Country Caravan

Spotify vs. MOG

2012-01-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

Spotify was pretty much the best thing to happen to me in 2011. It allowed me to listen to music I'd always heard about but never had the chance to check out, and opened up a huge music library to me at work so that I no longer had to drag dozens of CDs into the office (or spend time at home dragging and dropping hundreds of files onto a thumb drive).

Once I upgraded to an iPhone, I was able to make playlists on Spotify that I could listen to at the gym or in my car. For only $9.99 a month, I was essentially able to eliminate the need to purchase music independently at record stores or on iTunes or Amazon. While I do lament the loss of the "record-buying experience," we are undeniably living in an age when content, especially music, is freely acquired and shared. A service like Spotify can work with artists to make the process mutually profitable, and eliminate the need for major companies, in the form of labels, to tell the consumer what they should like.

As a general audiophile myself, however, I will always appreciate going to a record store and purchasing albums on CD and vinyl, but I realize this is not something most people will continue to do. The industry and artists will adapt, I have no doubt.

Once I became fully immersed in Spotify and started telling everyone around me how it had changed my life, I began seeing notices on Facebook about so-and-so listening to music on MOG, and tech writers began promoting it as the best music-streaming service available. I decided to sign up for a two-week free trial and make my own decision. Though many other bloggers have done this review, I am going to come at it from my point-of-view as someone who loves music and listens to it in multiple settings. I've made my decision based on several criteria, which I will detail below, and attempt to explain why I am sticking with Spotify as my music service of choice. I'll be comparing the premium accounts of both services.

Criterion #1: Music Library

Both MOG and Spotify have vast catalogues. MOG advertises that it has 14 million songs in its library, while Spotify simply says "millions and millions" on its website, though Slate says that Spotify held 15 million tracks as of July 2011, and they say they add 10,000 new songs every day. Either way, both libraries are incredibly vast and include almost everything you could want. I emphasize "almost" because, despite having enough music that it would take someone 80 years to listen to it all back-to-back, there were still artists and songs that are not available on either.

In fact, one of the main reasons I wanted to check out MOG is to see if there were artists available there that I could not find on Spotify. Sure enough, MOG does have certain major artists that Spotify does not, including Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd. That being said, I own every Bob Dylan record already, so those type of distinctions are of little concern to me. Neither service currently has Drag City artists (so, no Will Oldham or Joanna Newsom), and they both have a problem with De La Soul as well, apparently.

I've read that MOG has a better catalog of classical music than does Spotify. Undoubtedly, individual listeners will have differing opinions on this matter based on their tastes. For me, both have immense libraries that I could never get through in a lifetime, so this one is a tie.

Advantage: Push.

Criterion #2: Online Experience

Spotify is available in a desktop application and its main draw is speed and ease of organizing playlists. I have dozens of playlists in Spotify, some of them to store albums, others of mixes that I've created for fun. These mixes can be private or published for other Spotify users to subscribe to. This is a huge benefit, as even online publications such as Pitchfork can make public playlists of their Best Songs of 2011, for example. I can subscribe to this playlist, listen to it anywhere, and see who else has also subscribed. I'm amazed at some of the great music I've discovered by clicking through the playlists of others.

MOG's primary mode is within the browser, but it's pretty sub-par, so I'll focus my attention on their desktop application. (The problem with the browser mode is that I can't pause and play from my keyboard as I can with a desktop app, and I have to do that fairly often at work.) MOG's desktop app is preferable, as it doesn't slow down as the browser player does when you're working on other things. (Listening to MOG at work while playing Words With Friends is a no-go...not that I do that.)

The problem with MOG's experience is that you can only play from the "Play Queue" and searching for other music, you'll often click over and start playing something else when you didn't mean to. In MOG, I'm not even sure why playlists exist, because you can't play from them. I've tried many times, and you have to put all your music in a play queue before it will play. On Spotify, I can jump to any playlist and play directly from there. On MOG, if you double-click on the first song in a playlist, it will add only that song to your play queue, so the entire point of the playlist is nullified.

Advantage: Spotify

Criterion #3: Mobile App

Both Spotify and MOG allow streaming from a smart phone with a premium account. (Both premium accounts are $9.99, so it's a push there.) However, since you aren't always online from your phone when you're at the gym or in your car, you have to first select which songs you want to listen to ahead of time, and download them to your phone. With a premium account, MOG allows unlimited downloads and Spotify allows precisely 3,333 downloads -- that's essentially unlimited when you consider that you're on your phone selecting and de-selecting songs fairly often.

You have to have a wifi connection when you do the downloading, and it does take about 20-30 seconds per song. You'll want to make sure your phone stays active during this process, or else the app will freeze. It does drain the battery, but if you're doing it at home you can have it plugged in while you go. I've used both apps consistently in the past week, and once you have the music and it's playing, there's really no difference.

Advantage: Push

Criterion #4: Sound Quality

I listen to music primarily through headphones and on small Logitech speakers at home. I can only make the determination through what I read and what I hear, and this currently does not include a large home soundsystem. (I have large speakers which I use to listen to records and watch television, but I have no way to hook up a computer or phone to these, so it's an admittedly limited judgment.)

Most MOG tracks are in high quality 320 kbps CBR, which can actually be a little tricky if you have to listen through a browser at work. The bitrate is so large that the playback will stall if you're running other programs. That being said, it is of consistently high sound quality. Everything I've listened to on MOG sounds fantastic.

Spotify also provides 320 kbps quality, but only for premium accounts. Also, fewer of Spotify's available tracks have this quality than on MOG. When you're just listening in your daily life, you probably won't know the difference. Try playing "Niggas In Paris" back-to-back on headphones though, and you can tell.

Advantage: MOG

Criterion #5: Social Experience

As I mentioned earlier, the ability to share, mix and explore really puts Spotify over the edge for me. The experience actually reminds me of the fun I used to have making mix tapes for friends in the 90s. It's easier to do these days, allows me more music to work with, and I can actually see the results if someone subscribes to one of my playlists.

I prefer to turn off the "what I'm listening to" function by default, so my Facebook friends aren't forced to see every single track I'm listening to. However, sharing full playlists is easier and more manageable on Spotify.

Advantage: Spotify

There are some other intangibles, especially if you're not into paying for one of these services. Spotify does have a free option, where you can listen to 10 hours of music a week (for the first six months) with annoying commercials every few songs. MOG does not have a free option. For someone like me who spends plenty of money on music anyway, it's actually an economical decision to pay $10 a month. At $15 an album in the store, I only need to purchase eight fewer albums over the course of a year to make it cost-effective.

I'm going to stick with Spotify precisely for its ease and usability. If MOG fixes the issues I mentioned with its application and keeps its sound quality higher, it may be worth it in the future for me to switch. For now, however, Spotify wins and remains my music-streaming service of choice.

Best Unheard Music of 2011

2011-12-21T17:41:00.001-08:00

Instead of a traditional "Best of" list, I wanted to acknowledge some of the great albums of 2011 that I haven't seen mentioned by many critics as we get closer to the end of the year.

The Bon Ivers and Drakes and M83s deserve their accolades and will get them from more prominent writers than myself. Here is some of the great off-the-beaten-path music 2011 had to offer:

The Psychic Paramount - II

Not the heaviest rock of the year -- a few of those later in the list -- but The Psychic Paramount give the heaviest art-rock statement of 2011 with their relentless second album. The first track doesn't even really begin; you're thrust into an intense, guitar-laden fray mid-note.

Fell Voices - Untitled

Dark and forboding, Fell Voices' Untitled LP stands as one of the most haunting and confounding records of 2011. It's the doom metal equivalent of one of the better M. Night Shyamalan movies. The build-ups and riffs never quite go where you think they will and it rewards multiple listens.

Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil

A few indie hits later, Deerhoof is still churning out great art pop songs. They throw everything in the bag so as not to duplicate themselves, but Deerhoof vs. Evil is closest in nature to 2008's masterful Friend Opportunity. There are songs on here that I swear would be huge if they made it on the radio. Like every Deerhoof record though, you realize that a solo-room dance is as close is it will come to mass appeal.

Akron/Family - S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT

I really don't know how this album got so overlooked. To me, it's Akron/Family's White Album (hyperbole noted). It could easily have been a double album had they squeezed a few more tracks in there, but as it is, you've got an hour of frenetic freak-folk balanced with some of the most beautiful melodies outside of the 60s. Fortunately, one of its best tracks, "Island," as a nice accompanying music video for some visual stimulation.

Boris - Heavy Rocks/Attention Please/New Album

Boris is like that movie that has so many great performances that it splits the Oscar votes. These guys just put out so much material, it's almost hard to keep up.

Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
Beck has a good habit these days of producing other artists' albums and make them sound like a split LP. Last year, Beck produced a Charlotte Gainsbourg album that sound liked a set of Beck songs produced by Charlotte Gainsbourg. This year, he gives a similar treatment to Thurston Moore's latest, nine acoustic songs with that rambling outcast vibe. A solo effort on par with Psychic Hearts.

Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital

Sound Kapital is the dancepartiest of all Handsome Furs albums thus far. I saw them at the Echoplex a few months ago and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen where the performers didn't have much more than a guitar and some variety of noise-bloop machine. Crazy Dance Party. I approve. (Album cover below is NSFW)

Grouper - A I A:Dream Loss/Alien Observer
Liz Harris's latest is a collection of two 12" records, but their combination works well as a double LP. Like the greatest of Brian Eno's ambient recordings, Grouper's music could be background music if it wasn't so damned gripping. Despite the droning aspects, most sounds are created through Harris's vocals and guitar plucking. Worth a deep, focused listen.

(This post can also be found on my co-music blog, Teenage Quiet.)

11 Ways to Ruin a Photograph

2011-11-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the winning children's story for one of our contests for The Help that we had professionally illustrated. Please read and share if you're so inclined.

A Dog in Pain

2011-09-27T14:18:00.001-07:00

In the middle of the night
I heard a dog whimpering outside my window
I peaked but it was over the wall
In my neighbor's yard.

I lay there and listened
And tried to imagine the scenarios

Was its torso trapped under something,
Perhaps a fallen cement block?
Or maybe it was simply ill
And unable to move
And it was calling out endlessly
Hoping someone would come outside
And realize it needed help.

But nobody was coming outside
From the neighbor's house
And it was, as I said,
The middle of the night.

I weighed my options.
Should I go outside and look for the dog?
If it's in their backyard,
Should I knock on the door?
Or maybe just bite the bullet
And climb over their fence
And help it any way I can
And deal with the consequences

There's probably something I'm not even thinking of,
I thought. And I laid there.
And listened.
And there'd be a moment of silence
Between stark whines through the air

And I closed my eyes and did nothing
And turned on my side
And pressed my ear into my pillow
On the coolest part of it I could find
And thought about how the world is full of injustice.

Julianne Moore Has To Stop Doing Movies Where She's Required To Make This Face

2011-07-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

Pusha T Declares Himself 'Third Best Rapper Alive' On New Album

2011-05-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA -- On the title track to his upcoming solo album, Job Application, Clipse rapper Pusha T refers to himself as the "third best rapper alive."

The verse, which starts, "I'm pretty damn fly / you gotta admit / Might not be too famous / but semi-legit," also makes reference to his guest appearance on Kanye West's latest triple-platinum endeavor, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

"I'm quite confident in my rapping abilities," the shy rapper said. "My producer initially suggested I remove the phrase "one of the best rappers" from the last track ["Belated Birthday"] because it might make me seem too cocky. After all, there are some really good rappers out there.

"I certainly didn't want to offend Lil Wayne or Jay-Z," he continued, "So I decided to go with the 'third best rapper' designation. That's a fight I don't want to get into."

At press time, The Game could not be reached for comment.

Prix Fixe

2011-04-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

The following is the first part of a short story I started writing two months ago. I keep opening it up and can't think of what comes next. I'm posting it now so that I can start on something else without worrying that I have something "unfinished."

Picture me: crooked and bloated, shifting to one side of my chair, my cheeks supporting a mixture of tears and sweat, my face removed of color except for a thin drizzle of Worcestershire sauce threatening to make its way onto the collar of my turquoise Polo. This is what I look like several nights a week. I do it for work and I get paid well.

The evening consisted of four courses, a standard for our show, considering the placement of commercials. It goes like this, usually: Appetizer, "Salad", Main Course, Dessert.

We started with rock shrimp nachos, garnished with fresh rosemary and melted Mascarpone cheese. The side (yes, the appetizer has a side) was truffled potatoes with freshly whipped sour cream and a light chanterelle mushroom sauce. I finished it all in 96 seconds, but the segment, when broadcast, stretched out to a gluttonous 11 minutes and 43 seconds, complete with a slow-motion montage, audience commentary and a brief description from the chef as to the painstaking mushroom selection process. It was delicious, but honestly, I would have sloshed a healthy helping of Tapatio sauce on top of everything, had it been available.

