December 2005

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The bad and the ugly

Filed under: Music

Here are my least favorite songs of '05. The coming of a new year has a tabula rasa effect on radio, right? Please?

"My Humps" Black Eyed Peas
Fergie turns in this year's least sexy performance, with the nyah-nyah vocal delivery of a prepubescent boy and vernacular that reminds women to schedule regular mammograms. Not a bad PSA, I guess.

"Just the Girl" The Click Five
Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger generally knows his way around a pop song. So why'd he write this groaner about falling in love with a total bitch? The lyrics are particularly maddening: "'Cause she's bittersweet/ She knocks me off of my feet." Dude, it's your feelings, not the girl, that should be described as bittersweet. Buy a dictionary.

"Don't Cha" Pussycat Dolls
Another supposedly sexy song that misses its mark by several lengths of Astrolubed vinyl. Radio's grimiest offering since Xtina's "Dirrty" makes an Herbal Essence shower sound genuinely orgasmic.

"Cater 2 U" Destiny's Child
This one's easy. Every time it comes on the radio, my boyfriend starts up with the "Tie my shoes! Beyonce would!" It's funny. Really. But I guess if a woman expects a guy to pay her "Bills, Bills, Bills," he should be getting something in return. Hey sweetie, pay my rent! Jay-Z would!

"Beverly Hills" Weezer
It's weird how the absolute worst track on an otherwise innocuous album gets picked as the lead single. I'm not sure which is a bigger geek-rock faux pas: recycling a Steve Miller Band riff or the pretend-I'm-not-a-millionaire-and-pity-me lyrics. Makes you wonder just how bad the hundreds of unrecorded River Cuomo songs are.

Posted by Lindsey Thomas at December 30, 2005 4:47 PM | Comments (0)

 

KMOJ's Top 89 Songs of 2005

Today 89.9 KMOJ-FM aired its top 89 most requested songs of 2005, including Mint Condition's "Whoaa" at number 55. Here's the entire list (thanks to Bianca Tebbs for faxing it over):

89. "Like You" Bow Wow f/ Ciara
88. "1, 2 Step" Ciara
87. "Gold Digger" Kanye West f/ Jamie Foxx
86. "I Should've Cheated" Keyshia Cole
85. "Only you" Ashanti
84. "One Wish" Ray J
83. "Victory" Yolanda Adams
82. "Where I Wanna Be" Kindred the Family Soul
81. "Tell Me" Bobby Valentino
80. "1 Thing" Amerie
79. "All Because of You" Marques Houston
78. "U Already Know" 112
77. "How Could You" Mario
76. "Baby Mama" Fantasia
75. "Ain't No Need to Worry" Rueben Studdard
74. "Ain't Gonna Beg You" Fantasia
73. "Jet Lag" Joss Stone
72. "Confessions Part 2" Usher
71. "Trippin'" Toni Braxton...

70. "For Real" Amel Larrieux
69. "The Way You Move" Kenny G & Earth Wind & Fire
68. "Ball and Chain" Anthony Hamilton
67. "Where Were You" Urban Mystic
66. "Simply Beautiful" Queen Latifah f/ Al Green
65. "Grown & Sexy" Babyface
64. "Music" Leela James
63. "Caught Up" Usher
62. "So High" John Legend
61. "Crazy Love" Will Downing
60. "Still" Tamia
59. "Long Way" Urban Mystic
58. "Cater 2 U" Destiny's Child
57. "Perfect to Me" Al Green
56. "Stay a Awhile" Angie Stone f/ Joe
55. "Whoaa" Mint Condition
54. "Forever Yours" Rashaan Patterson
53. "Yes I'm Ready" Jeffrey Osbourne
52. "My Sensitivity" Ledisi
51. "Free Yourself" Fantasia
50. "Karma" Alicia Keys
49. "Slow Down" Bobby Valentino
48. "Mesmerized" Faith Evans
47. "I Understand" Smokie Norful
46. "Shake It Off" Mariah Carey
45. "My Place" Nelly f/ Jahiem
44. "Pure Gold" Earth, Wind & Fire
43. "Trapped in the Closet" R. Kelly
42. "Show Me the Way" Earth, Wind & Fire
41. "I Might" Norman Brown
40. "I Think I Love You" Dwele
39. "Who Loves You More" Raheem Devaughn
38. "Make Up" The O'Jays
37. "Sorry for the Stupid Things" Babyface
36. "My Boo" Usher f/ Alicia Keys
35. "Unbreakable" Alicia Keys
34. "Spoiled" Joss Stones
33. "Must Be Nice" Lyfe Jennings
32. "Girl" Destiny's Child
31. "A Rose By Another Name" Teena Marie f/ Gerald Levert
30. "One Million Times" Gerald Levert
29. "From the Bottom of My Heart" Stevie Wonder
28. "So What (if I Got a Baby)" Gerald Levert
27. "I'm Ready" Mint Condition
26. "You're My Everything" Anita Baker
25. "Find Your Way" Kem
24. "So What's the Fuss" Stevie Wonder
23. "I Wanna be Loved" Eric Benet
22. "What We Do Here" Brian McKnight
21. "Please" Toni Braxton
20. "Cross My Mind" Jill Scott
19. "Call My Name" Prince
18. "How Does It Feel?" Anita Baker
17. "Diary" Alicia Keys
16. "Again" Faith Evans
15. "Purify Me" India Arie
14. "Gotta Go, Gotta Leave" Vivian Green
13. "Let Me Love You" Mario
12. "Whatever" Jill Scott
11. "Think About You" Luther Vandross
10. "Ordinary People" Lohn Legend
9. "Every Time You Go Away" Brian McKnight
8. "Charlie, Last Name Wilson" Charlie Wilson
7. "We Belong Together" Mariah Carey
6. "Forever, For Always, For Love" LaLah Hathaway
5. "Unpredictable" Jamie Foxx
4. "Looking FOr You" Kirk Franklin
3. "Be Without You" Mary J. Blige
2. "I Can't Stop Loving You" Kem
1. "Happy People" R. Kelly

