Question from Kazekiel

Kazekiel asked, "Is that your real hair? Because it kind of looks fake."

What the hell are you talking about? What hair are you referring to? If you're asking about the carpet and the drapes, don't worry. They match. And it's real. Most of it.

But I have a question for you, Kazekiel. Is that your real name? 'Cause that must have sucked in elementary school. And then high school. College. Job market. Bachelor life. You're a bachelor, right? With a name like Kazekiel, I would assume so. However, maybe you should take a trip to Renaissance Festival. I can definitely see you hooking up with some spiked mace wielding, horse riding, no silver ware eating, black plague fighting, 14th Century wench.

Or perhaps you could check out Amish country in my home state of Pennsylvania. They do dudes named Ezekiel all the time, so Kazekiel shouldn't be a far stretch. Sure, the chick's got 6 fingers, but that's a good thing. Trust me.

So sorry for the delay in posting...

But I'm actually holding out to see Sweeney Todd before writing my year end movie list. I know I said I'd write it after There Will Be Blood, but, um, I lied.

In the meantime, feel free to send me questions or topics in the comment page which you would like me to answer or comment on in a witty fashion.

That should be fun.

Umm...

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is Great (Right?)

Let me start by saying that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is an excellent film. It’s superbly written, superbly acted, and superbly directed. I start with this disclaimer of sorts, because, like most Sydney Lumet films, I walked out of the theater logically justifying its greatness, while feeling in my gut that it was ultimately innocuous. As with most emotions we come across in life, there is a rational and an irrational response. Usually, we can look at our feelings, be they love, anger, hatred, or envy and, if we possess an adequate amount of emotional maturity, decide how much of our emotions are irrational. From there, we can make a mature decision for how to proceed. It is with this in mind that I tell you, rationally, that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a fine film of the highest caliber.
Unfortunately, films, like the human spirit, don’t solely operate on the rational or the logical. And even while every character in this film about a robbery gone wrong acted without that rationality governor, I too find myself trying to maneuver around the film’s inescapable, seemingly irrational, nagging disappointment. Disappointed at not being on the edge of my seat. Disappointed at actually wondering when the film would end. Disappointed at not caring. And I felt the same way the first time I saw Dog Day Afternoon. So if you loved that movie, then don’t listen to me. You’ll probably love Before the Devil Knows You’re dead. It is a great film.

I think one of my problems was that Sydney ratcheted up the intensity level to a solid 9 right out of the door and never let up. So after about an hour of being at a steady 9, I grew tired and a little numb. The story starts with a jewelry store robbery that goes horribly wrong. From there, we look at every character involved in the robbery in a haltingly non-linear narrative, going back in time to see every angle leading up to the robbery. Eventually we see all the angles of the aftermath as well. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play middle-aged fucked-up brothers, each in need of money, and each sharing the same, perpetually nude, and surprisingly stunning Marissa Tomei, who plays Hoffman's wife. Women her age shouldn’t look so good. It’s unfair to everyone else. Hoffman and Hawke are actually convincing as brothers, despite their rather stark differing physical appearance, and that, I think, is a testament to their acting, as well as the casting of mother, small, svelte Rosemary Harris, and father, the wonderful, puffier Albert Finney. While the story starts with a jewelry store robbery, and uses this robbery as the narrative structure, the film is about the destruction of a suburban American family. Not the American Beauty brand of destruction – think more like Hamlet style destruction. Homicide. Patricide. Matricide. Fratricide. If it has a “-cide” it’s not only possible in Lumet’s 44th(ish) film, it’s likely. Every scene is packed so tightly with emotional intensity – Hoffman turns out yet another stunning performance, as if we should expect anything less at this point, and Finney’s performance, the heart of which doesn’t come until halfway through the movie, is so heartbreakingly devastating you practically want to rip your own heart out and give it to him – that by the time we get to the film’s bloody denouement, my nerves were frayed. I was worn out.

Without the rather complex structure, there might not be a film. At least, not nearly as interesting a film. Reminiscent of the structure of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the result of taking us back in time to learn each character’s own unique cause to their combined effect made for a powerfully nuanced story. Unlike a film that might start with a big event then rush back to the past to show how we got to this point, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is about the characters, not the event. By using this form, Lumet, along with writer Kelly Masterson, do a magnificent job of juggling this layer cake story and extracting from every character, everything he or she’s worth. It also makes the film seem rather long. It seemed like every time the story was picking up momentum, we’d be whisked back in time to watch another character come to the same point, move a little beyond it, and then we’d switch again. It was the difference of taking city streets to taking the highway. There’s definitely more to look at if you don’t mind stopping at all those stop lights and getting to your destination about a half hour later. At 2 hours and 3 minutes, the film isn’t inordinately long, rationally speaking. It just feels that way.