The "salad" course was an arrangement of organic baby spinach and arugula, topped with deep-fried chicken strips, cherry tomatoes, and drenched (as most "salads" are) with a creamy honey dijon dressing. Tabasco was available for this portion, and I used it liberally. Freshly cracked pepper as well.

These segments are cut to fit in the first 25 minutes of the show, to allow the greatest amount of time, two entire segments, for the main course. This evening's selection: braised bison short ribs with a mandarin glaze, garlic Rose Finn potatoes in a red wine reduction and steamed carrots. Despite the length of the segment, I have never been encouraged to hedge the speed at which I consume these offerings or pause to comment in any way on their quality; indeed, the producers have always been amenable to my way of doing things, my hunched posture, how I use a fork twice as wide as is standard, using a shoveling motion over my plate which I protect with my left arm as if trying to prevent a fellow student from cheating.

Then came dessert. You wouldn't guess it to look at me, but I don't have much of a sweet tooth, especially after my taste buds have been treated to several thousand milligrams of sodium and any number of meats marbled to meet my palette. Nevertheless, I press on. One has to follow through. Once I'd plucked the last tender piece of bison meat and chucked the bone into the air (which prompted our talented staff of editors to pay homage to the introductory sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey), the plates and drippings were immediately cleared and I was presented with the simplest dish of the evening. A creme brulee garnished with fresh blackberries, 22 inches in diameter.

I wasted no time, though my producers asked me to perform a ceremonial crack on the surface. I trailed my spoon quickly around the circumference of the dish and lifted as much CB as I could at one time, keeping my spoon exactly parallel to the table to avoid gravity forcing a creme-slop onto my face.

I washed it down -- all of it: rock shrimp, salad, fried chicken, short ribs, creme brulee -- with a large cafe au lait made with half & half. At this point, my dining chair (an Aeron whose limbs have been widened to accept my body -- "bulbous corpus," as members of the crew have begun to refer to it) begins to slide inevitably backward, my shoulders now unable to keep myself perpendicular to the floor. I can still speak, though in a hushed gurgle. In post-production, the editors usually add subtitles that attempt to replicate my reviews immediately upon meal completion. They're fairly accurate, though I've never once been asked to transcribe.

Then, the evening was over. The lights turned off, the table removed, another several gigabytes of digital video data sent off to be worked over, mixed and remixed. I'll see it in about two months and, despite the size of my gut and the state of my pancreas, think, "Man, that rock shrimp was damn good."

Miller Lite's Assault On Men, Women, Decency, Humor, And Anything Else You Like

2011-03-24T17:55:00.001-07:00

This post is about six months too late. When it comes to despicable commercials, what's the point of complaining? The campaign will typically run its course in a few months and then you'll never have to deal with it again. Obsolete are the posts decrying Budweiser's "Wassuuuuuup" and Carls Jr.'s "Paris Hilton Washes A Car/Eats A Burger." But there is a campaign so pervasive, so obnoxious, that it begs to be systematically criticized, its insipid creators forced to sit through weeks of sensitivity training and read aloud Milton Berle's Private Joke File in its entirety. His classic one-liners, such as "I take New Years with a grain of salt and three aspirins" (ha ha!) could perhaps give these jokers some inspiration.

At any rate, if you've watched any sporting event in the last eight months or so, you already know what I'm talking about: the Miller Lite commercials that adhere to men to "Man Up" and choose Miller Lite because it has "more taste" than other light beers (they mean Bud Light).

Here's a generic example of this commercial:

Whoa, that dude's wearing a skirt AND he doesn't like Miller Lite! I don't wear a skirt either (because I'm not a huge FAG, duhhhh)...which means....wait a minute, don't tell me...I should drink a Miller Lite! Because then...I won't be a huge FAG!

Okay, so you don't need to think too hard about why this is garbage, but I'd like to go through some of the arguments made in this commercial point-by-point, and then show you some of the other commercials in the series (they made about 10 by my count) on how they are upping the ante in terms of pure asshattery.

1) Have you ever been asked if you cared about the quality of a product you were purchasing and responded with a no? Obviously, this is ridiculous, and it's the beginning of every one of these commercials. The entire basis of this ad campaign is that some guys -- some real pussies, dontcha know -- just want a beer and they don't give a fuck what it tastes like. In fact, if you ask them, they'll actively say that they don't think it matters what the beer tastes like. That's exactly what the dude in this commercial below says:

Yes, he's genuinely confused by her question.

2) In the fantasy world of the commercial, the attractive lady bartenders are either a) total sellouts to the Miller Brewing Company or b) actually think that Miller Lite is the best tasting beer they offer. Either way, they totally suck and should be fired immediately. If I ran a bar and found out that my bartenders were being paid under the table by the proprietors of one of the shittiest beers I offered, that'd clearly be a breach of contract. I'd be even more angry, however, if I found out that they actually thought that Miller Lite was the best tasting beer available and continually forced it upon my clientele while insulting them. If you're going to push anything, make it that expensive Duvel!

3) Each of these commercials makes the same disgusting arguments about both genders. In order to be socially acceptable, men have to dress and act in a very specific way. You essentially have to be an average bro to be cool, in the Miller Lite world. For women, it's even worse. Ladies, you are a shallow and vacuous expanse of space, existing only to criticize the appearance of lesser males and to shill an inferior corporate product.

"Less is good for me." -- the only reason anyone would say that is to set up the bartender's line, "Yeah, less would be good for you," referring to the man's "bronzer," whatever the hell that is. The ad team behind these campaigns really must think they're nailing those excessively tanned individuals with this one! I would NOT want to be John Boehner right now.

This one goes after those skinny jeans-wearing hipster FREAKS! Now, I feel for the John C. Reilly guy in this commercial. He's doing his best. Also -- if I saw a guy like this wearing those pants at a bar, I wouldn't really consider it that out of the ordinary. Honestly, it doesn't look that weird! The bronzer dude is way more noticeable. Shame on this bartender bitch for judging him.

Fuck yourself.

Oh, burn. Put down your purse, pussy boy, and start caring about the taste of your beer. And once you care about how it tastes, go for the 2nd Worst Tasting Beer out there. Think about it. That's their entire argument. Bud Light is the shittiest beer, and Miller Lite tastes slightly better than that. That would be like a commercial where someone is drinking a Dasani, and you ask, "Hey, lame-o! Why aren't you drinking this day-old bathwater?"

I've saved the best for last:

Oh, god, I hate you so much. So, if this douchebag had removed his sunglasses, he would have seen that the Miller Lite bottle has fricken' grooves in it! That settles it for me! Scientists have worked tirelessly for years trying to perfect the taste of beer -- to no avail. But those geniuses at the Miller Lite Laboratories, at a sealed bunker deep inside the Earth's crust, have got it. Put some weird ridges in the top of the bottle and it no longer tastes like diseased rat droppings! Thank you, quantum physics. Man, I can't believe that sunglasses-wearing loser didn't recognize that. He'll never get laid.

Dos Equis should make a commercial where the lady bartender insults the Dos Equis guy for not buying a Miller Lite, and then he uses The Force to set the bar on fire.

Enjoy It

2011-01-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

Once, when I was a little boy, my parents were screaming at each other in the kitchen. My father stormed out of the house and tore off in his car. He came back that night, after I was in bed and supposed to be asleep. I crept to my bedroom door and stuck my ear to the wall, but couldn't make out what he said to Mom. It was just grumbling.

The next morning, before he left for work, he called me over to where he was finishing his coffee at the kitchen table and asked me to sit on his lap. I did and looked down at his tie and listened to him say that he loved me very much. He didn't mention the screaming, but I could tell from the way he said it and from the way Mom stood right there behind the table watching us, that it was all connected. My sister was only an infant at the time, so I doubt she'd noticed anything was wrong.

Whenever my parents would fight after that, Mom pulled my father upstairs and into their bedroom. This served the dual purpose of keeping the noise level down so as not to frighten me or my sister, but also made the journey to the car that much more distant, should my father wish to leave. Mom won out on most of these occasions, so that trips to the car were rare; even so, I started creeping outside during these fights and into the back of my father's car.

The car was outside but I could look up at the window to my parents' bedroom to keep tabs on the fight. Even though I couldn't hear anything, I had a sense of what was going on, and kept my head low enough so that I'd easily be able to duck down behind the driver's seat, should the front door suddenly open.

When nothing happened, and the sun would go down or the light in my parents' bedroom went out, I'd sidle out of the car, into the house through the side door and back upstairs. If it was already dark when the fight started, I'd close my bedroom door after I left to make it look like I'd gone to sleep. I was always halfway concerned that Mom would check on me post-fight and see that I wasn't in my room, but if she ever did, I didn't know about it. The house was always quiet when I'd re-enter.

After a year or two, I began to suspect that one or even both of them knew what I did when they'd have their hushed disagreements, since I was never caught and they never noticed that I was no longer in the house after the fight was over. Perhaps they knew my motives already, knew that I wasn't crying or attempting to deny that they'd argue, but just waiting in a place that would serve beneficial to view the aftermath, the way a hyena might perch on a cliff top to watch a battle between beasts.

As my sister grew out of infancy, my parents would have long talks in their bedroom with the door open, in chairs side by side. I'm not sure what they talked about, because if I walked out into the hallway and stared inside, they would stop talking and Mom would come out and ask me to play in the backyard or go back to my room and read. The difference between serious talk and average conversation was clear, and I grew accustomed to hearing the bass-heavy mumbles that nearly all children recognize.

I began to feel comfortable hiding out in my father's car, a navy blue wagon that seemed monstrous to me at the time. I would bring a bag of pretzels sometimes or even read a comic book, and by the time we'd all take the car to dinner a few days later and I was sitting back there the proper way, the crumbs would be gone. They always knew. They must have known.

Then it was summer. I was old enough to where I didn't need constant attention from Mom, but too young to be spending every day with my friends. My life still had a structure independent of the social life that would come to dominate it in my teenage years. As such, I still spent most of my time at home, looking after my sister and dreading the daily series of errands on which I'd accompany Mom. As far as I knew, "errands" were all Mom ever did.

That summer, especially, my father grumbled about his job.

When you're my age, you won't get a summer vacation. Enjoy it.

I believe he actually intended for me to enjoy it, though it was near impossible after exposure to the same dreary greeting every morning. I once thought it was the sun that made my father so grumpy in the summer, and would sometimes even hope for snow in August to spark a smile or even a knowing nod.

My parents hadn't fought in months. My dad would take the car and head to work and the sun was already high in the sky. If we were home, I would sit in the backyard and roll a ball back and forth between my hands, watching my sister explore Mom's garden, and the grass rows between sets of flowers and the specks of dirt sprinkled out on the cement.

I could sense a change in Mom over the summer. There was a sly contentment coming over her. There were times in the evening when my father would say something that in years past would have incited an argument, but now Mom would just keep doing what she was doing, be it wiping down the table after dinner or thumbing through the pages of a new mystery novel. It would wash right over her like the calmest tide and she'd sit there with her subtle smile. This is the same smile I started seeing in the backyard by the garden on those summer days.

I began to fear my father's isolation. The change in Mom's strategy had disrupted his routine and without their banter he seemed withdrawn and fidgety.

One morning in early August the sun was streaming through the skylight in my parents' bedroom before either of them woke. I dressed in silence in my room and closed my bedroom door behind me before I went downstairs. I took a Pop Tart out of the package in the cupboard and ate it cold before sneaking outside with my father's spare key and crawling into the back of the car.

I took a gamble by being there. Some mornings Mom would let us sleep in and others she would wake us up to get the day started. My sister could saw straight through the afternoon, but I was an early riser. There was always the chance that Mom would get suspicious, even if my door was still closed at 8:30.

But nothing happened, and when my father emerged through the front door in his casual attire, a button-down shirt tucked into pressed trousers, he appeared unfazed by my recent non-appearance in the kitchen as he gnawed on his usual buttered piece of toast.

I ducked down behind the driver's seat, stowed my snacks and my comic books, and tucked my legs behind me. I heard the car door open and felt the sudden pressure of the seat against my head as my father sat down.

I kept my breath silent and tried not to move.

The engine turned and we backed out of the driveway. I probably could have lifted my head enough to see the street signs but, convinced that any movements would alert my father to my presence, I kept perfectly still, glanced up at the street lights passing in my periphery, and tried pitifully to gauge our destination by my knowledge of the lefts and rights in our neighborhood.

After a few moments, I could tell we were turning onto the highway. We were on a curved ramp for a time and then the lower gears turned over and we held at 60 for awhile. It took some time for me to realize the radio was on, a talk DJ moaning low about irrelevant problems. My father hadn't yet said a word, which I thought was odd, as he was known to talk to himself when he thought he was alone. Sometimes I would watch him from a distance when he shaved. He would hum song lyrics or practice lines I presumed he'd be using in a meeting.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you. Let's all take a seat. Can we get you anything? Coffee? Orange juice?"

But, now he was silent as the car ambled along and the talk radio DJ spoke too softly to be heard by either of us.

