5 Things I Learned at the Game Yesterday

1. Georgetown has a solid team, and they played a sick, sick game.

2. Duke has weaknesses, especially with a freshman point guard. The last play of the game illustrates this.

3. Georgetown girls are MUCH hotter than Duke girls.

4. Duke girls are significantly smarter than Georgetown girls. Charles Darwin said something about the relationship between brains and beauty at some point.

5. J.J. Redick is a human torch.

I've now seen, in person, both of his career high scoring games, his only dunk in regular season play ever (against Maryland), Duke's 3rd ever triple-double (Shelden Williams, against Maryland, again), and there are other records yet to fall. All in the span of a couple of months.

Pretty fucking sweet.

also...

Letter Never Sent PANDA WATCH DAY 46

We would like to welcome Intellectual Steve to the site. We are currently in talks to have rock and roll guru D join us as well, so look out for that. Screw you, Pitchfork, we're going to be better than you in 1 year.

Also, as I write this, we are approaching our 4,000 visitor! I promise to give the lucky lady (or dude) a big fat kiss for being the actual 4oooth.

A controversial post - a rumination on my access to porn

by The Monitors

First read this: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060119/D8F81BBO3.html

Basically, the Administration is going to try once again to clamp down on the dissemination of "inappropriate material," i.e. porn, using a law it can't pass. So ...

You know what? Fuck bush and fuck the administration. This is the last straw, I'm tired as shit of people trying to take away my porn. If some kid wanders onto a porn site, then he probably meant to, because the last time I accidentally stumbled on a real porn site was about a decade ago when I typed in www.whitehouse.com.

If a kid wants to find porn, he's gonna find a way to find porn, and if he doesn't want to, he won't - it's as simple as that. The lengths I've gone to at times, personally, to find porn despite a variety of complex obstacles is embarassing, but I did because I wanted to. And: reality check, teenagers have a sex drive too, so you'd better lock them in that fucking closet when they turn 13, otherwise they might just turn into yet another adult (for instance: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1995482,00.html).

And, can you really justify a child seeing a boob as inappropriate and illegal whereas the same kid can watch a TV show in which 10 people are killed, not to mention contain low-core sex scenes and constant sex banter? Hell, I can't think of a child who is actually more disturbed by seeing a surprise pair of breasts or simulated fellatio than a guy getting his head blown off. Why? Because nudity and sexuality is a cultural taboo, whereas violence is a universally social crime; ergo the child is actually smarter than the adult. A kid doesn't realize nudity and sex are bad, but still knows that violence is bad; it's as fucking simple as that. Fuck the ostensibly morally superior minority, and bring on the boobs!

All this from a guy who saw Die Hard in the theater when he was 8 years old, too.

Thank You, and 3 songs for you

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...

The time has come for me to thank everyone who has supported me with this here blog thingy over the past few months. I have made great new friends and have found a cool way to keep in touch with my old friends. I am very happy and thankful that I was able to make a goal of mine from last year come to fruition.

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps I spend a little too much time doing this. I have various other interests and goals, many of which I have stated on this very site in the form of New Year's resolutions.

The time has come for me to make good on those, since I need to be a dedicated and confident man on a mission in order to realize my dreams, as crazy as they may sound to the people I have met along the road of life up until this point in time.

A FEW MONEY SONGS

The following three tracks have been my theme songs for the past year of my life. I had the most horrible things happen to me in 2005, but I was the happiest I've ever been, thanks to a crazy little game called poker.

Download these now, if you don't already have them. If you don't have them, that just means you're either uncool, or you work too hard. Get them while you can, the links only stay active for 7 days.

Muse - Hysteria (MP3)

Nada Surf - Always Love (MP3)


the Killers - Mr. Brightside (MP3)


A LONG WAY TO GO

As Robert Frost once wrote (at least, I think it was him!), I have many miles to go before I sleep. I'm excited as I look forward to the next chapter in my young and unique journey.

I will still continue to post and make updates to the blog, but at nowhere near the frequency of the past few months. Hopefully my friends and fellow contributors can step in for me while I am gone and fill the void, if one can even call it that.

SEE YOU GUYS SOON

Stay classy, everyone. The "ride" is on a break for now, but it will resume sometime in the future, and I promise it will be better than ever.

FJDelgado

More blogs about MP3s.

Save the Orioles

also... this ESPN article on how a Pittsburgh Steelers fan LITERALLY had a heart attack after Jerome Bettis fumbled the ball in the closing seconds of the 4th quarter at the goal line in the Instant Classic game this past Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts helps explain 3 American cultural and sports phenomena:

1. guys will always love their sports and competition, and live and die by their favorite sports teams.

2. Pittsburgh Steelers fans are probably the best, proudest fans in all of football (here's to another Super Bowl Championship for them!)

3. The Indianapolis Colts suck. 0 (ZERO) Super Bowls since the franchise betrayed the city of Baltimore - one of the best sports towns in the history of the United States - and peaced out in the middle of the night in 1983. I call it the Curse of Johnny Unitas.

AC trip recap

quick shout outs to: HurricaneAndrew, ThrillHouse, StarboardGary, and Fraternity rushee CoolShaunP (aka the next Daniel Negreanu).

I had a blast playing some cards and trying to get free buffet comps at the Borgata's Buffet place. Join us next week as we start our takeoever at the Borgata's 2006 Winter Poker Open.

