It was announced this week that LA indie-rap living legend Murs would be teaming up with 1 half of Minnasoda's Atmosphere, Slug for for the 3rd in their series of tributes, Felt 3.
Each one of the previous releases was a "tribute" to an actress who was (at the point of release) out of the public eye. The first, produced by Living Legends' The Grouch was "A Tribute to Christina Ricci". The second, was produced by Atmosphere's Ant, and was "A Tribute to Lisa Bonet" (with comic book accompaniment by Jim Mahfood).
On the third release they've decided to have fun with the fans and be secretive about who the producer is and who the tribute is going to be to.
Murs + ? + Slug = Felt 3: A Tribute to _____ _____.
hmmmmmmm.
Well, before it's revealed, I'll put in my guess and see if it turns out being right. The producer has been heavily rumored to be everyone from Wu Tang's The RZA to Jake One to rapper Aesop Rock, but the actress is completely up in the air.
My guess:
Murs + Aesop Rock + Slug = Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez.
We'll see!!
In the mean time, get the new track "Protagonists" HERE(Right-Click, "Save As...")
The most beautiful thing you've ever seen will cost you a mere five cents.
This is going to be hard to believe, But in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a professional blogger, Artist or Rock Star (I know! Crazy!) I currently hold down a retail position at a record store. It's an interesting time for music retail - The phrase "polishing the brass on the titanic" comes to mind. But alas, that's another discussion for another day. What I am here to rap with the kids about is plastic bags.
As recently as about 2 months ago, Ontario passed a by-law requiring all businesses that use plastic bags to charge a minimum of 5 cents for each bag, in an effort to curb plastic bag usage. Ring the bells and sound the alarms: Something that was once free is free no longer!!
Now, reasonable people would merely shrug this off, see that it's for the greater good of the environment and adjust accordingly. But reasonable people are not a downtown chain record store's primary demographic. The rise of downloading and iTunes has changed not only the volume of customer, but the attitudes in customers as well. Now a days people already have a built-in indignance when it comes to actually paying for music, movies and the like. Most have found other ways to get their music (legal or otherwise). So, slowly but surely, it's the people who are ignorant or frightened of technology or change that are becoming the most visible percentage of customers. Simply put, We deal in crazies(and the elderly). and let me tell you, Crazies don't like paying no damn nickel for no damn plastic bag.
Reactions are varied, but almost always negative. When asked, some puff their chests and loudly exclaim "Nope! No sir!" as if they're the Rosa Parks of plastic bags, and it's a badge of honor to carry their season of Murphy Brown under their arm like a library book. Some decline as if their far more sly than to to be foiled by my clever ruse, smiling at me, heads slightly cocked back as if to say "I'm onto you." Others are far more accusatory in their refusal; "Not if YOU'RE going to CHARGE me!!", like I'm pocketing the money myself, all a part of a grand scheme to get all Oprah rich, 1 nickel at a time, and all below the radar of my corporate overlords.
It's a curious set of circumstances. A lot of people will roll their eyes and groan if they see me break stride to bend over to pick up a nickel off the sidewalk. "Look at this cheap bastard" they say. But when the same sum of money is being asked of them at a cash register, they're shocked and appalled. They hold onto their nickels with such a firm grip like it's their newborn autistic child and I'm asking them to smash it's face with a hammer.
I'm not saying everyone should buy a bag, quite the opposite, just be aware that it's now the law, and adjust accordingly. And if one day should you decide to buy something on impulse and or otherwise not have a bag on you, don't act like it's the poor sales clerk's fault. Because he might be a blogger, and might get angry enough to make fun of you. Publicly. Online. So there.
Sunday was interesting for many reasons. After work I decided that two days having gone by without seeing the newest Pixar movie was two too many, and went and saw UP!
Drizzling that extra helping of “aw neat!” on top, was going to see it in 3-D. Having not seen anything in 3D for a number of years, the 3D content which amounted to 2 Trailers, followed by the mandatory Pixar short, followed by the film, were all breathtaking. There were no dramatic pointing/throwing things at the audience, as the film wasn't made specifically for 3D, but it gave the scenery that much more pop and depth, and for a film that's set primarily either in the air, or in the wilderness, it really works wonders. Also, with the newer 3D technology, gone are the Meth blue 'n' Red 3D glasses, replaced with much cooler Wayfarer-styled plastic specs, which I kept.