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 30, 2005 4:45 PM | Comments (1)

 

Time to dust off that Jungian blank-verse musical

The Minnesota Fringe Festival is taking applications for shows through Tuesday, January 31, at 6:00 p.m. sharp. Prospective producers have to get the form physically into the office by then, and forms postmarked before the drop-dead date but arriving after it will be burned for fuel in the Fringe's vast late-application-powered energy plant (all true except for the last part). Forms can be downloaded at the Fringe's web site, and the subsequent lottery will take place on February 6, with shows randomly drawn via proxy ping-pong balls. Those prone to artistic indecision needn't fret: show titles and descriptions can be changed after applications are received. So if you're putting the finishing touches on your Marxist tapdancing erotic parlor mystery, act sooner rather than later.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at December 29, 2005 3:50 PM | Comments (0)

 

A DVD club that . . . doesn't . . . wear . . . a hairpiece!

Filed under: Film

Not since Priceline.com has there been such a deal, or spokesman: The William Shatner DVD Club is open for business. "William Shatner has culled the thousands of films he has seen into a collection of the best Sci-Fi, Horror & Fantasy movies available." And for only $47.99 a year, you can own 12 of them, featuring some of Bill's favorite actors, like Daniel Baldwin and Judd Neslon [sic]. Better still, you can "Get William Shatner's opinion before you go to the theatre or watch it on DVD!" as well as vote on his best Star Trek performance. (ST III: Search for Spock is already checked for your convenience.) Too bad there's no mention of some of Shatner's best films being in the queue, like Incubus, the only film to date in Esperanto, and Want a Ride, Little Girl?, where he wears both a tank-top and a leisure suit.

Posted by Steve Monaco at December 29, 2005 3:22 AM | Comments (0)

 

Good news, bad news for Minneapolis-based films

Filed under: Film

The bad news first: a new film based on Charles Bukowski's Factotum, which was shot around town and even guest-stars a City Pages writer, has been dropped by its theatrical distributor right before its American premiere. Picturehouse, a distributorship owned and run by New Line and HBO, made the announcement just as the film was scheduled to be shown at Sundance. (Matt Dillon plays Bukowski/Chinaski, and it was directed by Scandanavian filmmaker Bent Hamer-- both have been singled out in the positive European reviews.) The good news is about another indy film with Minneapolis roots: Hoop Dreams, the 1994 documentary, was one of the 25 films added to this year's National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Films are added "because of their cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance." It's always a good list, and you can see this year's picks here.

Posted by Steve Monaco at December 29, 2005 1:42 AM | Comments (0)

 

Best reasons to leave your house in 2005

Filed under: Local Nightlife , Local Nightlife

With 2005's best concerts still looming large in the rearview mirror, I'm already prepping my 2006 list. (An Archers of Loaf reunion at the 400 Bar?!?) Here, in chronological order, are my top 10 favorite shows by out-of-towners. I'm predisposed to the indie rock, so feel free to throw your own suggestions in the comments.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - 400 Bar
Menomena - 7th St. Entry
Stars - 400 Bar
Weezer - First Avenue
The Hold Steady - Grand Old Day
Eels - Pantages Theater
U2 - Target Center
The Arcade Fire - First Avenue
M.I.A. - Fine Line Music Cafe
Metric - Quest Ascot Room

Posted by Lindsey Thomas at December 28, 2005 11:24 AM | Comments (3)

 

Autopsy confirms Hedberg died of OD

Filed under: Obituary

Spin Magazine is reporting that St. Paul-born comedian Mitch Hedberg died accidentally in March of "multiple drug toxicity," including cocaine and heroin, citing reports obtained from the New Jersey medical examiner's office. Hedberg was 37 when he was found dead in a hotel room in Livingston, New Jersey, while on a club tour. Hedberg had been diagnosed with a heart defect, and the initial belief was that he died of heart failure. Hedberg cut his teeth at Acme Comedy Co., which led to numerous stints on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and Howard Stern's radio show, as well as a small role in the Cameron Crowe film "Almost Famous."