And that’s really what it comes down to. I could argue the merits of this film for days, hours at least, but I probably wouldn’t be too invested in that argument. In any case, it really was great to see an excellent film built on nothing but writing, acting, and directing. There was nothing flashy, nothing grandiose. No feats of cinematography. No extravagant sets. Even the transitions were implemented with simple, rudimentary flash cuts. The kind a film student could make on a cutting board with tape and a razor blade. Function over form – words to live by in almost every endeavor. The form never took on the role of spectacle precisely because the story never called for it. That’s the sign of a true master.

There I go again. Arguing its merits. What can I do?

Obama wins Iowa!

Big night, guys. This guy won the Iowa Caucus. I mean, duh. How could you not vote for a sexy man like that? It'd be like that time I ran for Smartest Senior at my high school. I put up naked pictures of my girlfriend all over the high school. Sure, I got expelled, but you know who won? Senator Murphy, that's who. Because of the sexy. I should run for president. I think I still have some of those pictures. I'll teach that slut to leave the Smartest Senior for the Quarterback. I have a blog now! She's toast.

Hey! There Was Blood!

It's almost impossible for me to be objective when it comes to Paul Thomas Anderson. Punch Drunk Love is one of my favorite movies of all time. I fucking LOVED the plague of frogs and the full-cast Aimee Mann karaoke in Magnolia. And those were two movies that disappointed critics. His newest “greatest movie of all time” (and P.T. really doesn’t seem capable of operating under lesser terms), There Will Be Blood is only his second in 8 years. Only this time, it actually is being touted as a “masterpiece,” not divisively, like his past films, but nearly universally. In fact, the only part of the film that seems to give any reservations, is the end of the film – a big, bombastic showdown between Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis), the film’s oil-drilling protagonist and Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview’s antagonist – the Western town’s precocious prophet. Both megalomaniacs, mirroring each other, and anchoring the film’s American thematic story line of profits vs. prophets.

I’ve been looking forward to this film since I read an early draft of the script almost 3 years ago. (By the way, let me advise against ever reading the script of a movie you want to see ahead of time. So much worse than reading a book before its cinematic adaptation, the script tells you almost everything that’s going to happen. It’s the ultimate spoiler.) When I read the script, I was a little disappointed, and a little skeptical. There Will Be Blood had none of the magic realism that wowed in Magnolia or Punch Drunk Love. It didn’t have the lightness or excitement that made Boogie Nights so enjoyable. It was a little too much Citizen Kane, or perhaps The Godfather trilogy – an epic about a man who will stop at nothing in his dogged pursuit of wealth and power in the perpetual competition that is the American Dream. But I had faith, and more than a little curiosity. In Anderson’s hands, with Robert Elswit at the lens, Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood composing the score, and Daniel Day-Lewis controlling the screen, I had faith that There Will Be Blood would feel familiar in only the most basic sense of the epic American film.

I wasn’t exactly right. The film did feel, in many ways, like a rehashing of what Orson Welles practically turned trope with one film. That’s not to say Anderson’s epic, masterpiece or no, wasn’t stunning. It was. And at almost two hours and forty-five minutes, it felt faster than some ninety-minute films I’ve seen. From the opening title, as Plainview mines for silver in abject solitude with nothing but Greenwood’s discordant strings saturating the tension, until the final prophetic line of the film, I was on the edge of my seat, rapt from the spectacle of this turn of the century Western. Most importantly, I would see it again in a heartbeat, confident that its richness and even its audacity would not be distilled.

