it would be great for him to have a portfolio. I also realized that to have a really good site, I would need to work with graphic artists for ass-kicking illustrations.
On a sad note, my best friend Jesse K cannot join my new club for people who have their Gall Bladders. His sudden became inflamed and infected with uncoolness. The doctors had to take it out his body to make him feel better. On the good side, he just lost 2 pounds. Get better soon, Jesse K!

Pretty Boy Rock

Of the three bands that played last night at the Axis, I knew two of them (and own their actual CDS), so with few hesitations, I bought tickets to see Phantom Planet, with the Washington Social Club and Damone opening.
The first band, Washington Social Club was an energetic garage band. At first we thought the lead singer was a female, but it turns out he really looked like a young Steve Buscemi. Their set was short, and filled with angsty, Ramone-esque garage punk, with gratuitous references to drug, which gave them a cursory rebellious, counter-culture.
Damone was off with a bad start. While they performed on the debut CD, From the Attic, quite well, their first two songs caused me to cringe because their lead singer, Noelle, was inaudible, but obviously off key. But just when I lost hope and thought they were really a better studio band, she drastically improved, and I was soon nodding their songs. They surprised me by playing a lot of new songs, and the good thing is that the new songs were like as if they were from the same album (ie more of a good thing). The same cannot be said about Phantom Planet.
I never knew Phantom Planet had such a large young female following. Then again on second thought, with such a pretty boy line up, and an emaciated, emo lead singer, how can they not? Their early CD, The Guest, set their sound firmly as melodic, Califoia rock and roll. Their latest eponymous album saw them change their sound dramatically to a noisy, angsty, poseur rock. I didn't like that album, and their live show didn't help. The show just got more and more boring as they alternated from melodic songs from their previous album, to ridiculous songs to this new one. There were a few highpoints, but mainly from The Guest. Their last song was a good song, but they decided to sing only 2 verses, and sandwich in between those a lenghty, unneccesary jam improv. When Damone did that, they had gnarly guitar solos over their chords, but Phantom Planet opted for the spacey, desultory ramble that was really just wasting everyone's time while I made my way to the coatcheck to pick up my stuff. Anyways, my only thought was: why was Phantom Planet so angry? They're white, rich, famous, has a legion of teen girl following, and they live in California. Please leave the angst to people who really need it.

1984, 20 years late

I rounded up my posse of bleeding heart, knee-jerk reactionary, left-wing, politically-correct, Communist-Pinko friends to go see Michael Moore's new magnum opus, Fahrenheit 9/11. Opening night at the cinema, we were joined in line by like-minded citizens and those who wanted to watch White Chicks. F-9/11 was a good movie, but as an avid Bush-hating, rage-blinded Socialist, it really adds little new information. I was, however, very shocked to see the war-profiteering that is taking place with Halliburton and cronies. I realized that even if Iraq does acheive freedom, America has already planted corporate parasites in that country to plunder its natural resources and money from future Iraqi generations to come. Companies in the States will no doubt be exploiting cheap labor in that nation while swimming in profits made from indigenous oil. Moore shows us some interviews with business men looking into profits from Iraq, and there was no way they could disguise their greed-lust with any humane motives.
The movie also shows a lot of parallels. First we see the reactions of people against the terrorist acts of 9/11. Then we see innocent Iraqis being bombed shitless. An Iraqi mother invokes Allah to punish the people that bombed her house and family; an Iraqi man who was carting dead bodies of children vow revenge. If the death of 3,000 people in 9/11 can mobilize the occupation of 2 countries, and the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, what can killing these innocent civilians wreak in the future? Mathematically, at least 3-4.5 times the damage.
Moore ends the movie with an apt comparison to Orwell's apocalyptic (well, I think now it can be deemed as visionary) 1984, where totalatarian regimes revise history, bamboozle people in the name of freedom and demand complacency from denizens through fear and the rescinding of their civil rights. There were more war casualties than I anticipated, but if one can't stand 3 seconds of a shot of an amputated child, how can one allow an indefinite war to trudge on?

Avatar

By the powers of the internet, an article I wrote 5 years ago for the Avatar, a one-hit-wonder magazine from Wesleyan, has made it into Model Minority, a discussion forum for Asian Americans and empowerment. Since it was posted, it has been read by hundreds. While I am delighted that the article, about stereotypical portrayal of Chinese Villains in the media, has recieved a few chuckle, one of the forum-goers lambasted me for being insenstive to the realistic violence that Hong Kong gangs (aka triads) put on citizens. I want to respond that this is the first time that article was taken seriously, and that it is kind of unfair that I am critiqued without being known. The poster ends with an ad hominum attacks: "mr yee is the kind of guy who really wishes he was [sic] the star of ......shakespeare in love....running around in tights some where [sic] in europe." What is that suppose to mean? If being a witty, literate, world-travelling jogger is wrong, I don't want to be right.
On the plus side, this forum does report on a lot of current on-goings that are insensitive and sometimes racist against Asian/Asian-Americans. This will give me plenty reason to be incensed for future references. William Hung: Gay or Asian?