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 28, 2005 9:19 AM | Comments (1)

 

Nothing says Xmas like revived local art punks

Filed under: Local Music

Jim Walsh previews tonight's Flamin' Oh's comeback in City Pages. And this just in our email from Rich Mattson: "This Friday, December 23rd, a very special event: Flamin' Oh's--CD Release Party! with special musical guests: 11:30 Flamin' Oh's, 10:30 Ol' Yeller, 9:30 Blame, 8:30 The Hard Left at the FINE LINE, 318 1st Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401 612-338-8100. Now, let me tell you all a little story about my love affair with the Flamin' Oh's. Way back in the summer of 1980 I was a 13 year old rock and roll fan without a clue in tiny West Eveleth Minnesota. I was listening to Ted Nugent, Van Halen, Kiss, and just starting to find bands like the Cars and the Police. I was leaving my friend Timmy Leseman's house one day and heard this punchy, poppy, completely infectious rock and roll music playing out of his neighbor's window. The neighbor was one of the big bullies of the village, of which there were so many back then..

"Anyway, I stood out there and listened, beside myself, wondering who this band was, what was this music? I had to know!! It was too cool! I mustered up all my courage and knocked on the door. The bully hollered down the stairs, "WHADDAYA WAANNT?!?!" "What are you listening to!?" I hollered back up the stairs. "FLAMIN' OH'S--THEY'RE FROM DA CITIES!!" he yelled back at me. I was stunned. They had an album? They played their own music? And they were from..DA CITIES? I had no idea that was possible. In a matter of seconds I had a whole new outlook on life, a new career ahead of me and a new favorite band. Over the next few weeks I managed to beg the neighborhood bully into recording his record onto a cassette for me, which I wore out completely until I found my own copy of the album some 7 years later..

"In May of 2005 I got a call from Robert Wilkinson, the singer and guitarist for the Flamin' Oh's, asking about my studio and talking about how they were planning to record a new album, their first studio album in 20 years! "We just want to make an album, no b.s." I damn near fell on the floor! December 2005, and Long Live the King the new Flamin' Oh's album is complete and ready for your aural consumption. Personally I am very proud of it, and recording it was the feather in my cap, the cat's meow, the wind beneath my wings, and all around a joy to be a part of. After all those years listening as a fan, the Flamin' Oh's really ARE all that, and more. What a great rock and roll band, and a sweet bunch of guys they are. I hope you can make it down to the Fine Line to help celebrate with us.

"Cheers and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

"Rich Mattson
Ol' Yeller
http://www.olyellerband.com"

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at December 23, 2005 9:08 AM | Comments (0)

 

Guess your present: DVD edition

Filed under: Film

Here are the top-selling DVDs heading toward Minneapolis just in time for Christmas, according to Amazon.com:

1. Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (Widescreen Edition)
2. Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition with Comic Book)
3. March of the Penguins (Widescreen Edition)
4. Firefly - The Complete Series
5. Madagascar (Widescreen Edition)
6. Lost - The Complete First Season
7. Arrested Development - Season Two
8. Cinderella (2-Disc Special Edition)
9. Bob Dylan - No Direction Home
10. Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 23, 2005 8:15 AM | Comments (0)

 

Nothing says Xmas like old art punks

2003 saw the oddly inexplicable reappearance of Wire, influential British abstract thrashers from the late '70s who had resurfaced for a time a decade later as an unsatisfying electronic band. Odder still was the fact that the album they came up with was quite good. Now stockings can be stuffed with Return the Gift by the Gang of Four, in which another batch of late '70's Brits return. This time out they take the step of re-recording a batch of their best early stuff, which is either nicely inspired or appallingly cynical. Anyway, it sounds good. And this is the time of year when a Marxist rant set to a tricky funk beat laced with buzzsaw guitar can do the trick. Click here for a vintage interview with the Gang of Four.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at December 22, 2005 9:12 PM | Comments (0)

 

Guess your present: Music edition

Filed under: Music

Here are the top-selling CDs heading toward Minneapolis just in time for Christmas, according to Amazon.com:

1. X&Y by Coldplay
2. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall [Live] by Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane
3. Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson
4. American Idiot [Enhanced] by Green Day
5. Confessions on a Dance Floor by Madonna
6. Amarantine by Enya
7. At Folsom Prison [Extra tracks] [Original recording remastered] [Live] by Johnny Cash
8. Born to Run: 30th Anniversary 3-Disc Set [Original recording remastered] by Bruce Springsteen
9. Monkey Business by Black Eyed Peas
10. Late Registration by Kanye West

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 22, 2005 8:46 AM | Comments (0)

 

Guess your present: Books edition

Filed under: Books

Here are the top-selling books heading toward Minneapolis just in time for Christmas, according to Amazon.com:

1. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
2. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
3. The Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set [Box set] by C.S. Lewis
4. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
6. The Truth (with jokes) by Al Franken
7. Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
8. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
9. Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats--A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners by Rachael Ray
10. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 21, 2005 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

 

Dead of winter

Filed under: Theater

Local theater troupe Live Action Set, the group behind this year's most-attended Fringe Festival show, Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban, is in search of participants for its Zombies on Ice performance, which will take place on Medicine Lake in Plymouth as one of this year's many Art Shanty Projects. The first show is January 13 at 3:00 p.m., and 50 to 100 participants are still needed to fill the roles of zombies, make-up artists, and zombie team leaders.

Those interested need not be skilled at playing the undead on a frozen body of water: Galen Treuer of Live Action Set says the only thing you need is an ability to "propel across the ice in a jerky, zombie-like manner," and the desire to have your frozen and snot-encrusted face "made up in the gruesome style of violent decay." Of course, a love of blood-red icicles dripping from your numbed little nose doesn't hurt anything, either. Anyone desiring to play the winter dead should contact Treur at gtreuer[at]gmail.com.

Posted by at December 20, 2005 4:45 PM | Comments (0)

 

'West Wing' actor John Spencer dies at 58

Filed under: Obituary

The Associated Press is reporting that actor John Spencer, who plays vice presidential candidate Leo McGarry on "The West Wing," has died of a heart attack at age 58. Ironically, McGarry left his chief of staff position to recover from a heart attack. Spencer won an Emmy award in 2002 for playing McGarry and was also familiar to fans of "L.A. Law" as lawyer Tommy Mullaney during that show's later seasons. His film career included supporting roles in Forget Paris, The Rock, and The Negotiator. Read the AP story here.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 16, 2005 5:39 PM | Comments (0)

 

Adam Levy under the knife

Filed under: Local Music

Honeydogs's leader Adam Levy went into the hospital Thursday night and is having an emergency appendectomy today. Levy is reportedly fine, but the Honeydogs have cancelled their shows at the 7th St. Entry this weekend. The line-ups for the shows ($6 at the door) are now:

Friday
The Sirachas
Rattletrap
Ellis

Saturday:
Byzantine Generals Problem
Coach Said Not To
Joanna James

Posted by Jim Walsh at December 16, 2005 1:11 PM | Comments (0)

 

We like it better when you fake it

Just look at that perfectly artificially-lit babyface on the left: Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy) looks so angelic and unassuming with that faraway Christ-baby gaze and those enviable cheekbones you could rest multiple copies of the Oxford English Dictionary on. And fans of Grey's (and Old School) like her that way: delicate and dainty and incapable of plucking the head off a dead dandelion. (It aches, you know.) Last week, though, they got a taste of Pompeo's offscreen persona when she was on Punk'd, and now they're saying the bitch is crazy.

Here's the gist of what happened: Pompeo appears to be wearing a white cotton nightgown to a chic outdoor L.A. eatery; the waitress flirts with her fiancé; Pompeo says she'd like to stab the waitress, let the blood trickle down her face, and watch as her make-up gets smeared from the impending blood flow. Pompeo titters. End scene.

The fact that some fans of Grey's are freaking out over the incident extends beyond the notion that Pompeo's seemingly love of the bloodbath is incongruous with her lil' dumpling public profile: It's that we want celebrities to be unvarnished and incapable of evil, even if it's our own schadenfreude that fuels us to watch them in these controlled environs in the first place. We like knowing, say, that they take dumps like the rest of us. But we don't want to know that they do it, for example, on public-school playgrounds.

Soon, wanting to see them fall is replaced with a blind empathy only the best editing and publicist can create. The thing that keeps viewers hooked to celeb-reality TV is the chance to bear witness to one of those very-special episodes or moments that reveal how much more decent of a human random celeb is than originally thought. (Maybe Danny Bonaduce is just a clusterfuck of pain and confusion and his actions are totally forgivable. Or maybe not.) Which is why 2005 made us long for a time when celebrities were so much better at faking it.

True, there were a number of awful celebrity-reveals this season. But these made for the greatest and most awkward misdeeds:

1. Ellen Pompeo: Ok, this wasn't exactly a reality TV show, but Punk'd exposed her in some muumuu-for-the-housebound expounding on the laws of brutal knife wounds and their effect on an overly made-up face. Grey's will never be the same, especially when there's blood involved.