The Borgata

an MP3 intro to Hot Hot Heat, the Killers vs. HHH

to: all the pretty college girls
from: an Orioles and Ravens kid

MP3: Hot Hot Heat - "Talk to Me, Dance With Me"

BONUS: this song features a fucking cowbell! if Blue Oyster Cult, Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell have taught us anything, it's that EVERY song could use some more cowbell.

MP3: Hot Hot Heat - "Middle of Nowhere"

MP3: Hot Hot Heat - "Bandages" my personal fave, listen for the SICK drumming throughout the tune, as well as for the cool harmonic guitar work

MP3: Hot Hot Heat - "You Owe Me an IOU"

More blogs about MP3s.

I saw these guys live not too long ago at Sonar in Baltimore, MD. They put on an amazingly disgusting show, rocking hard and making all the college girls there quite hot and bothered.

my Letter Never Sent review of the HHH show.

let me know what you guys think... I think Hot Hot Heat are in the same group of bands as the Killers. In fact, I contend Hot Hot Heat is the college answer to the current (more popular) Kings of Rock. I would go so far as to say that HHH are R.E.M. to the Killers' U2.

the Killers vs. Hot Hot Heat

lead singer: The Edge: Killers
guitarist: edge: Hot Hot Heat
bass player: edge: Hot Hot Heat
drummer: slight edge: Hot Hot Heat

WE'RE NOT RIVALS

so sorry, Maryland fans, but Duke doesn't care, never has, never will.

Socrates would ask:

How many national championships does Maryland have? How many ACC titles? How many NPOTY? How many NBA players starting for NBA teams? Who winds up having more games broadcast on national TV, Duke, or Maryland? Which team makes corporate, capitalist America more cash money, Duke, or Maryland?

Take off your rose-colored glasses and answer the damn questions. Let's be objective here.

Win or lose tonight on national TV, Maryland is the red-headed stepchild of the ACC... just because a blind squirrel... you know how the saying goes.

Win or lose tonight, Duke will be pumped up and angry. This makes them dangerous.

Don't expect J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams to both have bad games. One of the two seniors, or both, will go off. Sean Dockery will be a key, and DeMarcus Nelson could come flying off the bench in the second half to put this sucker out of reach for good.

Expect a close game (10 points or less), or a 30-point embarrasment.

Either way... when's that UNC game again??

LET'S GO DUKE

poker pros: so HOT right now!

check out my good friend CoolHandLuke from Life of a Poker Player, pictured literally with a porn star hottie (some chick named Jenna Haze). Way to go, kid!

CoolHandLuke hanging with Jenna Haze at a "Convention" in Vegas

just got back into town...

around 5:25 pm yesterday and I was more than happy to hear the following news:

Miguel Tejada, with the help of his best friend, decides to stay in Baltimore

Kid You'll Move Mountains

by The Monitors

The hardest part of a blog entry is figuring out where to start, which is why I always begin by talking to my alter-ego, Benjamin. Benjamin is Simon's brother, whom I pretend to be when I get drunk on U Street. Anyway...

So before I took this job ~1.5 years ago I hadn't really traveled that much, nor have I traveled that much as of the present, but I have been able to see much more of the U.S. than previously. Aforehand, I'd been up and down the East Coast between Vermont and Miami, of which about 1500 of the 2000 miles in between are for shit (see NJ, NY(-C), downstate CT, RI, VA, NC, SC, GA, northern FL). I'd also been to the Midwest aplenty (MI, IN, IL, OH (fuck Ohio)), and in my roadtrip in Senior year of school at UM(ichigan) drove through KY, TN, AL, AK, LA, TX. What's missing? Every state west of the Mississippi. If you've ever traveled through the central, western, or SWern U.S., you will probably have noticed very stark differences.

I've never been to Denver, or for that matter, any of the West or Plains states. I regarded Colorado as filled east to west and north to south with the craggy peaks of the Rockies, and the breadbasket states as tennis court-flat farmland. To my surprise, landing at DIA, the airport as well as the city were in the middle of the dead-flat farmland...as was Denver. Denver is, yes, a mile high, but it sure as shit doesn't look like it. It is "nestled" conveniently against the shoulder of the continental divide, which actually makes a shitload of sense when you think about why it ever worked as a city (not many people live in the Himalayas, Andes, etc). In fact, probably about 20 miles separate the plains of Denver from the "foothills" of the Rockies. The Great Plains are so flat, in fact, it really blew my mind. Were a road straight enough, and the landscape not altered by human hands, a road really would disappear into a point on the horizon. I mean it's dead fucking flat. But then, to the west, you have these enormous orrogenies (seriously, it's a geologic term) jutting out of the plains like teeth; I mean, it looks like that crazy scene with the knight and later Atrayu in The Neverending Story. I can't even imagine what people like Lewis & Clark first thought when they came upon them (but here's a go at it). "Wow, Lewis, these ironically flat plains must go on forever, we'll surely discover the other side of this continent in NO time at ALL!" "Absolutely." and then... "What the fuck is that? Oh shit are you fucking kidding me? How tall are those fucking things? And oh my god...are those MORE mountains behind them, and they're taller? Oh fuck THIS!" In fact, when seeing the less developed parts of the country, one really has to give a big "fuck yeah" to the original explorers, not to mention the native populations they incidentally killed off.

An aside. If you've ever read Lord of the Rings, you'll have noticed an uncomfortable degree of landscaping described. The problem I always had with that was that I could never picture what he was trying to describe. The reason behind this, I believe, is that I had never seen landforms in any way similar to those in the book. I suppose most people in the world know how a gulch, gully, valley, and cleft differ, but you know what...I don't. I'm guessing that Tolkien was a traveler.