The film itself is, as expected, totally heartwarming. If you don't walk out of there with a smile on your face, you're basically probably a dick. Just sayin'. It has one of those lump-in-your-throat moments, a la Bambi's mom, it has a lot of silly laughs, and a ton of heart. Also, it pretty much goes without saying, but the animation is stunning. The way they've mastered things like hair, and textures and fabrics is something to behold. Another thing I like about Pixar is, while they're all profitable big budget Hollywood pictures, they also never seem like anything is shoehorned into the story for the purposes of marketability. Never does the whole narrative break down so Elton John can sing a song, or so they can introduce the 10th auxiliary character that's now available in stuffed animal form, and while Pixar soundtrack albums and toys do exist, they do a much better job of making the story of the film come first. They may never outdo The Incredibles for me, in terms of a subject matter being close to my heart, but UP is definitely another notch in Pixar's impressive winning streak.
On the way home, I opted to walk down a oddly baron Queen West and through Trinity Bellwoods park. Once I was about half a block away I saw 2 cop cars parked in the middle of a grassy area to the right, with their lights flashing. “Well” I said to myself “At least I'll feel safer going through the park”. When I say “safer” I don't mean I'm concerned about violence, I just mean that there's less of a chance of catching an unsavory looking public sex act out of the corner of my eye when there are so many cops around. So I walked up the stairs and continued on my way home. The park was, like Queen Street, sort of unnervingly quiet and free of people. I looked a bit further ahead and noticed more police cars, parked with their lights on, stationed throughout the park. And then more. And then more. Once I was about to exit the park I was at a fork in the road, and I noticed the police had barricaded the end of each street with police cars parked sideways. “What have I just walked into and why didn't anyone stop me from walking through it” I wondered. Here's an artist's rendering:
Once I exited onto Shaw, I saw an officer blocking off a small gap in the street's island with a motorcycle. I imagined him to be the badass rebel of the police force. “I work alone.” he'd say with a quiet intensity, silently recalling the one time he messed up and got his last true partner killed, one day before his impending retirement. “You're a loose cannon, Walarski!” the Chief would shout, getting an excellent view from behind his desk. “But you get results.”
I slowly walked over to him and began to explain “Look, if this is about the 3D glasses, I'll gladly give them ba--” he then cut me off “Where are you coming from, Buddy?”. This jarred me. I was not his buddy. “Um, just walked through Trinity Bellwoods...” “Trinity Bellwoods” he repeated. “Where are you headed?” “Home - College and Shaw” “College and Shaw” He again repeated to himself, my confidence in his badassery waning with each repeat. “So....Whats going on?” I asked. “Well, theres some guys with guns in the area, we're trying to find them.” “Oh.”
He then instructed me to talk an alternate, sort of pain-in-the-ass route home, making sure to walk down the middle of the street, with my hands out of my pockets. From there on, the remaining 10 minutes or so of diverted walking, I passed maybe 6 more police cars, all giving me the eye. I don't know if they ever caught the “Guys with Guns” in question, but I hope Walarski got him, and then drove his motorcycle through a plate glass window and then a moving train, and it turned out the guys with the guns killed his partner so he was all “mendozaaaaaaaaa” and got his just revenge, then walked the earth without a sense of purpose... But I digress...
Once I had returned to my stately manor and logged onto the internets, it was abuzz with talk of a single moment from that night. Twitter, Facebook, Digg & message boards were all chattering away about one single thing, and that single thing was this:
As I imagine you've all seen by now, The Andy Kaufman of our time, Sasha Baron Cohen ended up shoving his bare asshole into the face of a very pissed off Eminem. Was it staged? Was Eminem in on the joke? The message boards and Twitter accounts were feverishly dissecting the clip. Many people were quick to call Eminem a Homophobe, which, may or may not be the case (he's certainly done things that make cases for either sides of the argument) but using this scenario as proof of his homophobia is a pretty flimsy argument. Within the context of the clip, and it being not planned out, I don't think reacting badly towards someone unexpectedly throwing their bare asshole to within inches of your face qualifies as homophobia. Richard Simmons would have reacted the same way. Would rimming him have been the "PC" thing to do?