2. Danny Bonaduce: He somehow became the shining example of a fractured man who can overcome his cracked past, even though his definition of "working on a relationship" means not banging the blonde chick at the gym. The guy goes to rehab and suddenly his 'roid-raging abusive ways are completely erased like an Etch-a-Sketch that just needs a little shaking up. You know what? If Bonaduce were some unknown motorcycle mechanic from Jacksonville, Wyoming, people would be organizing rescue missions for his wife. Instead, the dude gets a pass because he has a shred of humanity, which is revealed to us only because he goes on crying jags. Forgive him, dear TV watcher, he is a rich celebrity whose life has been more difficult than the average man's.

3. Christopher Knight (aka Peter Brady): He was the buff and kind patriarch on The Surreal Life, which is why people tuned in to watch him and Adrianne Curry, the model he met in the Surreal house, on My Fair Brady. One too many viewings later, and it's revealed that Knight is mostly a cold-hearted lech who passes gas a lot. In the end, though, the 48-year-old former Brady tried to make up for it by proposing to his 22-year-old girlfriend while simultaneously patronizing her on national television.

Yeah, I think we saw this on Joe Millionaire, and he went down as the one of the biggest dolts in TV history. Then again, he wasn't a celebrity. So who cares if he's a good guy or not?

Posted by at December 15, 2005 12:40 AM | Comments (6)

 

Rock and roll crossword puzzle: The answers

Filed under: Contest

The print version of today's Culture To Go features a rock and roll crossword puzzle with a local flavor courtesy of Jeremy Grace, mandolinist with Murzik. If you're tearing your hair out over 66 Across, look no further than the jump to find all the answers.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 14, 2005 3:53 PM | Comments (0)

 

Cover to cover

Filed under: Music

Hey everybody, here's a fun new game to play in the comments! Connect bands via cover songs and try to make the longest chain possible. Style points awarded for variety. A good way to start is to think of some established artists who are down for the occasional cover (e.g. Johnny Cash, Devo, David Bowie) Here's a sample:

Bob Dylan
XTC "All Along the Watchtower"
Joe Jackson "Statue of Liberty"
Goldfinger "Is She Really Going Out with Him?"

Unfortunately, this one stops short because really, who's going to cover Goldfinger? I haven't been able to get past a sixer (see comments.) Think you can do better?

Posted by Lindsey Thomas at December 14, 2005 2:27 PM | Comments (5)

 

Getting Arrested

Filed under: Television

Fox cut Arrested Development's current season from 22 episodes to just 13 last month, giving the critically acclaimed show little hope of ever garnering an audience beyond its cult following before its yanked from the network for good. But Hollywood Reporter announced today that the Emmy-award-winning show might get picked up by Showtime.

Arrested Development has never been on sure footing with Fox, despite the critical acclaim its received: The show's been in danger of cancellation since it first premiered in 2003, and when news hit this year that the series would indeed be cut back before becoming a Fox footnote, fans organized a petition to save the show. Unlike a decade or so ago, when comedies ruled the roost, only two comedies have consistently landed in the Nielsen Top 20 this year: My Name is Earl and, perhaps one of the worst shows on TV today, Two and a Half Men. Why isn't anyone watching comedies anymore? If we supposedly have shorter attention spans and a need to escape from current events, why are hour-long crime dramas so popular? Leave your answers in the comments.

Posted by at December 14, 2005 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

 

Satellite radio gets weirder: Bob Dylan turns DJ

Filed under: Radio

XM Satellite Radio has signed Bob Dylan to do a weekly hour-long broadcast beginning in March. The network offered Dylan a completely open format, commercial-free. So far, Bob plans to fill the time talking, playing music and interviewing guests, although most intriguing is the announcement that he'll also answer email he gets on the air. What's not announced is how much he's being paid, but it couldn't come close to the $500 million Howard Stern is getting from rival Sirius Satellite Radio. How either network affords anything would be the most interesting announcement of all, since neither has made a profit since they started: 1999 for Sirius, 1994 for XM.