So I wasn't going to Denver, I was going to Boulder, which is nestled even more comfortably in the arms of the easternmost Rockies, in the foothills, I suppose. What surprised me most about the Rockies, other than how immediately they rise from the plains, was how the "foothills" were mountains of their own right, and there are only about two rows of them before you hit the real Rockies you see on Coors Light cans. Back in Maryland I'm used to the slowly rolling hills in the western part of the state ever more slowly revealing haggled mountains worn down over about an eon; this transition occurs on the order of 100 miles for God's sake. In the eastern Rockies, it's about 5 miles.

I am out in Boulder for a sciency conference on astronomy and earth science, and rather than sit through another afternoon glancing wistfully at the peaks out the window, I decided just to rent a fucking car and go driving. After a tip from a friendly local (I think there's only 5 unfriendly locals in all of Boulder), I drove through a winding road at the base of a canyon towards a mountain town named Ward. I really couldn't tell if the road was going up or not, which was a severe concern, since I wanted to see bald eagles and dragons clawing about on the precipitous snowy summits. Then, somewhere along the drive, my ears popped, I guessed I was going up. Then after about 45 minutes of obstensibly beautiful scenery through rugged terrain, I come upon the town of Ward. I'm almost certain that if I stopped in Ward I would've been shot for meat by the still-stranded Peruvian soccer team from the movie/reality Alive. Ward was at about 9500 feet, and apparently somewhere around that altitude, road signs are no longer required by state law, as you would understand if you saw this town. Ward, literally a ghost town (it's populated by about 400 ghosts and a van-full of stoned teenagers), sits protected on the leeward side at the peak of mountain. So I continue on my mystical journey up through Ward and take a turn onto a road towards my next destination, Nederland. The first 10 minutes of the road to Nederland is some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life. Not only was the wind blowing at about 70mph along the ridge of the mountain, but the vistas that opened before me were awe-inspiring. At one point I looked down south over the continental divide, over the shorter foothills, and through a valley east into Colorado and further into Nebraska. I'm a terrible judge of distance, but I must have been able to see at least 300 miles out. If I was Legolas I would've shot an orc. To the west I could see the caps of the real Rockies, poking up higher and higher with their bald white peaks, as if each were struggling to be taller than the next.

As I continued on the road, several other views struck me with enough beauty to throw my purple Chevy Impala rental onto the side of the road and dash into 50mph winds and oncoming traffic to snap pictures that probably will turn out shitty anyways. The funny thing about running any small distance at high altitude is that you won't realize how hard you are struggling to breathe until you stop running about 100 feet from where you started and double over with your hands on your knees to catch your breath. Towards Nederland (apparently a pot-smoking mecca), the road dipped further and further, so I became disappointed that I had reached the zenith of my journey already. As you know, I don't like to peak too early on (that's for the ladies)... Driving through Nederland, I was a bit put off that the town had deceived me, only a mere 8500 feet above sea level. However, the drive back to Boulder reframed my entire impression of this journey. As I dropped closer and closer, the walls of the mountains closed in tighter and tigher upon the winding road, and there were even about 40 different pull-offs spots along the way where locals parked their cars, got out, and started climbing 1000-foot cliff faces right next to the road. How do I know they were rock climbing? I saw them, and it was so badass. In fact, until then I was proud of myself (as a flat-lander, as they call the Plains folk) being able to successfully navigate the road, but this put me to shame. My desire to take pictures led to a few tight traffic spots, but I think it was well worth it, including a badass shot of a shear cliff face with the setting crescent moon just above it.

I'm not really sure what the point of all this is; I guess it's to loquaciously tell ya'll that if you haven't seen the mountains in the West, you haven't seen shit. Also, I always feel that driving is the only way to really understand a place. You can fly to LA, Chicago, Houston, Denver, upstate NY, etc etc and just do your thing you came to do and never get to really understand it. I know that some people don't really care either way, but I'll never understand that. If you take the time, even just half a day, jump in a car, and explore, what you see and experience will really tell you so much more than anything short of living there. When I fly I never feel like I traveled anywhere, more like I jumped in a capsule a la Aliens and arrived at my destination, never having traveled through any space. I suppose, as Tolkien thought, I believe that it's the journey you take that opens the whole world before your eyes.

I am a comment whore

I love to recieve comments on here. They let me know where people stand, and what people are thinking.

Comments are also a source for intellectual discussion.

For a brief period, I enabled comment moderation. This means that I had to approve every comment that was posted by our readers. To be honest, it's a complete waste of time for me, and I've decided that it's better to turn the moderation off and go back to the pure, unadulterated comments.

So, go nuts, and leave us come comments... since we are a band of comments hookers.

The Sports Prophet said (yesterday)....

go with Texas tonight in the Rose Bowl.

I'm not going to wager anything on it, but I think you should. Even if it's just a beer with one of your boys.

I'm really feeling Texas ATS, but if you can find Texas +7.5, hammer her home. I'm also going to go out on a limb and predict a Texas victory, with a devastating game from Vince Young. The over might be worth a look. Texas winning straight up on a ML play might be worth something small.

Best of luck to Texas fans, USC fans, and Ohio State fans as the NCAA National Championship is decided later tonight.

UPDATE: 2006 National Champions, as predicted.

The Sports Prophet sez....

go with Texas tonight in the Rose Bowl.

I'm not going to wager anything on it, but I think you should. Even if it's just a beer with one of your boys.