The story, loosely based on the John Updike novel "Oil!," follows Daniel Plainview, a man incapable of seeing beyond the pursuit of wealth, who goes from mining silver to drilling oil during California’s oil rush at the onset of the 20th century. He uses his adopted son, H.W., to portray himself as a family man in an effort to buy land from lowly Western settlers who neither know the value of the land they sit on, nor how they might tap the wealth beneath their feet. Plainview’s perspective on “family” is debatable. His son is his partner, and a cute face to help him sway sellers. However, it seems evident that Plainview does genuinely care for his boy, and for about the first half of the film, he is quite likeable. But his competitiveness, and his hatred for mankind, rise to the surface and eventually explode like the oil from one of his derricks. In a moment of revelation, one of very few, Plainview tells his brother, who appears out of the woodwork when he hears of Plainview’s success, “I have a competition in me that wants no one else to succeed…I hate most people. I look at them and I can’t see anything worth liking.”
Daniel Day Lewis’s performance is one of the most terrifying and stunning performances you’re likely to see for some time. It’s a tour-de-force that, for my money, is scarier even than Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, perhaps because Chigurh is not a man, but a killer, a psychopath. He’s the boogieman in the closet, the monster under the bed. Daniel Plainview is a product of the American Dream, a man so driven by greed and competition that he has no room left for any other emotion. Day Lewis treats the character with such intensity that, accompanied by Greenwood’s score and Elswit’s frame, my heart was practically trying to escape the prison of my ribs.

All the pieces come together at their most sublime when an oil well explodes in flames, injuring Plainview’s son. The monolith of fire and oil is the centerpiece of the film, violent and beautiful, and the very kind of cinematic bravado with which Anderson excels. The fiery tower illuminates the barren landscape through the night, silhouetting Plainview who watches in subdued ecstasy while his son suffers in the mess hall. It may be the finest single scene of the year. Certainly, the most spectacular.

While paling in the brilliance of Day Lewis’s Plainview, and who wouldn’t, Paul Dano takes a big step from his role as the angsty teenager in Little Miss Sunshine, injecting Eli Sunday with a certain smarmy pomposity that actually seems to make him more despicable than his terrifying counterpart. Still, I can’t help but wonder if another actor wouldn’t have been able to take that character a little further. Dano wasn’t always convincing as the town’s bombastic spiritual leader, nor did he seem vile enough to illicit Plainview’s murderous ire, but I’m hard pressed to think of an alternative. There just aren’t many (any?) strong enough actors for this role that can play a 15 year-old, or, as I’m sure Anderson would have preferred, someone even younger. Rumor has it, though, that Dano was the second choice. The first actor cast in the role of Eli Sunday was literally scared away by Daniel Day Lewis’s legendary on and off set intensity. And so Dano was cast. And he really did do a fine job.

The most divisive moment of the film is the final scene set in a private bowling alley, decried as over-the-top, and even as the moment, where, according to David Denby, "some part of [Anderson] must have rebelled against canonization." Um, OK. Well, Denby writes for the New Yorker so I’m not about suck down any of his condescension. What has he ever done with his life that’s so great? But I can see how the explosive finale, which is in parts disturbing and hilarious, would turn off some viewers. While the entire movie basked in the expanses and loneliness of the old West, the big finale, propelled by alcohol and self-destruction, takes place in a small private underground bowling alley. It’s like any number of Anderson’s greatest scenes but it’s injected here, at the end of a film that has, for two and a half hours, eschewed humor, lightness, for that matter, a film that has reserved itself in a relative stoicism, a patient drilling into the ground, into, if you will, a heart of darkness. I don’t want to give away anything from the scene, but I think this is when the well exploded. And when that happens, you can’t blame it for getting a little messy.

There Will Be Blood was a definite departure from P.T. Anderson’s past work. For that matter, it was a departure from that magical excess that made me love Anderson in the first place. There’s no denying that it is a masterful piece, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a piece that only Anderson could have made. That is, I think, where the film falls short. From its conception, this film was geared up to be a masterpiece, a great American epic. Ultimately, it became so self-aware that it risked feeling formulaic. I think that’s why I enjoyed the final scene so much. That seemed like the one move that was undeniably Anderson’s, the one scene that no other director could have pulled off. And it will be argued for years, I’m sure, whether or not Anderson did. The quality of this film, however, really does seem to surpass any debate. It, in itself, is a stunning fiery tower, and a film to be reckoned with, like it or not.