Posted by Steve Monaco at December 13, 2005 11:28 PM | Comments (1)

 

"My Humps" takes its lumps

Filed under: Music

Slate has joined a growing chorus (that includes Dylan Hicks) in declaring the Black Eyed Peas's "My Humps" possibly one of the worst pop songs ever written, recorded, widely distributed, and frequently downloaded. In the May 2004 issue, Blender Magazine published what it considered the 50 Worst Songs Ever, including such stalwarts as Starship's "We Built This City," Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy," and The Beach Boys's "Kokomo." So, does "My Humps" really deserve to be placed in this pantheon of musical poo? Give us your two cents in the comments section, as well as, you guessed it, the pop song you believe to be the worst ever exposed to human ears.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 12, 2005 5:33 PM | Comments (30)

 

Bootleggers, download them tapes

Filed under: Blogs/Web

A company hired by record companies to pollute file-sharing networks with "spoof" audio and video files has just gone out of business. Overpeer was one of the first companies contracted by the music and movie industries to foul up peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa by flooding them with phony files. The logic was that the constant, overwhelming amount of spoof files would bring down the networks and discourage users from bothering to download anything. All it really did, however, was drive dowloaders to more sophisticated, and harder to track, BitTorrent networks, where fake files like Overpeer's practically never show up. Hence, the going-out-of-biz sign. (P.S. When Overpeer logged on in 2003, there were an estimated 3 million downloaders on the p2p networks-- today it's 10 million.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at December 12, 2005 12:29 AM | Comments (0)

 

Richard Pryor dead at 65

Filed under: Obituary

The biggest name in stand-up comedy during the 1970s, Richard Pryor, died today of a heart attack. Spike Lee: "For me, Richard was a great. He was an innovator. He was a trailblazer, and the way he showed social commentary in his humor opened up a universe for other comics to follow in his footsteps." In addition to his stand-up, Pryor also appeared in movies such as "Lady Sings the Blues," "Car Wash," "Silver Streak," and "The Wiz," and co-wrote the script for "Blazing Saddles." Read the obit at CNN here.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 10, 2005 5:45 PM | Comments (3)

 

MPAA ratings board to documentary: Go X yourself

Filed under: Film

A new documentary about the movie ratings board, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, has gotten the dread NC-17-- the current equivalent of the original X-- from its irritable subject. The official reason for the box-office kiss-of-death is that the film includes scenes from other films that were given the rating, or were cut to avoid it. Director Kirby Dick (whose name alone would have gotten it rated at least PG) claims that his film "deals with an insidious form of censorship resulting from a ratings process that has been kept secret for more than 30 years." It also questions the board's ratings decisions regarding violence and sex, and whether gay-themed films get more restrictive ratings.

Posted by Steve Monaco at December 9, 2005 2:10 AM | Comments (0)

 

Nobel laureate rips Bush, his "bleating little lamb"

Filed under: Overheard

75-year-old British playwright Harold Pinter won't be able to attend the ceremony for his Nobel Prize this Saturday, but he's already videotaped his acceptance speech. He describes the Iraq War as "blatant state terrorism," and reserves extra tongue lashing for the "pathetic and supine" Tony Blair, suggesting that Blair be tried as a war criminal. Pinter points out that he'd see President George W. Bush tried as well, but the crafty W. has made the scenario impossible by refusing to recognize international courts. The White House has released no immediate word whether Pinter will be included in this year's Christmas card list.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at December 8, 2005 2:22 PM | Comments (3)

 

Ted Rall hatin' on Chris Ware

Filed under: Cartoons/Comics

Ted Rall is one of the most controversial and talented editorial cartoonists in the business. He depicts President Bush as a wild-eyed, dictatorial generalissimo and Iraqi war vets as Abu Ghraib-inspired sexual deviants. Rall is extremely forthright in his political opinions, expressing them as a Pulitzer Prize-nominated cartoonist, an op-ed columnist, and a globe-trotting radio commentator through various periods in his life. The current administration and its actions have given Rall more than enough fodder, so why in Monday's cartoon did he feel the need to take a shovel to the head of fellow cartoonist Chris Ware?

Chris Ware is a graphic novelist based out of Chicago. The most famous work from his Acme Novelty Library is "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth," lauded by many as one of the best graphic novels ever produced. Peter Schjeldahl, in the October 17 edition of the New Yorker, declared "Corrigan" the "the first formal masterpiece of a medium that he has proved to be unexpectedly complex and fertile." The story, published in 2000, follows a middle-aged under-achieving Corrigan as he ventures to find the father he never knew, and once again finding disappointment. Those story panels are spare Joost Swarte-inspired images of Corrigan and his environs, which are contrasted by a parallel story of Corrigan's grandfather being raised by his widowed father featuring large-panel, magnificently-detailed renderings of the exhibition halls of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Ware has since gained a wider audience with a 6-month serial that inaugurated the New York Times Magazine's new Funny Pages section.

