And Zep, begot Manowar, and Manowar begot....

Someone has put together a rather complicated genealogy of metal - spanning from early/proto metalheads like Zep, Blue Cheer, and MC5, down through First wave black metal, and further on down to the current trends of New American Metal, including the likes of Lamb of God and Mastodon. While I'm sure any metal fan worth there salt (or worth their tour shirt, spiked wrist bands, corpse paint, jean jacket, shaved head, et al....) will find some issue to take up with the creator's generalizations and lineages, it's still alot of fun trying to trace the connection of, say - Uriah Heep to Opeth.

Click here for the full page.
Bonus chart!

Kanye, Oldham and Galifianakis - Together again, for the first time.

Probably the greatest thing i've ever seen. Probably.
Here's the vid.

more info here, and here.
"Mad props" to Faith for the "heads up".

Why?

Because i know you wanna see em, just as much as i do.
You big ol' softy you.

I bet you wish you got to do this too... I don't blame you,
it's pretty awesome.

Dynasty Dump Sale

I present to you...

Oldham!
(the Bernese Pup)

It was awfully rainy out tonight but little Oldham didn't care, he's got a heavy mountain dog coat and was having a good time dive bombing and rolling around in the high meadows on Stan & Families Cow farm, plus he had all 8 of his siblings to keep him company.

Check out his vids and you too can crinkle your nose up and make exasperating remarks in a funny voice...


He's having fun chewing on my dad's leather boot.

Friday food for thought.

Yes... That's Jefferson Davis's portrait up there, and no, i'm not going to blog about how awesome North & South is, and it is. This is the latest Olbermann rant, and one of his best i've heard in a while... I bet you're wondering how Jefferson Davis factors into the whole thing...
In other news, Jenny and i are going down to finally meet the new Puppers, i met him once already, but only in passing and i wasn't sure who was who at the time. I'll be sure to take pictures!

Tanner McCuin: 25 year old vinyl collector.

I thought i'd get away with it Scott-free, i mean who watches the local news anymore, besides my Grandma and Jay? Even if it is helmed by the inimitable and awesome-named Marcellus Parsons('s's's's's's's) and features the sexy/sultry Scarlett to his Duke, Sharron "I was totally spotted drunkeating at Denny's at 3am, with a dude sporting a very prominent topknot " Meyers.

I guess Anson Tebits can be Snake-eyes...

Anyway. I'm on the TV!

Does this guy know how to Party or what?!

"The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe -- that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud." -???????

I also suggest a reading of Herb and Cooley's adventure.

Letters, unfettered.

According to The Independent, upon the death of a prominent Swiss Lawyer Albin Schram, a collection of personal letters was found in his home, and will soon enough be be auctioned off - I find these glimpses into the personal exchanges of public figures to be wonderfully voyeuristic, here are few select cuts:

Ernest Hemingway to Ezra Pound, July 1925. A satirical diatribe on the virtues of bulls, written at Burguete, Spain, on the way to Pamplona.

"Bulls at least are not the greatest stylists in English. No bull has ever been a political exile. Bulls don't run reviews. Bulls of 25 don't marry old women of 55 and expect to be invited to dinner. Bulls do not get you cited as co-respondent in divorce trials. Bulls do not borrow money. Bulls do not expect you to marry them and make an honest woman of them. Bulls are edible after they have been killed. Fewer bulls are homosexual. To me bulls ain't exotic. They are normal. And such a goddam relief from all this horseshit about Art etc... To hell with delicate studies of the American scene. Fuck the American scene. Fuck manners, customs, all that horseshit. Let us have more and better fucking, fighting, and bulls."

Oscar Wilde's thankyou letter to Emily Wren, whose son Chrissie had sent a seasonal gift, dated 13 December 1888.

"I cannot tell you how charmed I am with Chrissie's present. It is a very sweet picture of him, and I prize it very much in memory of my little friend. I have considered it my duty to write him a letter expressing my gratitude... Give my regards to your husband."

|The Rest|

And in other news...

I always thought things were getting worse...
I guess I might be wrong?
and i thought i was the only one to have lived with a
crazy roomate...

Happy Friday the 13th

10 points to anyone who knows what this is from.

This one goes out to all my homos... that know better than to wear that shirt with those shorts...

Nu New Age Noiseniks

My friends Toby and Sara Paule's band Oak recently got back from a mini-tour with also friend (but not as much so) Snake in the Garden, Matt. The week long adventure took them all around greater New England, and saw them encountering many interesting sights and sounds, many of which gravitated towards the power-noise end of the sonic spectrum. Check out Matt's Grimeology Records blog for all the pictures and Youtube vids.

Look at da Pudums!

It's official, I'm gonna be a (puppy) papa. After a few months of searching i've found the little guy I've been looking for. He looks alot like this gal here, only he's a boy, so he's got a boxier face, and a wiener. I've got a couple weeks to come up with a proper name... This is the hard part. So I'm putting it out there for all of you. Give the little fella a name - I'll tell you what i've got so far.

Balin, Allister, Orrey, Townes, Atticus, Ichabod, Theophilus, Beaudean, Bergen and my current favorite "Oldham".

What say ye?

Yeah Optimus Prime!