I'm really feeling Texas ATS, but if you can find Texas +7.5, hammer her home. I'm also going to go out on a limb and predict a Texas victory, with a devastating game from Vince Young. The over might be worth a look. Texas winning straight up on a ML play might be worth something small.

Best of luck to Texas fans, USC fans, and Ohio State fans as the NCAA National Championship is decided later tonight.

UPDATE: my mildly interesting friends and acquaintances

I play poker for a living. I'm actually very serious about it, and put in a lot of hours per week, but I usually refrain from talking about it unless people specifically ask me. My close friends are smart enough to know what it's about, and the rest of my close friends expect me to fail, so what's the point?

This dude is sort of like me, except I don't look like a complete douchebag, I rarely use a laptop, I usually play in clubs and casinos, I'm almost always drunk, and I don't have a hottie girlfriend who's ridiculously more attractive than I am.

This got me thinking about what most of my circle of friends/acquaintances do as a form of employment, and there are some intriguing and funny jobs and talents among them.

I'm on the low end of the "interesting friends" spectrum, but I have sort of an odd mix of close friends and casual buddies:

PANDA WATCH/UPDATE version 3.0: The engineer who was working in conjunction with the DoD decided that his job sucked (due to too much foreign travel), and has accepted a postion at another company for which math and engineering skills are a must. He is one of those intuitive mathlete types.

PANDA WATCH/UPDATE version 2.0: One of my best friends has recently accepted a position with the state's attorney's office in Baltimore County, and he is on his way to perhaps becoming a prosecutor, or a judge. I guess this means that I have to be even more careful around town now.

The funny part is that this kid was the former lumber yard worker. It was a job he was working in order to get a different perspective, make a little scratch, and be able to tell humorous stories about the sketchy, but still hard-working, dudes at said lumber yard.

We here at Letter Never Sent will continue to list him as a lumber yard worker, however, because we're still a bunch of jackasses.

Another one of my best friends (HollywoodJosh) recently accepted a position at a nice casting agency in California. Maybe he can help me become an actor someday (yeah right!).

another pro poker player
- this is my friend CoolHand Luke. For those unfamiliar with being a "professional" poker player, so to speak, I guess it's convenient that he has a blog. It's also one of the reasons I don't post more poker stuff: he already does that better than I would. Luke moved out to Las Vegas a year ago, where he dominates and crushes the hell out of his opponents, playing almost exclusively online (huh??!). I am exponentially more extroverted than him, often to a disastrous degree.

The poker world needs more hotties like Erin Ness ( right).

a lumber yard worker / assistant to the State Attorney
- what's sort of funny is that this smartass friend of mine is doing this until he finds out whether he passed the bar and can practice as an attorney UPDATE: Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office, bitches!

one of the best rock drummers in the world who plays in a band that has released a top 5 record
- I wrote about him recently. The Who's Pete Townshend recently said that if he were to reunite the Who, Jon Theodore would be his only choice good enough to be the band's drummer. Sick. Jon's band is releasing a live CD next week.
Spin magazine on the Mars Volta:
"The most exhilarating rock band on the planet."
"The Mars Volta render every other prog-metal-jazz-whatever band out there wholly unnecessary."


a Secret Service Agent
- this is so secret, I can't even comment on it. Excuse me while I go back to my van that says Flowers By Irene on it. I will say that agents, as young as my friend is, are super-rare.

an actor who dated celebrity hottie Christine Taylor for a few years in high school (while she got her first big break with Nickelodeon's Hey Dude)
- you know who she is... played Marcia Brady in the Brady movies, reporter Matilda Jeffries in Zoolander, was in Dodgeball, The Wedding Singer, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friends, Seinfeld, etc. If you've never seen her in anything, you're either ridiculously uncool, or you just stumbled onto one of the 3 internet connections in all of Central Africa. My buddy is a far more talented actor than she is, despite the fact Taylor's agent must be phenomenal (her being married to Ben Stiller can't hurt either). He starred in several huge soaps for a few years, and was featured in an episode of ER as a motorcycle crash victim. I have no doubt he'll be in big movies or TV series someday.

a raging conservative attorney who works for a ragingly liberal DC law firm

2 bartenders

a video game programmer/developer
- the kind of guy who helps make games that destroy the lives of millions of unashamed dorks (like me; I've wasted time in years past playing games like Simm City and Age of Empires). Who can forget Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog (no one). I would love to do what he does, but I would make an awful developer because I suck at math.

a private investigator

5 chaps who are in medical school
- I'm not saying this just because my father is a doctor: to complete med school and become a practicing physician, you have to be a badass. No ifs, ands, or buts. Actually, there is: you're not a badass if you went to med school on an exotic Caribbean island (at that point you're just fun and intelligent). I know someone who actually attends a Caribbean island medical school.

a friend who earned a degree in Astrophysics from an elite university and currently works with the National Academy of Sciences
- if you knew him, you would still be baffled by his choice of major (I would be less surprised by History or English, given his humor and writing style). He is none other than our own The Monitors (responsible for "The Aviary" and "Donnie Darko" thus far).

Beautiful Girls / Hotties

I also highly enjoy ranking girls, what guy doesn't? And also like most dudes, I'm convinced I have a keen eye for feminine beauty, but as with most things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Again, not unlike the "best bands" argument, there's certain categories of hotness in a girl. There's "porn-star hot" (Playmates and Pamela Anderson, whom I don't really find that attractive even though it's easy to see why guys love her, and a source of debate between some of my friends, Melinda from the Real World Austin I would consider in this group), "model hot" (Estella Warren, Charlize Theron, Rebecca Romijn in her early days, Heidi Klum, you get the picture), and "girl next door hot" (Jessica Alba, Katie Holmes before Tom Cruise ruined her, Lauren and Kristin from Laguna Beach, and Cameran from the Real World, whom I consider the hottest female Real World cast member in Real World History).