While highly adept at editorializing on current global events (war, politics, terrorism, etc.), why has Rall taken time out of his schedule to kick Chris Ware in the junk and take his lunch money? Rall's December 5 cartoon mimics Ware's style and appears to mock what he calls Ware's "mundane" observations, "repetitive" panels, and use of flowcharts to "intellectualize the vapid." A scribble on the side of the panel states "apologies to Chris Ware," a phrase commonly used when one artist co-opts another's style for purposes of getting a point across, not when one is calling another a craptastic hack. It would appear Rall has had a simmering hatred for Ware's work that has now boiled over as Ware's exposure broadens.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 8, 2005 2:20 PM | Comments (4)

 

Press release of the day: Chew on this, you "infosnackers"

Filed under: Pop Culture

The New Oxford American Dictionary editors picked "podcast" as 2005's word of the year. Over here, the folks at Webster's chose "infosnacking," a word most likely only to be found in a "Cathy" cartoon. Webster's isn't known for being ahead of (or even on) the curve: The big new word of 2004 was "blog," and a few years before that "bootylicious" saw its way into the word bible even though the term had already gone the way of "jiggy" before it--to the Land of Lucinda Dickey. If the name doesn't ring a bell, look it up, er, infosnack that girl. Because according to Webster's, if you're reading this right now you're already guilty of "infosnacking." We feel a snack attack coming on, or have we just discovered the subject of next Sunday's "Cathy" comic strip--the annoying co-worker who's so busy infosnacking poor Cathy is left to eat her bagged lunch alone?

Editors of Webster's New World College Dictionary Select "Infosnacking" as Word of the Year for 2005

A phenomenon that's taking place in offices all over the world now has a name.

The trappings of the Digital Age enable employees to do more than take traditional coffee breaks on company time. Checking e-mail, Googling sports scores, shopping online and surfing the latest headlines on the Internet have also become the norm during workers' office hours.

This is why the editors of Webster's New World College Dictionary (with bonus CD-ROM) have selected "INFOSNACKING" as Word of the Year for 2005. The term colorfully conveys what employees with company Internet access are doing--in snack-attack fashion--while on the clock.

Editor-in-chief Mike Agnes, whom Fortune Magazine hails as "the bouncer behind the velvet rope of American English," is available to discuss the selection as well as other new terms that have already earned space in Webster's New World College Dictionary, runner-up words of 2005 and previous word-of-the-year selections.

For more information, see attached press release.

Posted by at December 8, 2005 12:19 AM | Comments (2)

 

Insult to injury

Filed under: Television

Maybe NBC's "must-see" Thursday line-up should include a show about sock puppet from 2003. As NBC continues to take a precipitous fall in the ratings, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog became the peacock channel's top iTune download after the network announced its partnership with Apple on Monday. Meanwhile, NBC has been struggling to crack the Nielsen Top 10: According to the latest Nielsen ratings, only three NBC shows even land in the Top 20, and one of those shows is E.R., which is barely breathing at 11-years-old.

Whether the Insult factor is a reflection of NBC's lack of imaginative programming or America's tastes is to be determined. Do we really want to spend two bucks to download an entire program to watch on matchbook-size screens when we can DV-R it for free? Why does this sound like the ultimate rip-off? But there is some good news for NBC, or at least viewers vying for smart (and free!) comedies: The network announced last week that My Name is Earl and The Office are moving to Thursdays in January, a sign that the network is willing to support these fledgling but clever shows. Let's just pray the opportunists at NBC don't call for Triumph to make sweeps-month guest appearances as the office's new temp.

Posted by at December 7, 2005 12:34 PM | Comments (2)

 

Music for class-free afternoons

Filed under: Local Music

There's something very "college" about Reticence's ReMedial. Maybe it's the way the local trio draws inspiration from early emo volume knob-twiddlers like Sunny Day Real Estate and Hum. Appropriate to their sound, the band usually tackles serious subject matter like domestic abuse, divorce, and that age-old story about the musician who sacrifices his privacy in a quest for fame. (And indeed, one nice thing about being a no-name Midwestern band is that people generally leave you alone.) But the track that will perk up most twentysomethings' ears is "Up Up Down Down," a serene love song encrypted in a video game trick. The old-school Nintendo fans among us will recognize up up down down left right left right B A select start as the Konami code used to begin games like Contra and Life Force with 30 lives--in two-player mode. If that ain't the most sincere sign of young love, I don't know what is.

Posted by Lindsey Thomas at December 6, 2005 4:18 PM | Comments (0)

 

Another reason to leave your Sundown Town tonight

Filed under: Books

Sociologist, historian, and author James Loewen will speak at the U of M's Coffman Memorial Union Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. The event is free. The author of the critically acclaimed Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong, released his most-recent book, Sundown Towns, about the creation of whites-only communities, in October. Lest anyone forget that those kinds of ordinances didn't just happen below the Mason-Dixon line, the 500-plus-page tome about the hidden history of racism reveals Edina, Minnesota's origins were as a segregated town whose antiquated rules were enforced well into the 1960s. A typical restrictive covenant for Edina property as outlined on page 116 of Loewen's book:

"No lot shall ever be sold, conveyed, leased, or rented to any person other than one of the white or Caucasian race, nor shall any lot ever be used or occupied by any person other than one of the white or Caucasian race, except such as may be serving as domestics for the owner or tenant of said lot, while said owner or tenant is residing thereon. All restrictions, except those in paragraph 8 (racial exclusion), shall terminate on January 1, 1964."