After a few more minutes, we were angling right, exiting the highway. I moved my hand under the driver's seat and held my snacks and comic books in place so that they wouldn't move around and make noise while we turned.

We pulled into a parking lot. I saw a wide, silver truck directly above me when the car stopped. My dad took a deep breath, switched off the car and got out quickly. I ducked down just in case, but he didn't look in the back as he walked by. I uncurled my legs and pulled myself up onto the back seat. We were in the parking lot of a diner I didn't recognize. My father was going inside.

I took stock of my surroundings. This diner was right off the highway, adjacent to a gas station and a few other restaurants and fast food joints. We had only been on the road for 20 minutes or so; I knew we couldn't be that far from town. All the same, something odd washed over me as I recognized that we were certainly nowhere near my father's office. His was a medium-sized gray building, just west of the downtown area, that I had visited once or twice in past years for whatever reason, to be oggled by the assorted office ladies or to pretend to make myself useful by filing papers or sealing envelopes.

We were not near downtown and I guessed we had driven in the opposite direction, based on the position of the sun relative to where we exited the highway. I looked out at the diner and began to get hungry myself. It was a warm morning and the sun was almost directly above me, despite it being several hours before noon.

I don't know why I did what I did then. If my intention was to stay hidden, as it had been to that point, my actions were tantamount to sabotage. But, I found myself reaching for the handle and sliding out of the car, leaving my belongings under the driver's seat. I looked back at the highway we'd arrived on. It was rush hour everywhere else, I assumed, but this highway was deserted, as if we had traveled the one direction nobody else knew about, as if my father had sought this specific location for pancakes and solitude. This is what I thought.

I approached the door and had a vision of what I was about to see: my father alone at the counter, reading a newspaper, enjoying his coffee, a brief moment of quiet where nobody knew him before he picked up his belongings and worked his way back to the car and off to the office where everyone knew him, where his responsibilities and meetings and agendas would overtake him.

But, this is not what I saw. The diner was surprisingly full despite the lack of movement in the parking lot. I noted this first, as I considered myself very observant, and this is something the protagonist of Mom's mystery books would have noticed before entering. Mystery protagonists are rarely caught off guard.

There appeared to be two active waitresses. One for the counter area and the east side of the restaurant, and the other for the west end which contained the bulk of the booths. The patrons at the counter were not single men, as I would have anticipated. There was an old fat couple, scooping up eggs in silence. There was a woman with a little girl, younger than my sister. She was pouring syrup onto her waffles. The syrup bottle looked like it made a face when she poured: a little syrup monster sticking out its tongue. I didn't see my father.

I must have only been standing there a few seconds before the old woman came over to me. She was probably the hostess or the wife of the owner or something, because she wasn't wearing the same dress as the other waitresses.

Are you lost, sweetie?

I didn't say anything. What could I say?

She looked at me with concern and moved closer to me and got down on a knee. People only get down on one knee when they're proposing or questioning a child.

What's your name?

At this point, I knew I couldn't just turn around and walk out. I was in this.

My father came in here. I'm looking for my father.

Then I saw him. He was dressed like I'd never seen him before, wearing a long white apron and a black visor. He walked right out from the kitchen and took me by the hand.

It's alright, Elizabeth. He's mine.

He said this as if he'd expected to say it all morning, as if he knew I was in the car all along and that this was an inevitable part of his day.

We walked hand-in-hand back to the kitchen. Several other cooks were back there and I tried my best to notice what they were all doing. One was on pancakes. The other had a big line of bacon he flipped 10 slices at a time.

So, you're here now. Do you want something to eat?

I nodded my head. I was hungry, after all, but I really didn't know what else to do. He sat me down at a small table in the back of the kitchen. I watched him move to his station, whipping up a large bowl of eggs, scrambling maybe 20 at a time. I sat quietly.

He gestured to the bacon man and the pancake man after a few minutes and they brought over a serving of each. My father placed a plate in front of me and poured me a glass of orange juice. I stared at the food and I could see my father's hand on his knee in the corner of my eye.

Don't you want to eat? Isn't that why you hitched a ride?

I looked up at him and suddenly became very conscious of the eyes on me. The other cooks had stopped at their stations and were looking at me. I could even see the old woman who had come up to me a few moments before standing behind the counter in the main dining room, looking back at me.

I picked up the fork and began to cut into the pancakes. My father smiled and put his hand on my shoulder.

Atta boy. It's not so bad.

I ate with the ferocity of a starved beast. The food was warm and sweet and soft. He was sitting next to me and wasn't at his station and nobody seemed all that concerned.

A Good Cry

2010-12-27T11:56:00.001-08:00

I have a morning routine. It works for me and so I've stuck with it for 38 months. On weekdays, I start with 40 milligrams of Micodine, then I put the coffee on and take a shower. By the time I'm dry the coffee is ready and that helps wash down the Lamictol, which are big pills. Two hundred milligrams and then I'm stabilized.

I drink the second cup of coffee after I'm dressed -- usually a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and pressed trousers. It's cooled down a few degrees and I can gulp it down in no time. Sixteen ounces of coffee to start. I'll have another 16 at the office.

I pop a Klonopin in the car, two if traffic is heavy, and flip through my mp3s -- over 16,000 songs loaded. On days when I'm feeling good and agitated, I'll put on some classic Stones or Zeppelin or maybe even Blondie if it feels right. On days like last Tuesday, when everything seems poised to crash and my eyes are drooping and my teeth are grinding, I'll pick something more mellow. Maybe Leonard Cohen or one of the more drugged-out Neil Youngs. Something to keep me sharp but settle me into the mood.

This was one of those Tuesdays; I could already tell. I put on Nico, stayed in the right lane, and took the freeway at 35.

The office was starting to fill up and I shuffled quickly to my desk. I had to close my eyes and think about whether to put down my bag and turn on the computer first or to leave the bag on and walk to the kitchen for coffee. I compromised, dropped my bag and turned, and my eyes stopped twitching.

The drip coffee is shit, but if I supplement it with a long pour of half and half it becomes bearable. I was at the office early this Tuesday, so I got one of the big mugs and a tall glass of ice water, to which I added some Sweet & Low.

My desk is positioned perpendicular to the window and faces the entrance. Thus, only people standing directly behind me (or out the window) can see my screen. Even if I am dutifully working, I don't want the scavengers watching me.

As I said, I was somewhat early on this Tuesday, but the office was starting to fill up, so I nodded my head to new arrivals while the computer booted up. I don't sit still and I don't like looking unimportant, so I flipped open the notebook that always sits on my desk and started writing sentences. Anyone passing by would think I was on to something or had remembered an idea from the night before.

Once the newcomers settled down, I got on Google and typed in "bourbon cocktails." I was normally a scotch drinker, and wanted to do something different after work. I wouldn't have the opportunity, of course, but I didn't know this at the time. I marked down a few variations of the Old Fashioned and then closed the tab. I pulled up Facebook and scrolled through the list. Most people were at work, like me, so it was busy. Girls were excited about stupid things like lemon cookies and seeing Thom Yorke at the mall. The guys on my list were posting articles that confirmed their point of view. I kept scrolling. It wasn't even 10:00 a.m. yet and I was already bored.

That's when Chloe came over to my desk.

"Hey Blake, at 1:30 there's going to be this guy, um, this guy named Cookie. He's having Share Time across the street, you know in the Chili's parking lot?"

Chloe was a real nice looking girl, but I tried to avoid her at the office, as she had some of my same daily proclivities, and I didn't appreciate attention my way.

"Oh, really," I said. "Come with me. There's a fresh pot of Caffe Verona in the kitchen."

We walked and she talked and I tried to keep her straight, euphemistically, until we were alone. Then, in the kitchen, I did indeed pour myself another cup of that shit Caffe Verona and pulled her to the side where the pretzels are and asked for further details.

"This is a big Share Time," she said. "It's almost too overwhelming. That's why I'm telling you about it. I don't want to go by myself. If it was just the normal thing with a few groups milling about, I wouldn't mind so much. But this is a big fucking event, so I hear, and I think I'd really like you to be there with me, if you're okay with that."

I should explain why this exchange with Chloe was riling me up so damn much. I take great care to procure my goodies from reliable sources without attracting attention. I like sharpening my focus on life without consorting with folks like Cookie and certainly without discussing the peculiar particulars with an attractive but disjointed girl.

Despite the irritables, however, this Share Time had my attention, as one could often find hidden gems at these sort of events, the way you might discover an old, cherished record at a garage sale. I agreed to venture out with Chloe around 12:30 p.m., under the guise that we would be walking to Isaac's around the corner. (Isaac's was a sandwich place around the corner that we all knew but nobody ever went to, as the sandwich quality was spotty at best.)

I took a quick trip to the restroom when I was confident nobody else was in there. I locked myself in a stall and snorted a few quick hits of frost. Goddamn, I thought, I need to cut my fingernails.

At 12:58 p.m. Chloe and I were out on the street and I noticed it was sunnier than earlier. I felt almost out of place in my navy blue button-down, but I shrugged it off and kept my shoulders rotating as we walked. Chloe talked a lot.

"Are you thinking about getting something to eat while we're out? It'll seem natural that way though I suppose nobody will care either way."

"I'm not hungry," I said, and ran my tongue around the circumference of my mouth. From molar to roof to molar, down to that pit below the bottom-front row, and back again. I had a tendency to do that. Chloe probably didn't notice but there's no way to be sure.

Chloe talked about her boyfriend or someone she was sleeping with who wasn't her boyfriend. She referred to him as "the boy" which annoyed me to no end.

We arrived at the Chili's or, rather, the Chili's parking lot. There were plenty of people milling about, some of them with toothpicks in their mouths, having just eaten. I assumed they were all there for Share Time, though to go through the pretense of eating a Buffalo Ranch Burger or whatever the fuck seemed an unnecessary obstacle.

The sun was sitting high above us and a few of the loiterers backed themselves to the Chili's awning to stay in the shade. I wanted to stand out in the sun and cook. Chloe stood with me and I caught sight of the some of the freckles on the back of her neck. Her skin looked creamy and white with these faint little spots, almost invisible to the naked eye, like they were little stars in a faraway galaxy that nobody else could notice. Nobody but me.

Christ, I thought, when is this shit going to get started? I got a little itch behind my eye. My lips were dry. I was really starting to notice things.

A blue sedan from the early part of the decade pulled up and parked in the far corner. The engine stayed on for a soft minute and then quit. We all starting heading over; the people from the awning stood up hesitantly but I just went right over to the car. Nobody was watching. Nobody cared.

A black man got out of the car. He was skinny as hell and wore a baggy tank top that bore the logo of a team I couldn't recognize. He put his hands up in the air opposite each other gestured to all of us in a general way to gather around.

There were two women in the backseat of the car smoking cigarettes and talking to themselves. One white and one black. They didn't seem concerned about the crowd forming around their car.

The man started talking; again, without any real direction, but clearly at all of us around the car.

"Two things, two things," He said. "One, I don't negotiate. It's cool and you'll be happy, but if I tell you what we're getting and you aren't interested you turn and walk away. Don't fucking matter, you feel me? But, if you happy with the quote you peel off some bills and get them by the window. One of my girls help you out there. We happy to share, that's how everyone stays happy. Sharing makes us happy."

I thought about this last part. Sharing was, indeed, occasionally fulfilling, though "happy" was a bit of a stretch, I thought.

-------

Chloe and I didn't go back to the office right away. She asked me first if I wanted to get a drink.

"I don't think so," I said. "I really don't want to go inside this place." I meant the Chili's.

"No, not here," she told me. "I live a few blocks away. This was quick and I don't want to go back yet."

So we walked to her place. I thought about her and her freckles and how they would spread and her body would get paler and wrinkled. I'm glad I know her now, I thought, when she's young and attractive.

In her apartment, she poured me a glass of tequila straight. She had a few limes lining her kitchen counter, and she sliced one and hung it around my glass.

"Just like at a nice bar," I said.

This made her smile and she stuck her tongue out in a real cute way and poured herself a drink and then bounced over to the couch and sat down next to me.

I had barely opened my package and popped a couple before she started kissing my neck. Wild, I thought, just wild. I sat there and felt her lips pecking around me. It was tough to feel it that much at this point but the contact itself was good enough and I closed my eyes. She did good by me and didn't try to escalate things too much right there. She just kept running her lips and tongue around my neck and my cheek and my eyes were closed and I thought.

I went deep back in my mind. I was in fifth grade and I'd written a book report on a Neil Armstrong biography. I was reading it aloud to the class, and talking about how Neil believed that life was about discovery and we all had a duty to go discover, whether it be a physical place like the moon or just a place in a book buried in the back of a library. We all were looking for things and had to discover them. This was our purpose, I told my class.

The teacher told me that I hadn't followed the assignment. That I was supposed to talk about the written style of the book and how the style influenced what was being said. But, this was just a silly book about Neil Armstrong and how he'd become an astronaut and gone into space, and that's all I'd talked about, space and the moon and discovery and things like that.