I lean heavily towards girl next door hot and model hot, along with probably most guys.

My Top 11 Hotties List will be posted soon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE: May you all kiss a hottie near and dear to you tonight at midnight.

ALSO: Be on the lookout for Tennis Hotties, as Whitney from Meandering Endlessly and FJDelgado from Letter Never Sent rank the current Top 11 Tennis Hotties List within the next 3 days.

update: R.I.P. Elrod Hendricks, The Oriole Way will never die

Elrod Hendricks passed away last week. His death is really sad for all Orioles fans, and all of Baltimore.

His funeral was held today at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, a Roman Catholic Church off of Charles Street in Baltimore, MD. I attended Midnight Mass there on Christmas.

All of the Oriole greats were in attendance, but only Melvin Mora of the current team made an important Oriole and beautiful person - Elrod - a priority in his life.

I'll never forget chatting with Elrod in the right field bleachers next to the bullpen the only time I had a chance to speak with him. It was probably in 1999. I asked him what he thought the differences were between today's pitchers, and the hurlers of his day. As always, he gave a candid, but classy response.

What an end to the worst season and year in all of Orioles history.

the AP story on an Oriole great

More blogs about Elrod Hendricks.

More blogs about The Oriole Way.

More blogs about The Baltimore Orioles.

Sufjan Stevens is a badass

Sufjan Stevens is a music genius, and everyone should listen to him RIGHT NOW.

Dodge over at My Old Kentucky Blog has posted a good primer of MP3's that I would highly recommend to everyone who listens to good music.

More blogs about Sufjan Stevens.


http://myoldkyhome.blogspot.com/2005/12/sufjan-stevens-live-at-bluebird.html

King Kong

Go and see this movie, right now if you can. Incredible movie experience, along the lines of watching Star Wars for the first time.

Thanks to Bri-Pie aka Brian, for asking for my thoughts about the movie over e-mail earlier this morning. As I responded, I realized I minus well give my first initial impressions of the film.

Of course, "my initial impressions" means I'm going to write hundreds of words, because I suck like that.

Anyway, here are edited excerpts from said e-mail:
------------------------
Brian - i'd like to hear your opinion on Kong once you see it.

King Kong was a huge mindfuck, in the best possible way. I was expecting to be disappointed by the beast, but Kong was perfect, both in terms of computer graphic design, and the emoting as a result of the state of the art movement effects (the same technology used to bring Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which of course Jackson also produced and directed). The shockingly gorgeous Naomi Watts was UNREAL. I want to marry her, right now. I'm a big time sucker for mesmerizing blue eyes and blonde hair.

To be completely candorous, I have never seen half of the digital effects come to life like they do in King Kong. Peter Jackson is a directing genius. Some of the scenes were a little over the top and unrealistic (in the sense that 20 human beings could never survive a dinosaur stampede of 40-50 dinos and only have 4 dudes die), but it's supposed to be a fairy tale, so I didn't mind that.

My other big reservation, which is essentially nitpicking at this point, was Adrien Brody's character, Jack Driscoll. Jack was a hero, but Jackson made him far too passive. Not take anything away from Brody's performance, as he quietly delivers powerful expressions without having to say much. I understand that Jackson wanted to make Kong the ultimate hero in the end, which Kong was, but I missed the human element of romance, because Jack (the writer/screenwriter/playwright Brody's character plays) clearly falls in love with aspiring actress Ann Darrow (Watts), and is afraid to tell her, yet still saves her from Kong, who she could never really truly fall in love with from the start.

As a loser who happens to write well, I empathized with Jack's character, because I'm always falling for girls like Ann Darrow.

I especially sympathized with both male characters (Kong and especially Jack), because they were both falling in love with the same girl for completely different reasons. Kong was lonely and one of a kind, and felt unappreciated and worthless before finding someone he loved and with whom he could share his experiences. When the dinosaurs threaten Ann's safety, watching Kong kick the living crap out of everyone and everything in sight was one of the most memorable sequences in American movie history.

Jack Driscoll, meanwhile, found a beautiful, talented girl who literally acted out his love and talent - writing and creating - in the form of her acting performances. Jack was writing and constructing characters and stories that reflected real life, and when he found the ideal woman, not only for his characters, but for himself, he started suffering from man's greatest achilles heel: our love for the ladies.

In the end, Jack wound up being a side story, even though he risked his life over and over again to save Ann from Kong, who, despite loving Ann as well, murdered half an entire ship crew and destroyed the biggest city in the Western world out of his misplaced anger and aggression. I sympathize with Kong's feelings, as well, when it comes to unrequited or difficult-to-pull-off love for a girl.

Jack Black delivered an awesome performance as well, perhaps the best in the entire film, besides, of course, Watts. Black played a self-interested filmmaker to perfection, doubling as a narrator for us in the audience. As his friends sadly declare during the unveiling of Kong in New York City: "He has an unfailing talent to destroy all the things he loves."

Think of watching all the Star Wars movies for the first time. The first time you saw Jurassic Park. Taking in the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the theaters. This film encompassed the same kind of powerful cinematic experience. And you actually felt emotion from a computer-generated creature that never spoke a single word.