In other words, Loewen notes, the restriction to the "white or Caucasian race" was to continue forever. Today, Edina's African-American population hovers around one percent.

Posted by at December 6, 2005 4:00 PM | Comments (1)

 

Hey baby I hear the blues a'callin'

Filed under: Film

USA Today shows off a couple of the new mutants inhabiting next year's X-Men 3. Brett (Rush Hour 2) Ratner takes over the franchise from Bryan Singer, who's currently wrapping up Superman Returns, also slated for 2006. The most unusual addition appears to be television star Kelsey Grammer as the blue-hued furball Beast. While achieving success as Frasier Crane for over 20 years on two sitcoms, his choices of movie roles in such fare as Down Periscope and The New Jersey Turnpikes leave much to be desired. X-Men 3 should do a lot to reverse this trend. Grammer, at age 50, also tips the age balance of the series a bit, joining co-stars Patrick Stewart (65) and Ian McKellen (66) in the AARP demographic.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 5, 2005 6:53 PM | Comments (0)

 

Tip o' the hat to the Pizza Man

Filed under: Blogs/Web

A belated congratulations to Pizza Man, whose Streets of Pizza blog was a Yahoo! Pick on November 25. Here's an excerpt:

The Pizza Man prowls the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, dropping off pies and picking up stories. He chronicles his escapades on a gritty blog (hosted by local alternative weekly CityPages) that reads like a stiff cocktail of Dashiell Hammett, Charles Bukowski, and Statler and Waldorf.

Read the entire piece here.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 5, 2005 6:16 PM | Comments (0)

 

Christmas to be around for maybe one more year

Filed under: Pop Culture

For those Americans panic-stricken that a certain December holiday most commonly known as Christmas is heading for extinction, a glimmer of hope comes from the much-maligned athiestic United States Postal Service. The 2006 Christmas stamp, Madonna and Child with Bird, was unveiled last week. The painting, dating from around 1765, is attributed to Ignacio Chacón, an artist active from about 1745 to 1775 in Cuzco, Peru. Now if we could just do something about all those foreigners taking our stamp painting jobs.

Posted by Corey Anderson at December 5, 2005 1:25 PM | Comments (1)

 

Paglia on Madonna: A horse is a horse is a horse, of course

Filed under: CD Review

Madonna's back. Camille Paglia's back. There's nothing we can do about that, but Paglia's overwrought Salon review of Madonna's underwrought record is a fine summation of why it's probably best to ignore both of them:

At a recent party in New York celebrating Salon's 10th anniversary, the formidable Cintra Wilson said mordantly to me (I scribbled all this down on a cocktail napkin at the bar), "Madonna is the Robo-Celebrity, calcified with discipline--religiously saintly, physically superhuman, in all ways faultless. She represents the unspoken desires of America--to be good at everything!"

Even allowing for the fact that she must strenuously maintain her hipness for a busy husband 10 years her junior, Madonna is starting to morph into the mature Joan Crawford of "Torch Song," still ferociously dancing but with her fascist willpower signaled by brute, staring eyes and fixed jawline. In cannibalizing her disco diva days, Madonna runs the risk of turning into a pasty powdered crumpet like the aging Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Will she become a whooping Charo shaking her geriatric hoochie-coochie hips on TV talk shows? Or should we expect a sudden, grisly collapse from glowing beauty to dust, like Ursula Andress as the 2000-year-old femme fatale in "She"?

Posted by Steve Perry at December 2, 2005 2:55 PM | Comments (10)

 

Little prefab houses

Filed under: Art/Museums

Abraham Maslow's five-tiered hierarchy of needs lists safety--shelter and protection from elements--as the second step necessary to achieve the ever-elusive concept of self-actualization. Without need number two, he says, even love is meaningless. Like everything else in Maslow's hierarchy (status, achievement, etc.), our concept of living spaces has continued to shift in the last decade: prefab homes, which once were as unpopular for the architecturally-minded as post-war tract homes, certainly aren't the shack-in-a-box they used to be. Starting December 8, the Walker Art Center's "Some Assembly Required" exhibit will house some of these new prefab houses in the form of diagrams, photos, and 3D models, including a 480-sqaure-foot replica of a FlatPak home created by Minneapolis-based architectural firm Lazor Office. (The original FlatPak home is like a giant glass-encased minimalist art piece plopped in the middle of the Kenwood neighborhood.) Incorporating unique materials, concepts of nature, a fluidity with the outside world, a modern-art ideology, and inspirations from patterns the world creates, these do-it-yourself kits are modern-day tools for creating works of art you can live in.

Posted by at December 2, 2005 10:49 AM | Comments (1)

 

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