This was where I went when Chloe was kissing my neck. I must have really gone there, really deep inside, because I snapped out of it when Chloe pulled away and took my face in her hands.

"What's wrong?" She was very concerned.

I shook my head because I really didn't know why she was asking me that. She put a hand over my eyes and I felt wetness come off my face. She showed me her palm and the few small dots of tears.

"It's not okay," I said.

"It has nothing to do with being a real man, you know." This is what she said to me. "You're allowed. I mean, that's why we came here instead of going right back to the office. Refill?"

I looked at the table. My drink was still there. I hadn't had even a sip, so I told her no thanks.

Then a horrible thought crossed my mind. My routine was shot. This is not how I kept myself going in the early afternoon. One gets through the days by having a plan and sticking to it, even if it means a lack of adventure. Deviation meant disruption.

She rested her head on my shoulder and rubbed her hand back and forth on my chest as if it were a tabby cat.

"Stop being so sour," she said.

I closed my eyes again but made sure I was just staring at that amorphous darkness on the back of my eyelids. I sure as hell didn't want to go back to that place I was before. I just wanted to stay here, in this dark, comforting purgatory, away from the lights and signs and nonsense that had become the world.

Get Better

2010-12-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

They had sent me home to die. Or, rather, I had sent myself home to die. In my eyes, if I was going to spend the rest of my life in a “death bed,” it might as well be my bed. I wasn't getting better. And now, the people were starting to show up, getting in line to see me as if I were a carnival ride. I had never been so popular!

Joan structured it like a movie. There was a schedule and the least important characters would be first. The first people in to see me were hardly even friends. Did they think I'd have been offended if they didn't show up? One was this guy I used to see at the track named Gene. His wife and my wife were friends, but his wife couldn't make it. So, now it was just me and Gene, me in my bed, index finger still holding the page of a novel, he on the office chair pulled in from the den.

I'm sorry for the time but I'm heading out on a flight to Denver later today. Consulting, you know.

Yes, of course. Thanks for coming by.

Did you see that Sox game last night? It was a thriller.

No. I was reading and fell asleep early. Hard for me to stay awake at night and the glare from the television is surprisingly harsh on my eyes.

It was quite a thriller.

Gene left after a few more minutes, thank Christ, and I peeled open my book. Joan was going to bring me food then, I knew. I thought of telling her, finally, right then, or somehow using metaphor remembered from my younger days to broach the subject. (No honey, I'd prefer pickles to doughnuts. Do we have any of those?) I said nothing, though. How could I say anything? At this point!

I ate soup and crackers, craning my neck forward to avoid spilling broth all over my chest. Like the opposite of sitting in the front row of a movie theater – snapping your neck forward instead of back.

-----

The next day was better because my grandchildren came. As a child myself, I never understood why my parents' parents were so much happier to see me than my parents themselves. Now that I'm old, I get it. I see something in them that I could never recognize in my own kids. As a young parent, their success mattered. Everything I did to them mattered. But, these kids aren't my responsibility. They'll be as ripped apart and damaged as anyone else, but it's not my fault. So I'll give them candy and money and tell them stories that never happened.

I tell them about being a prisoner of war. I make everything up.

They didn't feed me for days, I tell them. It was just me in an outdoor cell. All I could do was look out into the Cambodian jungle and wait for rescue or death. They would come and torture me, though I had no information. They tied me down to a wooden plank and performed water torture on me, the kind of torture where you're staring up at the sky and they splash one drop of water on you at a time. A drop – then a few seconds – then another drop. How did I survive? I hummed a tune in my head, and each drop was another beat of a metronome. DROP—DROP--DROP--DROP--I've got sunshiiiine—DROP--DROP--On a clouuudy day—DROP--DROP--

Sometimes I'd have to update the story to a more modern song for their benefit. Heck, I could've been imprisoned in 2007.

DROP—DROP--I'm bringin' sexy back—DROP--DROP

They ask me how I'm feeling and where it hurts. They think bandages with cartoon characters make things better. I envy them. Then it's been twenty minutes or so and they're bored so they leave.

I look out the window and see a bird and a squirrel staring at each other in a tree. It's like a boxing match that hasn't started yet. They don't know each other, but something seems wrong, and if one got the chance it'd pummel the other. There's no wind.

-----

I wasn't getting better. My head felt heavy and the back of my neck was tight, as if a small bag of marbles was tied back there. I was beginning to see colors that didn't exist. I wondered if this is what dropping acid felt like, though the colors weren't particularly pleasant.

My wife would sit with me and we'd talk about the past. Our trip to Belize, the first time we made love, our kids and how they were beautiful but used to drive us completely nuts, so nuts that we often would laugh about driving them to Disneyland and leaving them there. They wouldn't even know we were gone, we'd say.

She touched my hands and described how they'd changed over time. They were never particularly large, but they had definition when I was young. The way I gripped someone's hand when I shook it for the first time, she said, made her feel safe. Now my hands were weathered and old. Joan was nice and said they still looked good. She still felt safe. I touched her face and she smiled. It made her sad because I was dying. It made me sad to know she could have had more.

-----

I wasn't getting better. I saw a unicorn in front of me, a hallucination to convince me that the tangible world wasn't special. It was darker than most unicorns you see. There were no rainbows or long eyelashes or princesses in sight. It was the color of egg nog with the consistency of scotch. Its face was pristine but it looked at me and frowned. This fantastical beast wasn't death coming for me. It was death's lackey, there to stare me down.

-----

On Sunday, a man showed up at the door, younger than me by only a few years but bright and robust and colorful. He introduced himself to my wife as Keith and said we'd known each other years ago at the lab in Brookhurst. Keith heard about my illness through a mutual friend, he told her.

She nodded and showed him to my room. I didn't ask for privacy but she left us with coffee -- which I was still, mercifully, allowed to drink -- and closed the door. I didn't recognize him at first.

I've known you were here for awhile, but I figured you didn't want to see me, he said. I thought for a long time about life and relationships and connections and the universe, and I decided that the life I offered wasn't the life you wanted. I understood that. I accepted it. I moved on. But, I never forgot, and I always wondered if some day you would seek me out, even if just to offer me some sort of explanation.

What can I say? Especially now. If you wanted to find me at my weakest so you'd have an advantage, you've done well.

Oh, I don't want to hurt you. Not now, you old son of a bitch. Just tell me: did you ever once consider returning? Of giving up what you thought you needed to come back?

It was hard to look him in the eyes, those pervasive, insidious green eyes I had once looked into the way I had since reserved only for my children or a newborn puppy. I exhaled -- I had been holding my breath without knowing it -- and gestured to a family portrait on the dresser.

This is my family.

What, in this breathless, overdue conversation, did he hope to accomplish? I was too old and tired to think up words to spare his feelings, then words to summarize the phony conversation I would then detail to my wife. I was too old and tired for these things and my brain didn't want it. My brain didn't want it thirty years earlier, and it sure as hell didn't want it now, especially with these colors and creatures and hallucinations.

It's evolution. This is what I said to him. We know it's happening but we still try to stop it.

Keith sat down by his coffee and poured in some cream that my wife had left in a paper cup. He held it up so I could see.

Want some?

I've been taking it black. This is what I said to him.

-----

Keith left and Joan sat by my side for the rest of the evening. The sun was out late and we watched it, almost intently enough to see it move. I reached out and touched her hand. I told her the story of her hands, from when we'd first met decades earlier to this very moment. They were dry and plain. She hadn't painted the nails in years.

I sat up as best I could and saw colors in the sunset. Who knew if they were real? I felt like I could reach out and touch them. My wife kissed me on the cheek. I didn't get better.

The First Helicopter In Canada

2010-12-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

“What are you talking about,” Lindsay demanded. “Nobody says ‘My Stars’ anymore. What are you, Greta Garbo?”

This was said to Jaimee in person, not in text form, which served to add emphasis. They had just left class and Jaimee knew she could have felt the little vibration from under her desk at any time, but Lindsay waited because she had to, just had to, say it in person.

“I was just exclaiming about her shoes is all,” Jaimee said. She was referring to the flamingo shoes, those tacky, flashy little eyesores that Missy or Mindy or whatever-her-name was wearing. But, of course, Lindsay couldn’t just focus on the problem at hand. No. She had to go after Jaimee. After her words, of all things.

“‘My Stars’ is something you expect to hear from an old lady. Something you’ll hear on T.V. from a movie a billion years ago.” Lindsay was adamant. “It’s just so weird, you know? It’s the last thing I would have expected to hear you say. Um, text.”

This last part was Lindsay’s attempt to be conciliatory. Something being “weird” is a lot better than something being “stupid,” which is clearly what she was thinking.

But, Jaimee accepted this insult and kept pace with Lindsay’s turkey-trot footsteps over the hill that bordered the school parking lot and across the street.

“Let’s go to Randall’s and get a latte.” Lindsay decided what they would be doing and Jaimee didn’t have an opinion anyway.

They walked the two blocks from the school to the shopping center, which was older than “The Hive,” the hip young everything shopping center a mile away, but this amorphous and unnamed shopping center was closer and housed Randall’s, which itself housed a few boys in their late teens, too proud to succumb to working in one of the chain coffee houses or restaurants at “The Hive,” and whom Lindsay routinely would lasso into conversation. These boys were in college, after all.

“Now,” Lindsay began, “I’m not going to say something disparaging to you, like ‘Let me do the talking,’ but keep in mind that these are boys that are very very close to being Em Ee En. We want them to think -- actually, we want them to know that we are more mature and effervescent than the average girl.”

Jaimee didn’t think Lindsay was using that word right, but she certainly wasn’t about to point it out and start another mess. Plus, she didn’t exactly know what it meant either.

In Randall’s, you ordered at the counter, but then you sat down and they brought you your drink. This was a step over Starbucks, where you stand in a little factory farm area by the “bar,” as they call it, and when the barista comes over, they call out “doubleshot soy mocha” and everyone crowds around to see if the drink is theirs, backing away disappointed when Mr. or Ms. Doubleshot comes over to claim their victory prize. Randall’s avoided this, but added the pretention of weak customer service. Where Starbucks has happy employees, Randall’s has angry musicians or disgruntled philosophy majors. Lindsay ate it right up and, thus, so did Jaimee.
As they entered, Jaimee took stock. Three boys from their school were at a booth in the corner, dripping honey from little packets onto their table when the employees weren’t looking. Jaimee thought about this, and wondered who invented the tiny condiment packet -- someone in the ketchup business, she assumed -- and how much that idea was worth. There was a black man working on a laptop at the second table from the door. Jaimee felt bad for noticing he was black.

There was a boy with shaggy blonde hair working the cash register. Lindsay did the talking.

“Hi. Um...I’ll have a latte with nonfat milk please. Honey, what do you want?”

Jaimee shrugged from behind Lindsay and thought about this new nickname. She thought of herself being spilled out from a tiny packet by immature boys.

“Just a hot chocolate, I guess,” she said.

Lindsay turned back to the shaggy-haired blonde boy at the register. She did a half-eyeroll to indicate that she was more grown-up than her friend’s beverage order.

“A nonfat latte and a hot chocolate, please.” She turned back to Jaimee. “I got it!”

Lindsay pulled out a Visa and flipped it like a playing card onto the counter.

Jaimee looked more closely at the boy. He looked down at the card and seemed to notice, for the first time, that he had customers. He pushed some buttons and swiped the card; then, making eyes with Lindsay, lowered his neck and rolled his arm behind his back, as if he was about to ask her to dance. He extended the card forward with tenderness. When Lindsay went to take it, it dropped from his fingers back onto the counter.

The boy took two Post-Its and wrote “nonfat lat” on one and “hot cho” on the other. Then he stuck them on two mugs and passed them down to the other barista, by the espresso machines. Though there were no other customers, Jaimee moved quickly away from the counter, but Lindsay stayed, obviously irked by this affront with the credit card. Jaimee was watching the boy’s shaggy hair, hanging just above his eyes like drapes cut short with a scissors.

The other barista was fat and hairy, and he started making the drinks without a word.

Jaimee made her way to their “spot,” which was in the corner, next to the table with the milk and napkins and things, on a maroon L-shaped couch. She studied Lindsay’s shoes -- which were a bit tacky themselves -- and how they weren’t moving at all. Nothing seemed to be moving.

“Have you ever been to Canada?” The boy at the counter said this quietly to Lindsay. Jaimee shouldn’t have even been able to hear it but she could.
“You’ll bring the coffee to us, right? We’re sitting over there.” Lindsay didn’t gesture or point back to the couches.

“I asked if you’ve ever traveled,” he said, then paused. Then: “To Canada.”

“I’ve never been anywhere,” Lindsay said, and turned and shimmied back to the couch as would a starlet at a movie premiere. Jaimee saw the boy looking after her, but Lindsay couldn’t know that, with her back turned. Jaimee tried to think of a way to use that information to her benefit.