Surreal.

Songs That Filled Me With Abject Rage

Some songs are so stupid, so cheesy, or just so fucking bad that the time it takes between hearing the first note and my hand hitting a button to turn it off defies medical explanation as a reflex. This isn’t VH1, this isn’t a countdown, it’s a random list of songs I hate, and therefore also songs that YOU hate, because you don’t have any power of choice when you’re reading my flawless logic; but since what I say is fact, it’s not technically logic because logic is needed to prove things that aren’t obviously true.

There is something about each of these songs that just drove me to immediate insanity when I heard them on the radio. And that means that these songs were actually popular, and people liked them. In fact, people I knew liked these songs, and they will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

In no particular order, and with no mellow, irreverent mid-30’s narrator, and no annoying washed-up Jenny McCarthy to make ugly faces instead of baring her breasts, let’s do this:

Alien Ant Farm, Smooth Criminal
Ok, big start. I saw the video for this before I heard the song, which in the 90’s was usually a really bad sign. Also, this “band”‘s first hit was a cover song, of Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson also sucks, I don’t care what you say, Michael Jackson sucks, he just plain sucks. He’s not a good musician, and I’m not going to admit he’s “at least good at producing, man.” No, he’s terrible. He’s also not a great dancer; he’s a great body manipulator, but that’s it.

Back to “AAF” (which is what this glop of white boys wrote on their drumheads and t-shirts in the video). Scene: AAF sitting around the guitarist’s mom’s house one day. “Hey, since we can’t write our own songs, let’s just take someone else’s and make it different in someway!” “Great idea, but whose song!?” “Who’s the most popular pop star of all-time?” “Peter, Paul, & Mary?” “No, besides them.” “Michael Jackson?” “YES!!!” “Now which song?” “Who cares, it’ll be novel! Remember when Marilyn Manson covered Sweet Dreams? It’ll be like 10,000 times more popular because MJ is more popular!” Band together: “COOL!” So began the story of AAF. A few months later their video (which included a number of fisheye band-bending-over-to-camera-on-ground shots) appears on MTV 40 times a day, at which point they begin talking about their next song on TRL, then their jet crashes into a mountain for all intents and purposes and nobody hears of them again.

If you check their website (yep, they’re still around, unfortunately), you’ll see they’re booked solid for one whole show in Ferrum, VA. Ferrum (after mapping it) is a quick 6 hour drive southwest from DC, 3.5 hours west from Richmond, and 2 hours north of Greenboro, NC. In fact, it may as well be on Jupiter, because nobody has ever heard of it. Fuck Alien Ant Farm, fuck AAF, they got what they deserved.

Creed, With Arms Wide Open
Ok, here’s a tricky one. Creed’s first popular album entitled “I’m Not Yet Jesus-Enough” was pretty rocking. It offered a good selection of hard rock songs, moaning vocals, and a fresh sound (which, in retrospect, was a grim portent to the following years in popular music). Lead man Scott Scabies admitted they were a Christian rock band, which everyone seemed alright with as long as it was veiled in badass lyrics like “Demons cluttering around / My face showing no emotion / Shackled by my sentence / Expecting no return / Here there is no penance / My skin begins to burn.” But then they made a second album. At first, the single, “With Arms Wide Open” was tolerable, as it stayed put on the radio.

Then came the video. Holy shit was that a self-indulgent piece of A/V Christ-promoting bullshit. I know EXACTLY what lead man Scabies thought, too. [to himself] “Hey…now that we’re popular…I can use the band’s influence to gather all the lost sheep to the herd, His herd. I owe it to myself, and to them, my fans, who aren’t Christian or otherwise non-practicing.” So Scott grew his hair down to his shoulder blades and created a video which included about 400 different versions of Christ-imagery, including Scott handing a piece of chocolate birthday cake to Jesus in a Nazareth Chucky Cheezes scene. Also, the video exposed just how hokey and trite the music was. That’s it for this one, it doesn’t deserve any further explanation.

Sugar Ray, Fly
Ughhhh….we’re in the dredges now. Sugar Ray’s first album was actually pretty good, but the only people who listened to it were those who received it for Christmas from hip uncles who thought their nieces and nephews liked ‘that new radio song’ “Fly.” So began the invasion of “Fly” (not The Flys, “Got You Where I Want You,” which was kinda cool). I believe this was one of McG’s first music videos. McG is a small asian man who likes bright colors, goofy objects, and shit-eating grins in videos. I think he’s related to Joel Schumacher. The video featured a sexed-up Mark McGrath sidestepping around a rotating apartment with bright pink, bright green, and bright orange furnishings, wallpaper, etc. I think even the sky was fuscia. Mark sang about wanting to ‘fly,’ an unobvious simile to fucking in this case, while a homeless black man rapped unintelligibly in the background about something.


What’s even worse is that this reggae-influenced song was almost left off the album entirely since it didn’t fit in any way with the rest of it, which are all punk rock songs. But, their producer, who was also sucking Michael Eisner’s penis for permission to put Sugar Ray’s new ditty on Disney’s shadowy sister’s, MTV, TRL. Yes that’s right teenagers! Disney owns MTV! Maybe it’s not so controversial and in fact may be the most heavily censored channel aside from the Disney Channel! Fuck you. Point is, this song sucks, and so do you if you ever said “I just want to fly” and chuckled when Mark McGrath made a snide remark during MTV Spring Break model competitions.