YEAR END LISTS! (yea)

Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been on the campaign trail fucking up candidates' campaigns one sucker at a time. Obviously, I started with John McCain - everything went wrong for that guy. (You're welcome.) Then Rudy looked to be making a surge so I went over to that piss-ant's corner and started dropping bombs about mistresses and NYC police escorts and such. And wouldn't you know, that shithead sicked Bernie Kerik on my ass. One morning I wake up and my Funky, my pet turtle, is dead at the foot of my bed. So of course you know I'm not done with that fucker. But I had to quickly move on to Huckabee and alert the world of the rapist he set free as governor of Arkansas - you know, that guy that went on to rape and kill another woman a few months after being released. Romney's a Mormon so I'll just let that take care of itself. And I may have to visit McCain before it's all said and done. As for the Democrats, I got Edwards in '04, putting him on Kerry's ticket, so I'm not too worried about him in '08. I've been working on Obama for years - black, absent father, drug use, but the guy's like a cockroach. He keeps coming back. So I went to Iowa and started spreading some last minute rumors. His poll numbers sank like a stone over night. (I'm the king.) Hillary...to be honest, Hillary scares me a little. A lot. She's fucking evil. Not a damn thing I do works. Doesn't even phase her. The woman's maniacal. I must say, I do believe I've met my match.

So, with my tail between my legs, let me dip back into the things I love most - music and movies. Now, if I were a better blogger, in addition to writing more than once every 5 months, I'd make it a point to listen to EVERY ALBUM and watch EVERY MOVIE, but, you know what, that's what Pitchfork and Rotten Tomatoes are for. As it is, you'll just have to respect that I can only make lists based on what I've actually had the good fortune of experiencing. And, in regards to music, by experiencing I don't mean having listened to once while reading a book or browsing the internet. I mean that I was able to listen to these albums many many times - on the road in my car, in airplanes, in my bedroom in the dark. These are albums I've had the opportunity to get to know intimately.

Therefore, there are some GLARING omissions. For instance, I've only listened to M.I.A.'s Kala once while she streamed the whole album on her myspace page. (WARNING: If you have epilepsy, you probably shouldn't go to this site. Seriously. She's from Sri Lanka. They don't know nothing but flashing lights.) But by all accounts, Kala is one of the best albums of the year.

Similarly, I only recently received Battles' Mirrored. I've listened to it a few times but not enough to include it on any year end lists, even though Pitchfork named it the number 8 album of the year. (Kala was number 3). A brilliant synthesis of live and electronic music, almost exclusively instrumental and unlike anything I've ever heard on this scale. (Some smaller bands, I'm thinking of a couple on Ann Arbor's Ghostly label, have made similar phonic leaps, but not with this level of production and imagination.) I do love this album and it may very well make it on a revised list sometime in the near future. (As will a few other albums, I'm sure.)

Other albums not making the list due to lack of adequate listening exposure:

Jens Lekman: "Night Falls Over Kortedala" - beautiful Swedish disco pop with elegant compositions and witty, whimsical narratives. I've always loved Jens Lekman and I really love this album but it's just too new for me right now to be able to make a qualified judgement about its positioning.

Nina Nastasia & Jim White: You Follow Me - produced by Steve Albini, and featuring little more than guitar, vocals, and drums, this album is working its way into heavy rotation for me. Jim White is a virtuoso on drums, yet he manages to perfectly support Nina Nastasia's sublime songs which drift in and out of despair and anger like a fresh widow trying to fall in love too soon.

Ola Podrida: Ola Podrida - a film composer by day, David Wingo's debut with his new band is a stunning effort of folkey guitars and subtle song craft that come together into a beuatiful album of 11 songs. Oh, and he had his album artwork before Interpol (who used the same design from the same graphic arts company. Photos taken from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.)

As for everything else, you're just going to have to assume that either I haven't heard it, or, more likely, I've heard it and it just, for whatever reason, didn't make the list.

YEA! THE LIST!

1. The National: Boxer

Pretty much the reason I started this blog. I've been addicted to this album since the day it came out. With every listen, new doors open to reveal hidden passages, witty jokes, and dolorous images. Matt Berninger weaves a metaphor like a poet and his voice acts like a black storm on the horizon - ominous and beautiful, predicting an explosion that hasn't yet come to pass. The band, dynamic and endlessly versatile, drawing comparisons to both Joy Division and Bruce Springsteen, their 21st century malaise is all encompassing, like a group trying to break out of the jail cell that is adulthood.

2. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver

This album had just about all of my favorite songs of the year: "North American Scum," "Someone Great," "All My Friends." The title of the first song is "Get Innocuous!" for godssakes. James Murphy, the consummate king of the audiophiles outdid his first album as LCD Soundsystem with a sophomore masterpiece that meshes dance and rock, utilizing about a gazillion influences from the last 50 years of music - from Yello to Steve Reich, Bowie to Eno, Beatles to Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk to New Order - you name it, he referenced it and the result is a towering monolith that doesn't bow down to the sublime history of sonic orgasms, but rather stands as an example by which all music should aspire to.