Lindsay sat down and folded her hands in her lap. Jaimee looked into her eyes and saw sadness. The exchange at the counter had obviously excited her more than she let on, but she’d expected more from it.

Jaimee looked out the window. It was beginning to drizzle.

The drinks were ready. The shaggy boy gave a pat on the back to the barista who made the drinks, to indicate that he’d be making the delivery. Lindsay sensed his arrival and pretended to be in conversation with Jaimee, though they’d been sitting in silence.

“--finished reading ‘Brave New World’,” she said. “Everyone else in the class thought it was boring but honestly I don’t even think they’d finished it. It’s not even that hard. It’s just because people in our class aren’t up to the Advanced Placement reading level. It’s a shame really.”

By this time the boy was standing in front of them. He held the drinks until Lindsay stopped talking. After she said “shame really,” the boy looked down to verify that he had the right drinks and placed in front of Lindsay and the hot chocolate down in front of Jaimee, Post-Its still attached.

“So, neither of you have ever traveled to Canada?” The boy was standing perfectly still, but not rigid. Jaimee looked down to see if he was in danger of swaying. There was no swaying, but no rigidity. It was as if he hung in midair like a scarecrow, neither in danger of falling to the ground or sailing off into the air.
“I told you. I’ve never been anywhere,” Lindsay said. “Except here and Virginia a few times because of my cousin.”

“What about you?” the boy turned his head to Jaimee who was still looking down but not really at his shoes anymore.

“I was born in Winnipeg,” Jaimee said. “In a museum actually. It was my parents’ anniversary, and my dad was taking my mom on a scavanger hunt.”

Lindsay took a sip of her drink and Jaimee just stared at the great globby mountain of whipped cream on top of her hot chocolate.

“It’s an aviation museum and if you go there you can see Canada’s first helicopter. From the 30s. The very first helicopter in all of Canada. It may not seem like a big deal, but they actually had helicopters in the 1930s!”

“Why do you ask?” Lindsay tapped her fingers on the side of her mug and stomped her foot to make sure the boy looked back her way. “Do we look Canadian?”

“You look,” the boy closed his eyes to think, “perfectly, fundamentally, normal.”
Jaimee stared up at the boy who stared back at her. Lindsay took a sip and used her lower lip to get foam off the top one.

“I ask because of the moose,” he said. “Every once in a while, you can see a moose in the states, usually the Pacific Northwest. But the moose here are nothing like the moose you see in Canada. Did you see moose growing up in Winnipeg?”

Jaimee didn’t answer for a while and eventually Lindsay kicked her shin under the table.

“No,” she said. “It was a city, really. And I was young.”

“But, you live here now,” the boy said, and he finally was moving his limbs again. His hand went through the brown-blonde locks of hair that hung over his forehead like well-groomed pig tails. “You live here and there is certainly no moose here. There’s plenty they don’t have in Canada, sure, but one thing I can assure you they have up there is moose and that’s something you’ll never find down here.”

Jaimee dipped a pinky in whipped cream. “Maybe I should go back? Like, there’s more life there than here?”

“That’s not what I said. I just asked what I asked because it looked like neither of you had ever been to Canada. I’m often wrong, though.”

Lindsay asked questions: “Do you go to college?”

“Do you play sports?”

“When you travel up there, do you fly or drive?”

Then she started making statements about the questions she asked.

“I’m applying to multiple schools. I’m not sure which are my goals and which are my backups. I’m just happy to get away from my parents.”

“My brother was a soccer goalie but then he got a knee injury and had to stop.”

“I don’t see what’s so special about Canada. It’s sunnier down here.”

Another customer came in and the boy left. It was a bald man with a dog who ordered a muffin. Jaimee wondered where they got them from. Even though this place was a notch above the other coffee places, it didn’t seem like they had the resources to bake their own pastries. She looked at Lindsay.

“Do you want to go?”

“No. It’s fine. He’s cute but weird, right? I don’t mind staying. You’ll be the plane and I’ll be your wings.”

“Or I’ll be the helicopter and you’ll be my propellor,” Jaimee said.

When the boy came back, he was holding a cup.

“I’m on my break now,” he said. “Why don’t you both come out back with me. I want to show you something.”

Lindsay and Jaimee looked at each other. This was the sort of invite girls their age were advised not to take, but the mystery of it all became too much. The girls got up without saying anything. They followed the boy out the door and around the corner to the alley behind the store.

“This is a fun afternoon,” Lindsay said. “God, it’s so easy to get stuck in a rut. School, home, school, home, school, home. It’s nice to have an adventure. This is an adventure, right?”

“I guess that depends on your definition of ‘adventure,’” the boy said.

“And what happens now,” Jaimee said.

The boy led them to a row of parked cars behind the coffee shop and adjacent stores. Then he showed them the cup.

“I put honey in here,” he said.

The boy stopped at a Chevy sedan and put his hand on the trunk. The girls stopped talking and looked at him. He wasn’t moving, but Jaimee would not have been able to look at anything else if she’d wanted to. She looked at his jeans, neither overly tight nor baggy. His face showed little sign of weather, but he was still only modestly attractive to her. Though a bit older, he looked like all the boys she knew, and now she was standing behind a coffee shop next to his car.

“Last night,” he began, “I was driving home from a party at the beach. We’d brought chocolate and graham crackers and marshmallows to make s’mores. Since that’s what you do at the beach. There was volleyball, even after the sun went down. I watched my friends play and then I showed everyone how to make s’mores. Here’s how you angle in the chocolate and marshmallow between the cracker to keep it from breaking. Here’s how you get the stick through and keep it all together, and I showed them with my hands.

“Afterward, we all dragged ourselves and our sticky hands into the ocean. I thought the water would clean them off but they just felt stickier afterward. My hand tasted like a chocolate-covered pretzel.

“I drove separately from everyone else for some reason. I was all by myself, but I liked it, I think. I was driving up the hilly road away from the beach and lowered the passenger side window and tried to reach out to the right to feel the breeze. My hands were sticky and smelly but I still felt clean and free. Cleaner than when my hands are covered in coffee grounds. Cracker crumbs and marshmallow are always better than coffee grounds. The wind was great. I was on a road nobody else was on and I heard a thumpump,” and here he smacked his free palm down onto the trunk of the car, “thumpump and I stopped and pulled over to the side of the road.”

He stopped talking and tried to swallow. One of his hands held the cup and the other he used to open the trunk.

“Look,” he said.

The girls kept their breathing shallow and sidled forward. Jaimee kept her eyes on the boy as Lindsay peered in. She saw a brown-red fluff of nothing. It looked like a rug someone had ignored for months and shoved away in a closet, behind old shoeboxes and umbrellas and jeans that didn’t fit.

“They’re always out at night,” the boy said, “And I’d even seen them run across the road before. But, I was looking out the window. I was feeling the outside.”

Lindsay reached out for Jaimee’s hand and pulled her closer. The two girls huddled together like old Russian peasants and crept up to the trunk. The coyote was only bloody from the chest down. Its face was fully intact, frozen in the moment just before death.

“Do you think it will still eat the honey?” The boy picked up the cup from where he had placed it on the ground. He leaned over into the trunk of the car and moved the cup in position next to the coyote. It took no honey.

Jaimee saw Lindsay tighten her grip before she felt it. She began to feel her lip quiver and her foot tap the cold suburban asphalt.

“We have to go,” Jaimee said. “And she turned and took Lindsay’s hand and they walked briskly away, not turning back to see if the processed honey would somehow resuscitate the animal and change the physical world as we know it.

They walked and walked without saying a word. After a few blocks, Jaimee looked up and saw a helicopter circling overhead. It looked like it was falling.

My Impression of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1"

2010-11-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

Harry: Where do we even begin to look for these horcruxes?

Hermione: Why, at Muddlewick Fizzlebottom's, of course!

Harry: Who's she?

Hermione: She's the proprietor of Snurkle's Broombit Emporium. It was her sister, Betsy Battlebrain, who mixed Dumbledore's blood with the magic potion found in the Wagstill glass decanter, left behind in the Chamber of Fortitude after Mophocles McDaggle killed Snagtooth Thortlewump!

Harry: Let's get naked.

The Top Ten Albums Of The 2000s

2010-08-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

The full list: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71, 70-61, 60-51, 50-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11

Before I get to the top 10, it's important that I list the many talented artists who didn't make the list, despite having released fantastic studio albums in the 2000s. There are so many, I'm sure I forgot some:

Cut Copy, Justin Timberlake, Portishead, The Field, The Wrens, Gas, Grizzly Bear, Liars, Dan Deacon, The Mountain Goats, Dinosaur Jr., Junior Boys, Bill Callahan, Real Estate, Fever Ray (seriously?? I suck), Bat For Lashes, The xx, Jim O'Rourke, Okkervil River, The Pernice Brothers, Scritti Politti, King Khan & The Shrines, Papa M, Hot Chip, Bjork, Loretta Lynn, Camera Obscura, Man Man, Broken Social Scene

And now here we go:

10. Tom Waits - Alice

You'd be hard-pressed to find a musical artist as consistent throughout his career as Tom Waits. Even the best of the aging rockers have had some pretty strong dips in their careers. Neil Young is too prolific to be consistently brilliant and, well, Bob Dylan had the 80s (though some of his albums from that era are largely underrated). Waits, however, has never had a dip. In fact, he's never released a bad album, though some are certainly better than others. His debut LP, 1973's Closing Time, kicked off a career that has seen several masterpieces and the development of the gruffest, growliest voice around.

Alice and Blood Money were released on the same day in 2002. Both were filled with material previously written for macabre collaborative musicals. Alice has more ties to the Lewis Carroll source material than most concept albums (and more than several Alice In Wonderland adaptations), and captures the mood of that grim tale more than most films on the subject ever have. Several of Waits' most memorable songs from his post-80s career are here -- it's also the perfect assortment of grim reapers and grand weepers. The album ends with "Barcarolle" and "Fawn," the latter of which was covered by Scarlet Johansson on her 2008 tribute to Waits, Anywhere I Lay My Head. Alice is solemn and ironic, with enough of Waits' madness and humor to make it almost uplifting. While "Alice" is the descent, "Fawn" is the reemergence. Waits, however, didn't have to reemerge. He's always been there.

9. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells

I heard The White Stripes for the first time in a friend's basement apartment by UCLA. It was their self-titled debut, and I listened to the dozen-and-a-half quick burst blues-rock songs in near silence. I loved it but wasn't sure if it was as disposable as similar artists in the new rock revival (The Hives, The Vines and, face it, The Strokes). A week later, though, Jack and Meg's third album was released and it was all over.

White Blood Cells was released at the perfect moment, capturing the interest of the Gen-Yers who were finally tiring of the nu-metal garbage. It was also a point where you could appreciate The White Stripes for the music, when Jack White was a musician and not a persona. That being said, there was immediate intrigue: are they really brother and sister? Is it really just the two of them? The album sounds too full to be just two people. There were obviously several talented people behind the scenes, but White Blood Cells is the work of a rock auteur, a musician who took control of his songs and put his craft out there for all to behold. And if you didn't see that, you at least saw the Michel Gondry-directed music video for "Fell In Love With A Girl," which is under two minutes -- and it was the last time you ever heard about Staind.

8. Joanna Newsom - Ys

There's only one debut album in the top ten, though for the other artists on the list, it's safe to start with the albums listed -- except for Ys. If you want to get into Joanna Newsom, I'd buy The Milk-Eyed Mender. Give it a few listens. Once you've fallen in love with her voice (that many find off-putting) and begin to discover the subtleties and beauty of her songwriting (which many find jumbled and unstructured), then you're ready for Ys. Its five tracks span over 55 minutes, and the majority of the album contains full orchestral arrangements by Van Dyke Parks.

These are expansive, ambitious songs, all autobiographical, even the one about an engaged monkey and bear attempting to escape from a farm. The lyrics, by themselves, could be read on the radio by Garrison Keillor, but Newsom finds a way to patch these stories together in 10-minute songs, each with several phases, choruses, emotional peaks and valleys. "Emily" is perhaps her best song, named after her astrophysicist sister, and about the differences in personalities and how those personalities learn from each other. It's the remarkable work of a brilliant songwriter still in her twenties -- and with this year's (arguably even better) Have One On Me winning her larger legions of fans, one wonders what effect fame and notoriety will have on her subtle, romantic and pastoral songs.

7. Animal Collective - Sung Tongs

2004 was the watershed moment. At the time, as I've mentioned before, "indie" was caught between the blues and slowcore rock of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the more frantic dance pop of The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem. Animal Collective was everything from this pool and with a little bit of tribal madness to boot. Sung Tongs was AC's foray out of the jungle and into the city, a voyage home for a group that seemed more at home in a hut than a studio. The album lets you know from minute one that you're in for a more accessible treat, and boy does it ever kick off. "Leaf House" and "Who Could Win A Rabbit" are the greatest 1-2 punch since Gretzky and Messier. It's a sonic statement of purpose.