Barenaked Ladies, One Week
That’s right, this group of Canadian socialists sucks. Many people love them, and people I've known very well for a long time still love them. It’s like taking the Chinatown bus to New York, or catching your little brother touching the cat inappropriately - it’s awkward to acknowledge and difficult to understand and accept, but probably necessary. ‘One Week’ sets the stage for crappy overplayed radio fungasms in the same vein as Harvey Danger’s “Flag Pole” and Bloodhound Gang’s “Fire Water Burn [aka. the roof is on fire].” When I used to say, “this band blows,” inexorably some quiet thick-rimmed glasses-wearing jackass would start up with, “but the other songs on the album are REALLY good and some are SO deep.” Really? Let’s find out.

Actual lyrics from:
‘One Week’: You’ll think you’re looking at aquaman / I summon fish to the dish, although I like the chalet swiss / I like the sushi ’cause it’s never touched a frying pan / Hot like wasabe when I bust rhymes.

‘Long Way Back Home’: I have to go / I already know / Why not spend a week on a star / No time, he can’t get there by car

‘Leave’: I’ve informed you to leave / ’cause I can’t afford to lose more sleep / I get ill when I get tired / So I’ll try to rest if you’ll stand guard / Do do do do do do do do whoa / Do do do do do do do [very clever rhyming pattern, is that iambic pentameter?]

‘Told You So’: A viral infection that can incubate for years / Caused by affection fallen deep into arrears / No medication to procure / Makes me pure, there’s no cure, I am sure

Okay, that’s enough for me. These lyrics are obviously something I wrote in 8th grade with a 12th grade thesaurus. With the exception of Our Lady Peace, Wolf Parade, and a select few, Canadian bands don’t grasp the realities of life below the 112th parallel. They write songs about Santa and bells.

Goldfinger, Here in Your Bedroom
Sometimes there’s a song you initially like, but have a distinct distasteful feeling in the back of your throat that you just can’t figure out. And, as you listen more and more to the song, it becomes more obvious: it’s just a stupid song. This is a good case-in-point. And with lyrics like, “you may change but I still stay the same,” or some variation…look, if you’re going to say anything about change being hard and actually using the word “change,” you may as well turn in your mic.

Smashmouth, All-Star
(silence). Ok, well… (silence). So… (silence). I…(silence). There’s not much to say about this one. Many theses have been written on how Smash Mouth contributed to the collapse of modern society. McG is largely responsible (the little asian guy from Sugar Ray). My roommate sophomore year (Nate) and I once counted how many kneel-down two-fingered across-the-screen swipes the lead singer takes at the camera during this song’s video, I remember it was something in the realm of 25.

Rumor has it the band stole those stupid looking ATVs from the set, too, thinking that their sudden celebrity status afforded them the right to theft. Joke’s on them, because nobody cares about Smashmouth anymore at all, and in fact President Bush’s first State of the Union address called for the ‘full, swift, and decisive removal of all copies of Smashmouth’s sophomore outing, “Astro Lounge,” from the public’s possession, and for those albums to be loaded onto the space shuttle and shot into the Sun.” Unfortunately, this is one of the few things Bush did right, even though it inevitably failed when the shuttle exploded and littered southeast Asia with copies of this shitfest. Intelligence sources believe Kim Jong Il of N. Korea has been using the full track list of Astro Lounge to come up with a song so bad it will make the West surrender before a shot is fired.

I should also note that while searching for the album’s title, Amazon.com added this important tidbit; it should not be overlooked:
“Customers who bought this album also bought:
14:59 ~ Sugar Ray
Sugar Ray ~ Sugar Ray
Floored ~ Sugar Ray"

…Holy cow, I’m good at this.

Nickelback, How You Remind Me, from their freshman album ‘Silver Side Up’
Oh man how I wish I had a Delorean. I included the album title to make a point. The band’s name is “Nickelback.” Their album is “Silver Side Up.” Now let’s make some assumptions. Nickelback is aware of their name’s derivation being “nickel” and “back,” thus the back of a nickel. They know that nickels are silver, at least in color, not in composition [nickels are made of…nickel, atomic element no. 28]. Nickels are silver-colored on both sides. Ok. Now let’s check out the title again, “Silver Side Up.” Oh ok, this could be some intended play on words. But none really make sense. My guess is that Nickelback was trying to be tricky and playful by suggesting that no matter what, their band would always be popular, or at least will have a great prominence, logically based on their choice of band name.

Anyway, “How You Remind Me” was terrible, and not at all different from Seven Mary Three’s "Cumbersome,” whose lead guitarist and vocalist had been playing guitar for only 2 years when the album dropped. Also, the lead singer of Nickelback is named Chad, which is a dick name. Some underperforming Chad’s from over the years: Chad Henne, UMich quarterback; Chad (neighbor), unassuming jackass; Chad (northeast African country), a desert-covered battle-ridden wasteland. That’s perfect logic ladies and gentlemen.

Blind Melon, No Rain
If you couldn’t tell from the video, this band had no idea what the hell it was about. Everyone praised this group of drugged-up hippies for their mold-breaking bumblebee girl music video and acoustic love rock album, even though nobody knew what the hell they meant with either. Lesson 1: hippies do not have sufficient attention-span to create music or video understandable whilst sober. Lesson 2: hippie bands who spring up in the middle of a decade of decadent heroin use will suffer the same fate as their hard rock counterparts. Lesson 3: Blind Melon sucked.