Jenny and I went and saw Transformers tonight, we were the first inline, not so much an example of our Die-hard transformers love, as our interest in not having to try to see the same movie 3 times before getting in (see the not as amazing as i'd hope it'd be 300). Truth be told we were both mildly skeptical - Mostly because the summer blockbuster which we're both a fan of in theory, has let us down almost every time. Alot of people poo-poo the Michael Bay aspect of the film, citing a bevy of bogus action films he's helmed, Armageddon being one, another being Pearl Harbor... (i'm a fan of the rock though... sue me.) I guess i can't argue against that logic, but on the other hand those movies, while terrible, were excellent in their production value; and lets face it no one expects to see Howards End 2 when they see a Bay film, when they go to one of these movies, they expect to see Massive fucking explosions perfectly timed and executed for maximum gasp to guffaw ratio.

This is where Transformers succeeds, nuff said. This movie is pure summer fun - and being a serious Transformers fan as a child i can honestly say while not being 100% accurate to the cartoon in character design, it is very true to it's spirit. Highly recommended! And if you're concerned, have a drink or three beforehand.
-----

Something else that Jenny and I found very interesting was a preview for a film set for January 08 release, helmed by Mr J.J. Abrams himself. (if you don't know who this is... don't worry I'm sure you will soon enough) The lights in the theater had not yet dimmed even though two trailers had already played through and i was beginning to wonder if someone had fallen asleep at the switch when the trailer started - Someone's going away party, a bunch of cute 20somethings say some nice parting words for their friend, "You're the best" "I bet you thought you'd never get out of New York..." It's all fun and friendly, and entirely shot as through an amateur handy cam. Then there's a boom, and the lights go out, and they went out in the theater as well... nice effect.
The handy cam follows a bunch of kids up the stairs to the top of there new york building into a night skyline of new york, just in time to catch a very real and very massive explosion erupts blocks away... everyone gasps and for a moment the ball of flame erupts skyward; you can here people gasping as the camera shakes nervously - suddenly someone shrieks "Lookout!" and we can see massive flaming debris raining down and demolish the side of a building, the crowd panics and people start running from the roof, too late, the camera goes fuzzy then black....

Then nothing except "January 08" - Jenny and i looked at each other... "Cool..."

So now that i'm at home i've been trying to figure out what this is all about... turns out this film is under some serious lock and key, already the leaked to youtube versions of this trailer have been removed, and the internet is buzzing about as yet untitled project dubbed "Cloverfield"... Aparently it's a Giant moster movie, with the catch being that it's entirely filmed as if it were being captured by handycams... interesting... also interesting, many people are saying that it will directly tie in with LOST.

I guess i need to start watching season one.

More info on "Cloverfield"
here and here

Found this... it'll probably be gone soon.

Save me Patrick Swayze!

What a day... and it was fixing to be so nice. It started out with a early morning wake up call; usually not my favorite part of a day but since we'd gone to bed at a decent time, it was rather nice to greet the morning without a headache. The night previous was quite nice as well, as we had gone to our friend Lizzie Post (yes, that Lizzie Post) for some homemade Chinese dumplings and some Blazing Saddles, an interesting choice from the queen of polite society, but welcome all the same... i convinced her to show Predator next week.

But back today - we were finally going to take a trip down to Carmel NY to visit the Bernese breeder I've been talking to and possibly secure a little one in there upcoming litter (they only happen once ever year or two, so these things are a bit time sensitive.) Jenny who's also excited about having the pupper around came along, and JB too, for the ride and company. He even kindly agreed to drive. So we headed out in high spirits around 9am hoping to reach Carmel sometime before 2pm. But as fate would have it, we would never make it to Carmel... (cue ominous strings.)


About 90 miles outside of Burlington, and right in the middle of a heated match of the "Movie Game" JB's transmission decided to disintegrate and we quickly came to a stop on the side of the road. There was no cellphone coverage. We just sat there for a bit, and eventually walked to a nearby house and eventually got a ride from the nice couple to the nearest supermarket; we weighed out our options and came to the conclusion rather quickly that a tow all the way back to Burlington would cost far more than JB could afford (about .37 cents.)

We sat out on the grass of the Granville supermarket watching cars pull in and out of the lot, watched the dangerous looking clouds pass by, silently trying to work out some sort of plan. Then Jenny got one, her sister Jane has AAA... Some long phone calls later, there was a truck on it's way, free of charge - JB was going to get his Kia back to Burlington, now all we had to do was get ourselves back there... our brows furrowed, I went into the supermarket to get us a footlong italian sandwhich.


After some more calls to Jenny's relatives in Southern Vermont, her 16 year old boy crazy/hormonally challenged cousin was gracious enough to drive over a give us a lift to Pittsfield, little did we know it'd be the most white knuckle, roundabout ride i'd had in recent memory; i shouldn't say much as it's not polite to look a gift horse in the mouth, but lets just say that this particular horse's gifts nearly smashed through a guardrail and blew through at least 1 stop sign, all the while blaring the latest and greatest Club hits, most notably by Akon and Eminem. I say at least one as after a while of gripping my seat in fear, i decided it'd be best for me not to see the tree we were barreling into as i'd tense up and probably hurt myself more... i digress.

We exchanged hands in Pittsfield and caught a ride back with the lovely Kyle and Renee, and stumbled back to the apartment, grumpy, shaken and tired, around 5pm. What a day.

A day that called for only one thing to make it all better... Cheap Italian, a bottle of Red and the world's most melodramatic miniseries staring Patrick Swayze, 1985's "North and South". I guess that's 3 things... or 4. Whatever.

Apparently Ze' Germans love the "Fackeln im Sturm"... go figure. This is the only thing on youtube i could find about the show... i think it gives the proper flavor, even in terribly dubbed German. It's so awesome it's terrible and then it's so terrible that it becomes undeniably awesome again... I'm going to bed. I'm rrrrrreally tired. Did i mention that Jenny's amazing?