This album is more Avey Tare than Panda Bear, though Noah Lennox's 60s pop sensibilities are still heard in standout track "Winter's Love" and "Visiting Friends." This is the whoops and whelps album, the songs that introduced me and many of my contemporaries to Animal Collective, and the progression of the promise of Kid A -- a record that would amaze with its technical prowess but still perform like you're watching it live, preferably outdoors.

6. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilco was always about the pop music, but somehow Yankee Hotel Foxtrot became a buzzed about will-it-won't-it album. Its initial release was held back (originally scheduled for September 11, 2001) due to label issues and divisions in the band. It was rumored to be more cerebral and experimental than its predecessor, the wonderful Summerteeth (up there on my 90s list if I had one).

When YHF was finally released in April 2002, there was a danger that the story would overshadow the music. Fortunately, that didn't happen. It's just too good. YHF is experimental, condensing the nonstop barrage of pop hooks found on Summerteeth into 11 tracks, some with long intros or outros, some sonic droning and more than one hidden melodies. The standout songs ("Jesus, Etc.," "Poor Places," "Kamera") speak for themselves, but every track is perfectly placed, complementing the song before and after. Despite its strange thematic similarities to 9/11, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is thankfully not rooted in its time. Eight years on, it's already timeless.

5. Knife In The Water - Red River

Clearly the most overlooked band of the decade, Knife In The Water formed in Texas in the late 1990s. Co-founder Aaron Blount's serene, open-air voice transcends the simplicity of the songs on Red River, their second album. Many of these are love songs, or start out that way. They can quickly turn dark, vengeful and macabre. Consider the chorus of opener "Watch Your Back": We are so in love / that our hearts just won't collapse / But if you turn on me /You'd better watch your back

And it gets even harsher. "Rene" is about a woman waiting to kill her abusive lover. "Youngblood In The River" is a police procedural -- they find a decapitated body, identified only by his teeth. It turns out he was a transvestite prostitute. How will his mother be able to comprehend "broken neck and a blowjob"? But, these abrasive lyrics are accompanied by a subtle pedal steel and Blount's soft country singing. It's sometimes difficult to hear the violence in these songs.

Red River is an album for driving in the desert late at night -- it would make a great soundtrack to McCarthy's Blood Meridien. It's a forgotten masterpiece, and one that fans hope will receive greater critical acclaim in the future.

You can listen to some songs by Knife In The Water on their MySpace page. There aren't any songs from Red River on here, but you can order the rerelease (with two bonus tracks) through Amazon.com.

4. Bob Dylan - Love And Theft

Every Bob Dylan show since 2003 has opened with the following announcement:

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. The voice of the promise of the 60s counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock. Who donned makeup in the 70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse. Who emerged to find Jesus. Who was written off as a has-been by the end of the '80s, and who suddenly shifted gears releasing some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late '90s. Ladies and gentlemen — Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan.

This is the extent to which Dylan's image is muddled. The announcement was lifted from an article in The Buffalo News in 2002. He loved it. He stole it. And that's what he does on 2001's Love And Theft, Dylan's greatest album since Blood On The Tracks (dare I say, even better than 1997's phenomenal Time Out Of Mind). It's an ode to the great lyrics of yore and the progenitors of his beloved blues. It jams in a way that pleases the adult-contempo crowds I see at his shows, to the hipster contingent that can't get enough of his craggy drawl (Tom Waits, be warned). "Summer Days" and "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" are straight blues rockers, while "Mississippi" and "Floater (Too Much To Ask)" are beautifully written love songs for the past. Dylan so adroitly maneuvers classic lyrics into the stories of his songs that there's almost no reason to document all of their origins (though plenty have tried. Google it).

Though continuing his line of fantastic work, Love And Theft will likely be the hallmark of Dylan's late period, an ambitious, fluid, fun record that would not have received quite so many accolades in 1967. I guess the media learned to start trusting him.

3. Arcade Fire - Funeral

The band that Pitchfork built -- but it didn't hurt that the album was pretty damn good as well. The power of the new indie pop was revealed on Arcade Fire's brilliant debut, an album about death laced with melodic hope. Win Butler's voice makes him sound on the verge of tears -- his nostalgia for childhood, even a childhood in the suburbs, undeniable.

He sings on "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)":

But sometimes, we remember our bedrooms
and our parents' bedrooms
and the bedrooms of our friends
Then we think of our parents
well whatever happened to them?

Your youth is a part of you, despite your relationships with your parents, your friends, or even your parents' bedrooms. Funeral has levels, but its intensity remains throughout, in the sing-songy "Crown of Love" and "Wake Up," to the emotional penultimate track, "Rebellion (Lies)." When you listen to Funeral, you feel Butler's energy, his yearning, especially when you close your eyes.

2. Animal Collective - Feels

Feels was the realization of Animal Collective's promise. Nine flawless songs of frenzied forest African-bop, Beach Boys-esque sunshine pop, squalls and squeals, and some of the best melodies this side of "Be My Baby." Feels has some of Avey Tare and Panda Bear's greatest songs. "The Purple Bottle" has an extended denouement that will inspire foot-stomping among all who hear it. "Banshee Beat," their greatest song, stands as the album's centerpiece, and should be listened to with headphones on. You will be bombarded with the subtle, introductory three-minutes, and then filled with the euphoria of "swimming poooooooollllll!!"

Each new Animal Collective album that's released immediately becomes "their most accessible album," but Feels still stands as a crowdpleaser to trump all others, though its importance has since been trumped by Merriweather Post Pavilion. Though, as I said previously, AC's best work has yet to come, very few artists have as many triumphs as Feels.

1. Radiohead - Kid A

Duh. Kid A has become such a foregone conclusion, that lists like this are very anti-climactic. When people ask me why Kid A is the greatest album of the decade, just like when people ask me why Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time, there is much I could say about the style, the influence, the technical achievement, but it's much easier to say, "It just is."

And it's true. It's an album that works for so many moods -- you can lay on your bed at dusk, drive on PCH, play it as a precursor to making out (I assume), even on your headphones while you write your screenplay at Starbucks, and it works. It's an album about paranoia, isolation, the traps of fame and the traps of obscurity. Whatever you do and whoever you are, Kid A somehow describes you and can speak to you, though it certainly doesn't speak to everyone.

In an era that saw the destruction of the "album" in favor of the downloadable mp3 (a transition Radiohead were acutely aware of during the release of In Rainbows), Kid A is a work of art in its composition, not equatable to the sum of its parts. It should be listened to in its entirety, and thankfully, despite the downloadable nature of modern music, many still do. Who knows how the rest of this list will become jumbled over the years. Kid A will undoubtedly stay at the very top. It just will.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 20-11

2010-07-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

The full list: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71, 70-61, 60-51, 50-41, 40-31, 30-21

20. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver

James Murphy has one of the most ironic stories of the decade. A somewhat shlubby, aging hipster, obsessed with being cool/not being cool, writes minimalist dance music in the rock-digital transition, influencing others to do the same, which would suggest he is cool. He writes songs about how he's not cool, losing his edge, finding himself not a part of the scene. He writes songs about how the scene is self-obsessed and how he's definitely part of it. He's ironically part as part of "it" as one can be. And we all know how hipsters hate irony.

So think of that as you listen to Sound of Silver, and then forget about it, because these songs are just plain awesome. "All My Friends" packs an emotional punch even if you've heard it as part of the awkward Silver Lake anthem of the last four years. "Get Innocuous" is one of the most overlooked dance tracks of the decade and "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" sums it all up in a big populist blow-out. Dance took a step past rock from relative Daft Punk obscurity to mainstream and, like it or not, James Murphy was right there tugging it along.

19. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes/Sun King EP

You could say that folk is a dying genre, or maybe that it's just evolved too much. Fleet Foxes aren't really folk the way McCabe and Mrs. Miller isn't really a western. I include their Sun King EP as part of this entry, because it's just as good as the album proper and I tend to listen to them back-to-back anyway. It's all we have of them right now, and though the ephemeral, misty mountain sound can get close to Dad Rock territory (especially since you could actually call Fleet Foxes "pleasant"), their impeccable harmonies make them much more than just another John Mayer or whatever the fuck.

18. M.I.A. - Kala

Who is the person who decided to put M.I.A.'s monumental "Paper Planes" into Pineapple Express. If it was David Gordon Green, I tip my hat. She had already proven herself as a great talent with Arular, and Kala had amazed the few million who had heard it. But, Pineapple Express somehow made "Paper Planes" a pop-culture phenomenon. Even people who didn't know who or what it was were saying, "play that song with the BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG."

Then everyone started hanging on every word. The tweets slamming The New York Times were elevated to more than just fucking tweets. And the music won. Kala is a frolicking, excessive 'fuck you' to American excess. Thank goodness she ended that retirement nonsense a few months after the announcement (it lasted a few months, what do you want?).

17. Low - Things We Lost In The Fire

Low didn't just produce an under-the-radar masterpiece, they're an under-the-radar band. Oh sure, everyone can recognize some album covers, knows they did that Dirty Three collaboration, maybe knows their Mormon, but you'll never hear them talked about by the taco truck. There's no real story, no real innovation. Low is simply one of the most consistent bands of the last 15 years, releasing solid album after solid album.

Things We Lost In The Fire is an anthem for a lost era, an album that transcended mp3s -- no single song could give you a wide enough taste. "Dinosaur Act" captures the perfect balance and harmony between husband and wife vocalists Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker. The word is "slow." You could be in slow agony or slow awakening or slow summer afternoon -- Low fits it and evokes it. It's that sweet spot between Mojave 3 and Mogwai. You won't be dancing, but you won't be disappointed.

16. Deerhoof - Apple O'

This was not your daddy's Deerhoof. Some hardcore fans of their early work actually thought they were "selling out," their new foray into pop songwriting belittling their prior ethos. But Apple O' kicks in a way no other Deerhoof album does. "Dummy Discards A Heart" is a fully-charged opener and "Apple Bomb" is the only way Deerhoof does an epic (at only 4:14, it's the longest track on the album).

Deerhoof is a band that only got more ambitious as the decade went on. I believe it was guitarist Greg Saunier who described a Wilco show where people in the audience hugged each other when a certain song came on, they loved it so much. Saunier wanted to write a song like that, and thus came The Runners Four, their most intricate album. Apple O' is them at the height of their powers, the balance between the ecstatic and the experimental. If only an entire Deerhoof show was comprised of these songs, the audience might never stop hugging.

15. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

One of a half-dozen rappers to claim the title of "Best Rapper Alive" in the oughts, Lil Wayne had a serious case to that claim in 2008. He had come off a string of superb mixtapes and studio albums. When the cover art for Tha Carter III hit the streets, it was a foregone conclusion that he was about to have his greatest mainstream success. Then "Lollipop" came out and it was all over. The raunchy, remarkably self-assured Weezy was as famous for his persona as the music. I hope that Carter's stint in prison and ridiculous flop rock album won't ruin the momentum. Tha Carter III is, however, an album for our time, with singles that will be daily mainstays on "Hip-Hop Oldies" radio for years to come. We're only a few years away.

14. Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica

It came at a weird time. Dance wasn't the new indie rock yet, but the off-kilter noise rock of Sebadoh was probably done for. Modest Mouse did the perfect thing, and released a record of great, accessible tunes that didn't compromise their aesthetic. Though Good News For People Who Love Bad News was nothing to sneeze at, that record was MM's attempt at modest (and I use the term loosely) radio play, which they achieved. Nothing could capture the magic of the first three tracks of The Moon And Antartica -- "3rd Planet," "Gravity Rides Everything," and "Dark Center of the Universe" -- a triumvirate of sizzling semi-art rock that's as deceptively dark as uplifting tunes can be.

13. Sigur Ros - Ágætis Byrjun

"Ágætis byrjun" means "A good beginning" in Icelandic, which is the language heard in songs by Sigur Ros, natives of the tiny European island nation -- most of the time. Though their second album, it could be considered a beginning of some sorts -- or perhaps it refers to the album's beginning, an "Intro" that leads into the angelic "Svefn-g-englar," which means "Sleepwalkers." The album is filled with alternating figures. From otherworldly floating seraphim to the microscopic sounds of a subtle heart beat.

It's what Brian Eno dreamed of when he made albums of ambient music. In some respects, Ágætis Byrjun could be considered an ambient album, but only at first listen, because it's certainly not lazy and requires active listening. So, it is a good beginning, in the way that the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey ends with a good beginning. Which means it's a pretty damn great beginning.

12. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Who knew that people would know who Animal Collective were one day? It seemed so unlikely just 7 or 8 years ago. Here Comes The Indian (#74 on this list) was blended and anachronistic, a pagan ritual in the woods. But Merriweather Post Pavilion is the culmination of a decade of experimentation and expansion. Panda Bear perfected his Brian Wilson harmonies and Avey Tare chose to calm down his yelps. What we're given is a nearly perfect album of pop and frenzy. The two best tracks -- "My Girls" and "Brother Sport" -- are splendidly memorable and are sure to delight at live shows for the remainder of AC's career, if they decide to keep playing them (they're notorious for playing predominantly new material at shows).