Post-its

Here are some things I could have invented: felt-covered Buddhas, raglan t-shirts, Live-Journals, rotoscoping, vegan leather, Tivo and cialis.
I just watched Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, in preparation for my own 5th year. My life somewhat parallels theirs. Since I graduated from high school, I have lost weight, graduated from college, got into a grad school, got a cooler haircut, hipper clothes, and also acquired a love for punk and underground music. I even have an interracial girlfriend. I have every reason to go back and see what my status-seeking colleagues have been up to. Unfortunately, I don't have any unrequited love to look forward to meeting (they were in a different class).
How do you know if mustard goes bad? Would it taste even funnier?

Add it up

I've seen the Dresden Dolls cover the song, but I actually fortuitously got to see the original band play the song live. I was biking on my way home, when upon passing the clubbing district which is near my home, I heard music. It was the FNX Best Music Poll festival, where they have 4 clubs in the clubbing district (Avalon, Axis, Bill's Bar etc) and a street stage filled with yesterday and today's hottest alternative music. And so I rode to the side of the stage, as I couldn't afford to pay the ticket price, but the backstage area is right to the left of the stage, and I got a pretty good view of the rockers, if it weren't for giant stacks of speakers. It was the Violent Femmes, live in person, old and looking goofier than Al Franken. After Gone Daddy Gone, they played one of their top three hits -- Add it Up (their other hits are Blister in the Sun and Kiss Off) . They can still sing it spot on, and I was so happy I ran into the Violent Femmes like this. Add it Up was thier last song of the set, and the crowd went wild, and cheered for an encore. Being backstage, I watched the Femmes ignore their fans and stroll back to their trailer. As the crowd yelled "One More Song", I knew they would be leave unquenched of more Femme Violence. Then, some doofus told them there will be no more songs, and asked them to party elsewhere. Well, he really redirected them to the other four venues, where groups like Presidents of the USA and the Rapture was performing.

Bush eats Paltrow's Baby

I spent most of Memorial weekend working on the Curtis Cover Project, which turned out to be a magnificent project, in terms of Flash advancement, at least. Unfortunately, the only way of advertising it is through Criag's List, but classified ads asking for help has been posted around this country, Canada as well as London. So far, the response has been tepid, lukewarm at best. Ack, who am I kidding, there was no hoopla at all, and no one really submits anything. Does anyone have any idea how to attract more traffic to the cover project? I even tried putting up the Hot in Here cover.
In other news, Marisa visited Boston, and Becky and Katy went to Las Vegas.

Walken in LA

Nothing lights up the screen as much as Christopher Walken, one of my all time favorite actors, who managed to make films like "Kangaroo Jack" and "Suicide Kings" passable. The NYT magazine ran a feature on him today, and captured the essence of Walken in this following quote:
At the grocery store, he [Walken] stared at a plump tomato and then put it back. "I DON'T. Buy the tomatoes with. The stems. On them. They don't. Degrade. They go. Down the sink. And into the WATER. Then. They get lodged in the throats of little. OTTERS."
Which reminded me of an Onion article, Walken in LA written years ago, which might be the funniest thing I've ever read.

Rock like an Egyptian

Today, I decided to skip work to see a rock show. It does not get any more decadent than that. Well, maybe if I used my salary to hire escorts to this rock show while I smoked opium from a long necked pipe carved from the bone of a sperm whale.
Brilliant Misstake has a new lineup, introducing new guitarist, Ryan. As usual, they played a very satisfying set. However, what I want to talk about is the opening band, Whackass Egyptians. Their music was typically angry white boy rap over a guitar driven punk score. Their lyrics (or "rhymes" as they are now called) were inane, immature, misogynistic, and worse, they kept working in an Egyptian theme. They only succeeding in exploiting exoticism of Egypt and also doing them a disservice by strengthening stereotypes. During one number, Put a Sock in It, they threw socks into the audience from a bucket. By Jove, they were pretty bad.

Love in the time of Punk

I just watched the phenomenal movie "Sid and Nancy", detailing the raw and misunderstood relationship between Sid Vicious, talent less bass-player for the Sex Pistols, and Nancy, a drugged-up groupie. Gary Oldman clearly captured the nihilism and the anarchy that built the punk ethos; his bravado here is only rivaled by his portrayal of Sid Vicious in the film "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead". It is interesting to compare the punks of the late 60's, early 70's with today's punks, and realize that they have been sissified. For example, Avril Lavigne, who is not a punk, but I will take as an example to show how un-punk today's so-called punks are.