3. Carribou: Andorra

This is Dan Snaith's masterpiece. Taking us back in time from the 90's shoe gaze of Up in Flames under his old moniker Manitoba, to the 70's krautrock and electronica of Milk of Human Kindness, to this year's beautiful psychedelic 60's omage Andorra, the guy only seems to get better. Focussing more on songwriting, and naming most of the songs after girl's whose names can only be found in songs, this Beach Boys inspired album balances between lush harmonies and his trademark exploding drums. This feels like a summer album, all beauty and sunshine, but even in the grey winter, it manages to come through, not necessarily through warmth, but perhaps in the memory of warmth, of young crushes and better times. This album is about days gone by, but makes a kick ass soundtrack for the day at hand.

(Side note: The Beach Boys had quite a resurgence this year, perhaps due to Brian Wilson's Smile finally being released a couple years ago. In addition to Andorra, Panda Bear's Person Pitch feels almost like a direct spawn of Wilson's harmonic palettes, albeit quite a bit more avant garde. Ironically, Pet Sounds is one of the long lost masterpieces of pop music, that seems to be gaining relevance only now, 40 years after its release.)

4. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Six albums in and these guys just seem to get better and better. Kill the Moonlight was a great album. It's bare bones economy countered Britt Daniels' songs and created some of the catchiest R&B tracks we've heard in a long time. Gimme Fiction saw the band add a little more in terms of composition and instrumentation. But with Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the band and Britt stepped up to a whole 'nother level. These bones are anything but bare and many of the songs on this album surpass not just anything they've done to date, but anything most anybody is doing. "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," "Black Like Me," and, of course, "The Underdog" are the highlights but the other 7 tracks are no less fantastic. Every song is so packed with ideas, it's amazing they were able to confine them to under four minutes. By the way, doesn't The Underdog sound just like a Billy Joel song? I can't place my finger on it (I'm thinking "Uptown Girl"). Anyway, amazing song, but the Billy Joel thing has been bothering me for a while.

5. Okkervil River: The Stage Names

I fell in love with Okkervil River a little over a year ago when I discovered Black Sheep Boy, which I was sure couldn't be surpassed. And I'm not willing, now, to say that The Stage Names is better, but it's at least in the same echelon. Part autobiography, part love letter to poet, John Berryman, this is the album that solidifies Okkervil River as one of the most arresting bands of the past decade. Will Sheff's always passionate, desperate voice calms a little from its zenith on Black Sheep Boy but maintains enough strength to break down the fourth wall, ever winking, ironically referenential, and builds an album that not only rocks but manages to stay exciting and interesting with every listen as we decode the songs, verse by verse. The crowning achievement of the album is closer "John Allyn Smith Sails," which reinvents "Sloop John B." (see? more Pet Sounds!) as a suicide note. John Allyn Smith is the birth name of John Berryman who killed himself in 1972.

I was going to stop at five albums but I'll continue the list in abridged form all the way to 10!

6. Beirut: The Flying Club Cup

His first album, Gulag Orkestar had one great song and a bunch of other songs that were interesting but didn't really have much substance to keep me listening. Not so on his sophomore follow up. This love letter to the baroque music of a distant Paris, was on constant repeat for a long time. Not only is the music exciting in its uniqueness, the songs are better than good and Zach Condon, at only 21, is just hitting his stride. Who can say if his old European sound can avoid becoming stale or gimmicky if he never strays in his ensuing albums, but for now, it's sublime. The band is in top form, the lyrics are...well, the band does more than make up for their shortcomings, and Condon's voice is a beautiful counterpart to the mandolins, acordians, and horns that make you yearn for a cup of coffee in a Paris courtyard.

7. The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters

God that voice! That fucking Scottish accent is so fucking awesome. This is another album I was addicted to for a while this year. A little shoe gaze, some epic tendencies, wonderful song writing - all the ingredients I need to fall in love.

8. Feist: The Reminder

Don't forget. Sometimes songs get overplayed and artists get overexposed because they deserve it. Yes, that's almost exactly what they said on Pitchfork's end of the year list, but so what, it's true. The only problem I have with this album is that it's a bit too long for my tastes. I've said it once, I'll say it again: Albums shouldn't be longer than 11 songs. 10 is the best. I've never listened to an album with more than 11 full songs that didn't seem just a tad too long. The last three songs on this album, I couldn't care less about. I just check out somewhere around track 10 or 11. I know there are 3 more songs, but they go over my head like a wave.