But either way, it turns out Eminem was totally in on it, and the whole thing was meticulously staged, and even dress rehearsed. In a blog post that's apparently since been taken down, head writer Scott Aukerman said:
"Yes, the Bruno/Eminem incident was staged. That's all anyone wants to talk about, so let's get it out of the way. They rehearsed it at dress and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show then. Okay, you can stop reading this blog now!"
So, there that is.
Between heartwarming 3D animated joy, to guys with guns, to Bruno's anus, Sunday night was fun.
As it stands, I'd put myself firmly on the "casual" side of video gaming. I get myself a new console approx. every 1 1/2 console cycles or so, and usually purchase no more than about 5 games for it. But it wasn't always this way. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve Nintendo's classic little grey box. I can remember the winter after "The Wizard" came out, finally getting my hands on Super Mario Bros. 3 (the WiiFit of that era, in terms of calculated hype and even more calculated hard-to-findedness), sitting listening to my also recently obtained cassette of Kid N Play's "Funhouse" album over and over and trying to master SMB3. I don't know that I ever did. Then, and still now, I lack sticktoitiveness. But it's the journey, not the destination, right? I knew what happened. Bowser fell through bricks, the Princess was something of a cock tease, See you all next year. Regardless, this was the equation for fun, back in '90:
Now that I'm a little older, a little wiser, and my tastes have gotten more sophisticated, the same equation has now more like this:
At this point, I think I should mention to my readers, and my mum, that that last scandalous mathematical equation was a joke. The truth, albeit less exciting is a lot more like this:
...or even more recently, much to my own shame for being so in line with my particular age demographic:
ANYways, math problems aside, I'm a pretty limited gamer these days. Of the current gen systems, I only have a Wii. There are only a handful a series' I care about, and I only recently (like 2 weeks ago) found a first person shooter¹ that I actually liked. Although, One title I've consistently found myself returning to, with the same enthusiasm and zeal as when I first played it, is the NES's "Mike Tyson²'s Punch Out!!". Which is why I'm so excited to see this:
¹ Which is the dominant genre in video gaming these days. A lot has been said about what that says about us as a culture, that facilitating fantasies of murder; simply running around various terrains with various weapons shooting the crap out of each other, are the most popular games in the multi-billion dollar gaming industry. But, from where I'm standing it comes down to this: After smoking weed, sneaking up on someone and shooting them in the dick is FUCKING FUNNY. It absolutely never gets old. However, It could just as easily be a pie throwing game, where you could sneak up and pie people, and it would provide the same level of comedy and satisfaction. However, they don't make that game, and until they do, we're stuck with guns and war and bloodiness. C'est la vie.
² Even though, as Mike Tyson isn't (and perhaps never was) a good character to put into a PG rated kid's video game, and Nintendo has removed all trace of him from subsequent re-releases, sequels and virtual console releases, it'll always be "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!" to me. For more on Mike Tyson, check out this interesting documentary/extended interview HERE. It was brought to my attention to ?uestlove of The Roots, and his every-10-minutes Twitter account.
I've been doing my best to keep writing in recent days, but not very much of the output seems to be landing on this lowly blog. But don't fret, this will not be just abandoned like Mambo About Masonry (Just playing, REAL TALK - Mark is currently killing it on both SHARP for men, and The Format, so you know, he's a little busy). I've been working on a few projects, and there are a few new sites I've been contributing to. (and then there's that movie script...)
Last week, the cleverly named Punk News site, Punknews.org published a review of Atmosphere's "When Life Gives You Lemons...", which can be found HERE.
I've also started writing reviews on businesses and restaurants for Yelp.ca . You can see my review of colorful Queen West staple Michael's Restaurant HERE, and another review of my favorite spot for food in all of California, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, HERE.