I’m sorry that the lead singer died, that does blow, since no band no matter how bad deserves that kind of thing [except true bastards like Rick James and Frank Sinatra], and I also kind of liked their rocking follow-up on the next album “Galaxy.” Unfortunately, singer Rachel or whatever (he had a girl’s name) didn’t listen to or watch the video for “Galaxy,” which fiercely warned of the danger of needle-drug use, and he died less than a year later from a heroin overdose. Nevertheless, "No Rain” washed up as quickly as it came and nobody thought of it until this article was featured on CNN two weeks from now.

The Cardigans, Love Fool
I had to suffer through an hour-long set of this flaky fairy-rock band before seeing Better Than Ezra about 4 years ago. What a lackluster bunch of crap that was. The lead singer seemed like she was about to fall asleep at any moment, and the guitarist performed most of his set by satellite sitting on a couch in his home in Malmo, Sweden. The drummer simply didn’t show up because he took too many quaaludes. Love Fool ended up in exactly seven Meg Ryan movies in 1999, and then they disappeared due to an act of God. They had a lot of trouble claiming damages on their insurance policy because of it.

Meredith Brooks, Bitch
She’s a bitch, and she wants everyone to know about it. A weary end to the short-lived and clunking girl rock fad.

OMC, How Bizarre
In Junior year of high school, a group of us guys went down the beach with some girls we know, some of whom were our girlfriends. The dudes in the hotel room below us were a year older and far stupider, but far brighter when it came to keeping our girls entertained. They played OMC’s ‘How Bizarre’ incessantly for 4 days straight and managed to lure most of our girls (except the fat and ugly ones) downstairs to their place to listen to this awful song on repeat. No other song on that CD was ever played. I can’t imagine why.

The fact that 16 year-old high school girls wooed over this song is evidence enough that it is awful, but I’ll supply some further evidence if you’d like. This is OMC’s only album. It would be an obvious move to create another album after capitalizing on such as simple song as “How Bizarre,” so why did OMC not do so? Perhaps because the band featured a New Zealand-born middle-class Los Angeles resident pretending to be a Mexican gangster from El Barrio? Couldn’t be.

The Verve Pipe, Freshman
The main reason to include this song/band is because it confused a generation of music listeners between “the good Verve” and “the bad Verve.” The Verve Pipe is “the bad Verve,” The Verve is “the good Verve.”

The Verve Pipe is a band from west-central Michigan who now resides where they came from. The Verve is an English band rooted in classic-rock who wrote the song “Bittersweet Symphony” and who broke up not long after they became big because the Rolling Stones were greedy assholes. The Verve Pipe wrote a song about being Freshman and being in love, etc., so highschoolers everyone were required under curricula to adhere to its popularity. Even though the song is actually about a teenage girl who has an abortion without the consent of the father and then kills herself with sleeping pills out of guilt, youngsters everywhere took it upon themselves to dilute and translate it into their inane and carefree lives. "The Freshman" then became prom songs, senior graduation themes, and Freddie Prince Jr. emotional epiphany moments. Probably played on the radio more times than it’s rained in London, I got pretty sick of this misinterpreted and poorly written sob song.

It should be noted that The Verve Pipe’s 1993 effort was entitled “Pop Smear,” and that their current website is selling a seemingly bootleg compilation CD of similarly shitty and forgettable songs which I actually forgot to include. Thanks to the 40-year old members of The Verve Pipe for the unintentional assistance!

1. John Mayer - "My Stupid Mouth"
2. Tabitha's Secret (Matchbox 20) - "3 AM"
3. Better Than Ezra - "Good"* (exception)
4. Five For Fighting - "Easy Tonight"
5. Shannon Worrell - "Eleanor"
6. Vertical Horizon - "Man Who Would Be Santa"7
7. Train - "Meet Virginia"
8. The Gufs - "Give Back Yourself"
9. The Verve Pipe - "Spoonful of Sugar"
10. Shawn Mullins - "Lullaby"
11. Guster - "Window"
12. Hootie & The Blowfish - "Old Man & Me"
13. Cary Pierce - "Vineyard"
14. Edwin McCain - "Solitude

New Radicals, You Get What You Give
The big finish! These guys were somewhere between inverse Oreo’s and dorks. I mean, they tried really really hard to seem badass in their video and touch up their image, but you could see right through this talentless ragtag gaggle of Midwestern dopes. I just know that the guitarist wore anime t-shirts and a trenchcoat when they weren’t on camera. The lead singer (even on camera) wore white sneakers, black bellbottoms, and a deep v-necked, black, long-sleeve shirt, reminiscent of Zorro. To top it off, literally, he wore a floppy tan beach hat. Like, what the mother of fuck? And to boot, the song’s video featured them frolicking around a closed mall pretending to rough up the place.
I think they might have knocked a few leaves off of the fake plastic trees, at most. Their hearts just weren’t in it. I imagine that the song itself was some reflective message on the reciprocity of one’s deeds in life, and intended to inspire a youthful generation to follow in their fashionable example. Of course, the members were about 18 years old when they wrote this song, so perhaps they found out later that getting what you give also applies to writing albums and were thus doomed to one-hit wonderhood. But then again, their downfall may also be due to this perturbative event in June of 1999: (clipped from an unofficial Angelfire New Radicals fan site, the last trace of their existence apparently) “It has just been announced that Gregg Alexander (lead singer) has reportedly locked himself in a basement and canceled all tour dates.”

buy these albums now

the Killers
Hot Fuss (limited edition)





Nada Surf
The Weight is a Gift





Green Day
Bullet in a Bible (DVD and CD)