9. Panda Bear: Person Pitch

Hey! It made the list. I almost didn't think it would. Pitchfork says this is the best album of the year. So, you know, that's cool. I just didn't find myself reaching for it often enough. But I couldn't keep it out of the top ten. It is, without a doubt, one of the most ambitious and accomplished albums not just of this year but in recent memory, right up there with Sufjan Stevens' Illinois. Like a train chugging past musical influences, Panda Bear (of Animal Collective) pulls them all aboard and crafts this Beach Boys-esque homage that is, at times, more poetry than music. And that's not such a bad thing.

10. A Place to Bury Strangers: A Place to Bury Strangers

Joy Division meets Jesus and Mary Chain meets My Bloody Valentine. And it's loud as fuck, too. Put this on your headphones and walk around town. Tell me you don't feel like the baddest mother fucker around. Just great shit from some kids out of Brooklyn.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Yeah Yeah Yeah's: IsIs (ep)
Black Kids: Wizard of Ahhs (ep)

The White Stripes: Icky Thump

WORST ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

Yeah, Funeral was great. It was amazing. That doesn't mean this piece of crap should get residual accolades.

NOTE:

I also want to mention Radiohead's In Rainbows. Great album, certainly, but not spectacular. Not even in their top four albums. It's like a Radiohead sampler - not a far cry from any of their various incarnations over the years. In no ways a landmark nor a change of direction. There aren't really any new ideas nor is the band taking any chances. Rather, the album comes off like the work of some very talented, very satisfied musicians sitting on their porch like old men, completely content. Therefore, if you wanted to introduce someone to Radiohead, you might give them this album. From In Rainbows, none of their other albums are a far cry. It's the center of the bullseye, connecting The Bends and Kid A, OK Computer and Hail to the Thief. It's a great album, but it needs to be seen for what it is. Nothing special.

That's it for now. I'll try to do better next time. And I'll try to keep the posts coming a little more frequently.

As soon as I see There Will Be Blood, I'll put out my movie list.

Oh, and if you read this, can you send me a little comment. I just want to know if I'm writing this strictly for myself now or if I have a chance to get some of my readers back.

Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

The New Pornographers: Challengers

Really cool new video from The New Pornographers directed by Darren Posemko. I've never heard of this guy but I bet we'll be hearing a lot more from him soon. This is the title track and first single off their 2007 LP.

Free Speech!

So the editors of The Yuba Post have declared war on the First Amendment, the freedom of speech, and dirty limericks, which, as defined by the good people at Wikipedia, are really the only kind of true limerick. It states, "the true limerick, as a folk form, is always obscene." The clean limerick, it goes on to say, is "a periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity."

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that the "faddy" and "mediocre" Yuba Post actually stipulated in the rules of the "Submit a LimerickPic Contest," that "dirty limericks are allowed." Thus, not only does the Yuba Post support the categorical stamping out of free expression, they seem to have no problem lying and breaking the rules on a whim. Like some kind of lark.

Well, far be it for me to tell the snide little people of Yuba how to run their show, but I am here, breaking form from the traditional music and movie content of The Static, to take a stand for free speech and dirty limericks. Posted below are three LimerickPics, which the Post either rejected, or, in a cruel twist of events, edited without so much as asking permission from the writer to do so. How dare you, Yuba Post. No wonder your writers have quit on you.

SANTORUM #1

I once knew a douche named Santorum
We tried but we couldn't ignore him
Now the frothy mix
Of cum and shit
Is something we call a Santorum

SANTORUM #2

His daughter matches her doll
His sleezy intolerance appalls
He thinks sex in the butt
Is like fucking a duck
But he can kindly suck my balls!

LOST IN THE ABYSS

I entered the ice cave on my nightly hunt
But quickly regretted that silly stunt
For weeks I sought
To change my lot
When a shaft of light led me out of that cunt.

Sally Shapiro - He Keeps Me Alive

I'm kind of, sort of, very addicted to this song by Swedish synth-pop princess Sally Shapiro. It's a cover of a song by Swedish twee group, Nixon, and it's on her album Disco Romance which will finally come out in the U.S. later this year. It feels like the perfect preamble to Fall. I can't wait for the leaves to change color, to crunch under my feet like broken glass, for that brisk breeze on my cheek as I walk through the park past children playing soccer... Oh, wait. I live in LA. We don't get seasons. Well, at least I have Sally Shapiro and her cool, brisk voice. It'll do for now.