Also, I wrote another fun Hamburger review for HamBlogger, which should be going up any second now...*cough*
So, I've been keeping busy on the writing front, but I hope to have more of it be on here. So keep checking back, and I'll actually finish more of the things I start. Honest engine. Freals. Real Talk.
(I should mention, for anyone who has a vested interest in seeing Xmen Origins: Wolverine in the theatre, you may want to avoid this post. There are only minor spoilers ahead, mainly in reguard to the movie being a disappointment, but if you want to go into it fresh, maybe stop here)
I, like many other people in the early morning of this years April fools day, came across a link on their Pirate site of choice, which apparently lead to a leaked work print of the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine. "What? This has got to be a joke..." I remember thinking as I clicked the link, getting myself ready to watch some Rick Astley.
Now, as Iron Man and Dark Knight showed us, it's really not that hard to do a comic book movie that will remain at least halfway faithful to the comic. In the case of Jon Favreau's Iron Man especially, making little nods to longtime comic fans is half of the charm in that movie. XO:Wolverine does not do that. At all. Deadpool never makes a 4-th wall breaking quip about being in a movie, Emma Frost doesn't use any telepathy, and to paraphrase Simon Pegg; the Blob makes X-3's Rick-Jamesian Juggernaut look like Ice Cube from Boyz N The Hood.
But, that doesn't make the movie unwatchable. You just need to keep a few things in mind while watching. So, if you have any foreknowledge of the comics, or possess some semblance of common sense, and plan to watch the leaked workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, heres a few pointers to make the film more enjoyable:
Pretend Will.i.am isn't Will.i.am, but a friend of yours. That way you A) won't feel stupid for watching a movie featuring the terrible acting of the guy who wrote "my humps", and B) you'll be stoked to see your friend in a major motion picture.
Use your mind's Charlie Brown filter, and instead of making teachers sound like Trombones, make anyone who says the word "DeadPool" say "Another mutant who is in no way connected to DeadPool". The character in the film is only Deadpool in name only, so if you can filter that out, you're golden.Also, give Gambit an accent of some sort while you're at it.
Ignore the part where they say the only way to kill Wolverine is with an adamantium bullet like he's the fucking wolf man. I mean, the movie itself contradicts that statement later on anyways.
It should go without saying that suspention of disbelief is essential to enjoying a comic book movie, but suspension of common sense is sometimes essential for this one. So, when someone describes a "deserted secret island", just take it for granted that ambulances and fire trucks can drive there, and people can walk on and off of it (despite originally getting there via jumping out of a plane).
Actually, remember when I said to pretend DeadPool is "Another mutant besides Deadpool"? Maybe instead make that "Cybernetic Robot version of Baraka from Mortal Kombat II". Just tell yourself that William Styker is a big MK fan from back in the day and made a giant robot Baraka as a means of dispatching Wolverine. Then When he watches everything through DeadpoolAnother Mutant Robo-Baraka's eyes like POV porn and commands him with c:/ prompts, it won't seem so batshit ridiculous.
Also, if you're aware of them, forget anything you may know about the fate of Agent Hoover in Preacher, or the death of Darth Maul in Star Wars episode 1. This will make endings for certain characters presented in XO:Wolverine seem original (and with lazer beams!!)
Well, I think that about covers it. I've probably come off alot more like Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons as usual in this little diatribe, but I do this for your benefit. Enjoy the movie!
It's another one of my over abundance of days off, and the weather outside makes me feel like I live in the Pacific Northwest as oppose to Downtown Toronto. I know I've talked shit on S.A.D. in the past, but lousy weather really can be a good demotivator, and when you're as lazy as I am, you'll take any excuse.
Anyway, I made a couple of new tag lines (the primarily sarcastic catch phrases that appear at random under the blog's semi-nonsensical title), so hit F5 and see if you can spot the new magic.
If you're really dying for some more new writing (and really why else would you be here...), Punknews.org published another review of mine, for Atmosphere's "When Life Gives You Lemons..." album, and you can read that HERE.