As Animal Collective continue to evolve, it's possible that Merriweather could end up as another Here Comes The Indian, a precursor to even different work. It's hard to imagine, but Animal Collective's best work could be ahead of them.

Feel free to scroll down fast if this is freaking you out.

11. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

Perhaps I'm too white, and that's why Fishscale didn't crack the top ten. I'm hoping it's just due to the wide number of fantastic albums released during the decade. I argue that Fishscale is one of the best albums of the decade because of its brutal honesty, its willingness to lay bare Dennis Coles' life and history. The song is full of truth, but ironically, many of the songs surround fictional stories. The phenomenal "Shakey Dog" and the dreamscape "Underwater" act as bookends to the fantasy life of Tony Starks -- living in a dark superhero world, crippled by hubris.

All this aside, it quite simply is the most fun and exhilarating rap album in recent years. The skits fit and the songs couldn't flow together better. And Ghostface, listen, "Back Like That" is the only R&B from you we'll ever need. No need for a whole album of the stuff. This one is perfect.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 30-21

2010-07-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

The full list: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71, 70-61, 60-51, 50-41, 40-31

30. The Knife - Silent Shout

"Let me play you the first track off this Knife album," I was told about a month after the release of Silent Shout in the summer of 2006. We listened to the title track, starting with the thudding base and a simple falsetto of electronic beats. We'd just listened to Vitalic's Ok Cowboy (#100 on this list) and I was expecting a record of equal velocity. I was wrong, but far from disappointed. This is The Knife's third LP, but for me it came out of nowhere. The Knife is Swedish brother and sister team Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, but their live shows hid their identity behind gimp and monster masks. The same theatrics are a wonderful complement to the live shows of Fever Ray, Andersson's other project (whose fantastic eponymous debut is ridiculously omitted from this list).

29. Sleater-Kinney - The Woods

Forget that this is a girl group. They don't have anything to prove to you. They released one of the most frenzied-but-focused, hardest rockers of the decade. Their final album before splitting up in 2006, The Woods opens with a train wreck of guitars. If you can get through "The Fox" and want to keep going, you're ready for what Pitchfork called an "endurance test." Sleater-Kinney will rip you up and spit you out. In an era when female musicians split into two categories -- soulful singer-songwriter (Feist, Cat Power) or electro-vixen (the above-mentioned Karin Dreijer Andersson), Sleater-Kinney perform old-fashioned rock with more than a dose of distortion. "Modern Girl" is the only pop relief here; its slick bass line is infectious and comes as a perfect interlude. A fitting end to a socks-off band.

28. of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

Kevin Barnes' sexual anonymity (he's straight, fyi) has never been to his advantage as much as on his 2007 masterpiece, an absolutely stellar 12 songs that run up and down the pop ladder. The songs vary in length from one to 12 minutes, but all are precise and focused. The 12-minuter in question is "The Path Is A Grotesque Animal," a song that seeks to blend the album's (and Barnes') multiple personalities. It's the centerpiece of this hyper-pop, schizophrenic record. Barnes references his own up-and-down, half-of-two-minds mood in a most frank manner on "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse." He says: I'm in a crisis, I need help, come on mood, shift shift back to good again. The song's latter minute is an angry screed at the "chemicals" that control him. It's the best sounding mood disorder I know of.

27. Kanye West - Late Registration

Hip-hop has evolved more in the past five years than in the previous 20. Kanye is the only rapper to ever sufficiently display his vulnerabilities. I don't care what you say about Tupac -- Kanye is the emo rapper. If you get past the singles, past Jamie Foxx on "Gold Digger" and Pamela Anderson in the video for "Touch The Sky," you'll see a man who's practically begging you to tell him you accept him, that he's cool. He's ashamed of admitting that he's not in Broke Phi Broke (and never was, to be fair), he doesn't just back up his mama and grandma, he cries over them, he has songs ripped from his chest over them. Kanye considered Late Registration his entry into higher education, but really, he just ended up schooling all of us.

26. Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights

Despite the success of Turn On The Bright Lights in 2002, it's been a pretty rough decade for Interpol. Their follow-up album was solid but couldn't quite compete with TOTBL's success. They've been out of touch for the most part since -- further albums have fallen flat, the Pitchfork love is gone -- but we can't let that take away from how good their debut really is. Joy Division-comparisons aside, they wrote some fantastic 80s new wave-style songs and pulled them with great aplomb. "NYC," "PDA," and "Obstacle 1" are still remarkably entertaining, even if it's been over a year since I've listened. This was a point when we weren't sure about the future of music. It turned out not to be Interpol, but Turn On The Bright Lights will last far past 2002.

25. Spoon - Gimme Fiction

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is the fan favorite, but I give the edge to Gimme Fiction, a straight-up stellar rock album. No song Britt Daniel wrote before or since has matched the pure joy of when the chorus cruises in on "The Beast and Dragon, Adored," or the unhittable falsetto on "I Summon You." Though Spoon had already made waves, Gimme Fiction is what set them on their course to being everywhere. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga made them a household name (or at least a college dorm room name) and Transference hit #4 on the Billboard Top 200. Pretty impressive for album #7.

24. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

In a decade when hip-hop either blew up on MTV or wallowed in the underground, Clipse had hits that were right in the middle. Hell Hath No Fury is their great achievement -- enough songs about crack-dealing and the need to shine on in Italian sports cars to make even the more popular rappers jealous. Just listen to the horror-film space-cadet beat on "Trill" to see how Clipse transcend the Westside-Eastside antics and work to simply thrill captive listeners. True. Real.

23. My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves

At a My Morning Jacket show in 2004, Jim James expressed his slight dismay that his group were considered hippies (by whom, we'll never know), just because of their long beards and very long hair. That's not so much a problem now, but back upon the release of It Still Moves, it was unclear if MMJ had a greater plan, so hidden were those faces behind auburn hair. The new MMJ is less southern, less country, less folksy and jammy. They're still fun and compose fantastic songs, but It Still Moves captured them at their wondrous, rockabilly best. The tandem of "One Big Holiday" and "I Will Sing You Songs" are a perfect balance -- the high and the low, the anxious and the secure. It hasn't stopped moving.

22. Sun Kil Moon - April

Mark Kozelek was thoroughly unintimidated by the 2000s. In a decade where music was distorted, reverberated, danced-up and beat-down, Kozelek continued to write quiet, exploratory songs. But, they're not simple songs. The first two tracks on April run over 16 minutes, and each is packed with thought and discovery. His music is all about memories, those faded images we all have and apply to entire experiences. Just look at the album cover. When you see something like this, you're either in a Sun Kil Moon album or a Tarkovsky film. April is Kozelek's most beautiful album, a collection of songs melancholy but effortlessly fulfilling. The music is subtle enough that you might even be able to doze off if you're in the dark on a bed...but don't expect to not have haunted dreams.

21. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

If you've questioned my obsession with Animal Collective, leave now. The rest of this list will annoy you. Another in a string of masterpieces that AC have released since they hit their stride in 2004, Strawberry Jam might very well have pushed them right up to the mainstream, before Merriweather Post Pavilion launched them over the Top 40 fence. It was, at the time, considered their most accessible record, though you wouldn't have known it from being thrust into "Peacebone" right off the bat. However, no listener could forget the duo of "For Reverend Green" and "Fireworks." The euphoric collection of Panda Bear's "oohs" and "aahs" and Avey Tare's yelps are a highlight of their (or anybody's) careers. If Sung Tongs and Feels were a bit too out there (still) for the community, Strawberry Jam was the sweet, gooey, sugary pop to get everyone to the table.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 40-31

2010-07-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

Older posts: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71, 70-61, 60-51, 50-41

40. Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse

Sonic Youth's follow-up to the previously mentioned Murray Street is full of no-nonsense rock songs. The middle frame, featuring "Kim Gordon & The Arthur Doyle Hand Cream," "Stones," and "Dude Ranch Nurse," is perhaps the most solid 18 minutes of straight-ahead rock they've produced since Dirty. The flourishes are here, but gone are the 10-minute noise jams of "Karen Revisited." Don't get me wrong. You saw Murray Street on this list -- it's awesome. But Sonic Nurse grabs hold and powers you through 62 minutes of the closest thing to arena rock Sonic Youth will ever get. To watch them perform "Pattern Recognition" live is as enriching as watching them play "Teenage Riot." Well, almost.

39. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven!

Post-rock hardcore faded early on in the decade. Slow was replaced with fast -- simple as that. Oh sure, listeners still have patience to feel a song build, but, only 10 years later, it's doubtful that a double-disc rock symphony like Lift Yr. Skinny Fists... could be released and embraced today. Godspeed You! Black Emperor constructed an undeniably complex and very fulfilling album. At times somber and beautiful, at others macabre and eerie, Godspeed made a thematically relevant follow-up to the masterful F♯A♯∞ on an even grander scale.

38. Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

Time is likely the only reason Street Horrrsing made the list over Tarot Sport. Both albums are infectious, freewheeling blasts of pscyhedelic noise pop. "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" will grab you immediately and scream at you for nine minutes. It's another one of the albums that, due to its inclusion of some pop with its noise, fits the modern indie audience and embraces the newcomers. Fuck Buttons are the creation of two British minds -- one a huge fan of Aphex Twin, the other of Mogwai. Those two influences show. Plus, you can dance like a muthafucka.

37. TIE // M83 - Saturdays=Youth; The Handsome Family - Twilight

Last tie of the list. It's a bit odd, considering these albums couldn't be more different in almost every way. But, I simply couldn't tell you which one I like better than the other. So let's start with M83. Anthony Gonzalez had been fine-tuning his sound for years. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts was an impressive breakthrough and Before The Dawn Heals Us included more focused songwriting and an ephemeral, dreamlike sound. Saturdays=Youth is a step above, an album that would likely hold this same position on a decade list if it were released in 1983...and nobody would bat an eye. "Kim and Jessie" and "Graveyard Girl" are two excellent singles that would have been stand-outs on the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club, and "We Own The Sky" may be the greatest song in the M83 catalog. It's nostalgic for a time when all the teenagers were pissed off, and you wouldn't be accused of being "emo." You'd get up, go to high school, bum around in your suburb and wonder what else was out there. The cover says it all.

And The Handsome Family...the musical collaboration between husband and wife Hank and Rennie Sparks couldn't be much simpler. Play a drum beat, she plays bass, he plays guitar, she writes the lyrics, he sings them. Songs about ghosts, the road, loneliness fill their music with smoky, ethereal images. They spent the decade releasing a string of fantastic studio albums, but Twilight is as good as it gets. From the solemn, serene "Passenger Pigeons" to the goofy "So Long" (about a kid saying goodbye to all the harmless animals he's tortured), Twilight is sad even when it's happy. In the former song, the narrator laments the loss of a lover. He'd rather sleep in the park and "talk to the wind than an empty apartment." The disconnected chorus: "Once there were a billion passenger pigeons, so many flew by they darkened the sky."

36. No Age - Nouns

Technically, Nouns is No Age's first proper full-length, but the splash they made with Weirdo Rippers sent ripples around the indie rock world. This is a band with few flourishes, a straight-ahead, if fuzzier, Sebadoh, and an energy that reflects the relative youth of members Randy Randall and Dean Allen Spunt. Both Randall and Spunt are vegan, but they're not activists. They're two guys in a band that became mainstays at L.A.'s The Smell. They jam on Nouns for 30 minutes and then you're silent and breathless. This is a band whose best work is still ahead of them.

35. Radiohead - Amnesiac

Nobody said it, but there was a palpable disappointment when Amnesiac was released. I was 19 and waited in a line outside of Tower Records (I'll explain what that is later, kids), picked up the album at midnight and promptly returned to my dorm room to listen. It was out there, songs plucked from the Kid A sessions, but odder, quicker, less moody. "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" was like "Fitter Happier" inside of an acid-blanketed maze. Did I like it? I wasn't sure. It was too experimental for the Bends kids and for the art kids it was simply just not Kid A. Then we listened a few more times, looking for a message, and found that there was none. These are simply 11 amazing songs, arranged perfectly, sounding like a cohesive album, certainly not a collection of castoffs. Alienation and lack of control are the prominent themes. We fall through doors and climb through others, we're packt in like sardines, everyone can see us in our glass house. "You And Whose Army?" ends with Ghost horses / We ride tonight, but you could listen a thousand times and not make out a single word. Things are out of our control, and this is how Radiohead seemed to operate in 2001. They could not be reined it and we just had to sit and love every minute.

34. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Ease Down The Road

Will Oldham was coming off a remarkable achievement in the transitional I See A Darkness. One of the best albums of the 1990s, that record moved Oldham away from the twangy country of Viva Last Blues and into the lulling sounds of piano balladry. Not that his lyrics were any less incisive or filthy. Ease Down The Road followed in 2001 and finds Oldham at his sharp-tongued, womanizing best. Though the songs flow at the same pace, Ease Down The Road is a more jovial, explorative album than Darkness. Take the title track: the narrator is on a road trip with a married woman to see her firefighter husband's family. On the way, infidelity is prevalent. Digest this lyric:

A fireman her husband was
And so to give him duty
I duly tried to light a fire
Upon his rightful booty
But beauty was my treasure then
As through the hills I drove her
And taught her that another man
Could have made love to her

Music that can be played on a sunny drive or offend your closest lady-friends with equal measure, Oldham has not released an album this beautiful and immaculate since, and that's saying a lot.

33. Sparklehorse - It's A Wonderful Life

Mark Linkous took his own life this year. He had a prolific 20-year career as a songwriter and producer. His collaboration with Danger Mouse and David Lynch, Dark Night of the Soul, is finally getting a proper release this year. It's odd to be writing about the ironically-titled It's A Wonderful Life -- fans have known of Linkous' depression for years, and it comes through on this 2001 masterpiece. The songs are slow, melancholy, but the melodies and instrumentation are so textured and angelic that it's hard to belief a depressed person could have written them. I held my hand to the fire / it burned me down to the wires, he sings on "Eyepennies." You can see it now as a metaphor for his final days, but Linkous' work should be remember more for its beauty than as a harbinger.

32. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

Never has a band released a breakthrough album so late in their career, but The Soft Bulletin catapulted the Oklahoma psych rockers to superstardom, and when their tenth album, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, was released, the mainstream started to take notice, just in time for the hipsters to pretend that they'd cared since 1993. Yoshimi doesn't attempt to build on The Soft Bulletin. It's its own beast, a miraculously fun record surrounding a loose story about giant robots that threaten the universe. It also has one of their most famous songs, the "Good Riddance" of the indie world. "Do You Realize?" is anthemic and uplifting, an antidote to the sad bastard music of, well, much of the rest of this list. Man vs. machine theatrics aside, Yoshimi is a wonderful listen and will last as one of the Lips' most memorable achievements.

31. Madvillain - Madvillainy

I saw MF Doom perform in UCLA's Ackerman Grand Ballroom in 2004. He's a chubby guy in a red polo shirt and a mask. Opening for Talib Kweli, the crowd was not into it. After a few tracks from Vaudeville Villain, Operation: Doomsday and Madvillainy, he was booed off the stage. I'm not sure if the audience ever realized who they were booing or why Madvillainy is now considered a landmark hip-hop album. With lyrics by Doom and beats by Madlib, Madvillainy is a brief, scattershot collection of rhymes and rhythms. He raps about the same topics as most of his other albums: weed, cred, and how ill he is. The fat is trimmed -- there are no sketches, no beat poetry mockery as on Vaudeville -- the beats are quick and punchy. It flows from beginning to end and you're never tempted to skip to your favorite single. There simply aren't any on here. But it does have more lyrics than the church got "Oooh Lords." You can call him Your Majesty.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 50-41

2010-06-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Older posts: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71, 70-61, 60-51

50. Frog Eyes - Tears of the Valedictorian

Frog Eyes are the toughest band in the modern Canadian music scene to get into. Once you're through The New Pornographers, Handsome Furs, Sunset Rubdown and Destroyer, it's time to tackle Carey Mercer's 55-octave wailing amid a flash flood of Spencer Krug's Rakhmaninovian keyboarding. Tears of the Valedictorian is their best album, bookended by two songs of over seven minutes, keeping the pace very speedy -- I would say, in a frenzy. This whole album is like going through Space Camp. "Caravan Breakers, They Prey on the Weak and the Old" is three magnificent songs in one. "Bushels" is even better, arguably the greatest in Mercer's songwriting career. Get ready to feel like the guy in the chair in the old Maxwell ads.

49. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Sam Beam's intimate bearded songwriting has sustained him through much of the decade. He appeals to the Elliot Smith crowd, maybe even, dare I say it, the Jack Johnson crowd. His music is likable and inoffensive enough that "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" was featured on the soundtrack to Twilight. But, there's an edge to Iron & Wine that J. Johnson certainly couldn't match. His lyrics are often biting, and his voice often drops to that breathy whisper -- something unsettling is certainly afoot. The only reason The Shepherd's Dog appears over other Iron & Wine's two other much-loved albums is because I simply return to these songs the most. "Boy With A Coin," "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" and "Peace Beneath The City" are remarkably enjoyable after multiple listens. The 2005 EP Woman King is also definitely worth a purchase.

48. Beck - Sea Change

Most of us actually thought Sea Change was a joke at first. It was so distant from the ramshackle country-funk of Odelay and light years from the energized dance of Midnite Vultures, that it could have been a fake disc. It turned out though that Beck had settled down, or settled in, at age 32, to a blurry haze of acoustic and bass driven tunes. These songs build and prove Beck's versatility. It's hard to compare to other Beck albums: 1) it sounds so different and 2) I still consider Odelay the greatest album of the 1990s. How can I even try to compare a great album like Sea Change to a masterpiece of that magnitude? Still, this is Beck's greatest achievement since the 1990s, and despite the underrated Modern Guilt and The Information, may stand as his last great album, depending on if/when he can still bring the funk.

47. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

The edge of late has gone to Middle Cyclone, but I still believe that this is Case's greatest achievement, a collection of 12 breezy songs about relationships (both platonic and romantic), inhibitions and cat fights. The spacey "Star Witness" and follower "Hold On, Hold On" are perfect for her voice, and the cast of musicians on this album suit her ambling sound even better than on Middle Cyclone or the superb Blacklisted.

46. Battles - Mirrored

My iTunes lists the "Genre" of Battles as "noodly math rock." Exactly. This is art rock with the prog turned up to 11. Scattershot vocals over relentless drum beats and sharp electric guitar make Mirrored like the Speed Racer movie, except good. One of the most enjoyable of the decade's abstract, experimental releases. I hope they're more prolific this decade, though Battles is essentially a side project for all participating parties.

45. Songs: Ohia - The Magnolia Electric Company

The names can get a bit confusing. Jason Molina was Songs: Ohia. Then he wanted to call his band The Magnolia Electric Company. The label knew that Songs: Ohia was more recognizable, so they made him keep that title as the band name. The follow-up to this album, What Comes After The Blues, is credited to The Magnolia Electric Company. No matter. This is Molina's finest album -- a twangy, dark mix of country and gothic rock. Opening track "Farewell Transmission" is a masterpiece. In an album full of secrets and ghosts, "Farewell Transmission" strikes the first and most defining chord: I will resurrect it, I'll have a good go at it / I'll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes / I can feel his ghost breathing down my back. The last words in the song may give the most apropos of Magnolia Electric's mood: "Long, dark blues."

44. Panda Bear - Person Pitch

This is the album that got most of the Animal Collective-haters on the bandwagon. Panda Bear's Beach Boys dreaminess won people over, and primed them for the full band's explosive, giddy pop songs. Noah Lennox has had, pretty unquestionably, the most successful AC-solo career. His first album, Young Prayer, was released to some acclaim, but Person Pitch elevated him to the status of indie pop icon. The album is out there, but accessible enough to bring everyone into the pool party. "Bros" is a frolicking bit of song craftsmanship: it concludes with irresistible, bouncing percussion work, much like Animal Collective's own "The Purple Bottle." Person Pitch just makes you smile, as Brian Wilson songs always intended.

43. Richard Buckner - The Hill

One of a few albums in the top 50 that most probably won't recognize, The Hill is one of the greatest works from one of the most prolific songwriters of the last 15 years. Buckner is usually alone with his acoustic guitar singing of love lost (nearly every song on his 1997 masterpiece Devotion and Doubt lamented his recent divorce). On The Hill, his lyrics are lifted from poets and his backing band is subtle but everpresent. There are many songs but they all live on one track. You should listen to it from beginning to end with no breaks. My friend Bryan once said, "If God had a voice, it would sound like Richard Buckner." It sounds like it on The Hill.

42. Kanye West - Graduation

Okay, Canibus, ima let you finish, but Kanye West made one of the most self-glorifying rap albums of all time! Every song on Graduation proves that Kanye can interrupt any acceptance speech and say whatever he wants on television. The award show is cheapened if you don't let him do this. In fact, just let him host the show with no script. It will be more entertaining and elevate him to deity status. Here's how Kanye transcends rap culture: the original video for "Can't Tell Me Nothing" featured Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham riding on a tractor, "Flashing Lights" had an avant-garde car-in-the-desert video with Rita G stripping off a fur coat. For a guy so seemingly-obsessed with himself, he appears in neither of these iconic videos. Kanye is more than a rapper. He's an idea. Graduation may be remembered as the album that defined Yeezy even more than his two breakthroughs.

41. Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Dylan completed his latter-day trilogy in 2006 with Modern Times, an album full of blues but without the despair. Much of 1997's brilliant Time Out Of Mind was spent lamenting his age, as if his career was winding down. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there, summed it up. On Modern Times, Dylan admits he's older, but isn't ready to throw in the towel. You think I'm over the hill, think I'm past my prime / Let me see what you got, we can have a whopping good time, he says on "Spirit of the Water," with more than a little innuendo. The old bastard is having fun here. Shortly after this album's release, he said he thought his career was just beginning. If you've been world famous for 45 years and then you drop this gem, I'm inclined to believe that you've got a few decades left in the tank.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 60-51

2010-06-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

Older posts: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71, 70-61

60. TIE: Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump

Yes, another tie. Don't worry. Only one or two more of these. I have to cheat a little bit.

Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga made the Austin band (almost) mainstream. Seeing them perform these songs was almost like what it may have been like to see Oasis in 1994. Fans were attached to these songs, singing along, rocking out when frontman Britt Daniel goes on a guitar tear. "Don't Make Me A Target" and "The Underdog" are rousing power-songs and "Don't You Evah" and "Rhythm and Soul" finger-snapping grooves. Just another in a steady stream of great rock albums from Spoon.

When Grandaddy's The Sophtware Slump was released in 2000, word around the campfire was that it was a masterpiece that would be #1 on every publication's top ten list that year. Of course, Kid A had not yet come out (oh...Kid A hasn't appeared on this list yet?...no how can that be). Still, it's a bit surprising how this album has been strangely forgotten over time, considering its number of virtues. Opener "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot," is a nine-minute piano composition. Its varying moods and levels set the stage for a work full of such changes. We have melancholy ballads like "Jed The Humanoid" and punk-lite songs like the Nirvana-esque "Chartsengrafs." Despite a decade full of sonic changes, let's not forget Jason Lytle's masterpiece, and an album that certainly would have been at least somewhere in any top ten list of 2000.

59. Calexico - Feast of Wire

My favorite Calexico album, I once considered writing a screenplay for a Western while listening. It's a perfect blend of country and Mexican sones (if I'm in fact using the term correctly). Feast of Wire is also their most fun release in a long line of successful, if underappreciated, tex-mex outings. Named after the Arizona border town, Calexico's music might not sound that odd in an updated version of Touch of Evil. Listen to opener "Sunken Waltz" and you'll be right into the sounds without any transition from whatever bland indie rock you had playing before.

58. Guided By Voices - Earthquake Glue

Earthquake Glue was GBV's best album since their mid-90s masterpieces Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand. I once read an interview from a producer or musician who said that if those two albums hadn't ever been released, and Earthquake Glue was a debut from an unheard-of band, it would have been hailed a landmark release of the time. I'm not sure that's quite true, but EG certainly stands tall as the greatest achievement of Robert Pollard's 2000s career. "Useless Inventions" and "The Best of Jill Hives" are wonderfully catchy, and seeing "Jill Hives" performed live on the DVD of GBV's last ever show, you'd think the song was released a decade before. Pollard is so prolific and his current releases so hit-or-miss, it's hard to tell if he'll have another Earthquake Glue in the current decade. But, if he produces 15-20 albums in that time, the chances are not that bad.

57. Sonic Youth - Murray Street

If this album is #57, you know we're getting to the point where every album from here on out is essentially perfect. Murray Street is SY's best album since, wow, maybe Goo. It put the best of them on display -- they're getting older but are far from adult contemporary. I saw Sonic Youth a year or so after the release of Murray Street, and they were still shredding their guitars against the speakers, some ten-minute noise jams coming at the end of inspiring songs like "Karen Revisited." Now that Kim Gordon is 57, and likely only a few years away from being a full-blown Gilf, it's time to hold off their Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame induction for another 20 years. They're far from done.

56. The Decemberists - Picuresque

If Bob Dylan and Joanna Newsom had a child, it would probably sound like Colin Meloy. I can understand why his voice annoys so many. It's got this weird, vibrating whine at the end of each word. It sounds like a sound you'd make if you were saying a word and a fly flew in your mouth. Having said that, would you really want to hear a song as perfectly paced and melodic as "Engine Driver" any other way? When it comes right down to it, I only like two Decemberists albums: Picuresque and The Crane Wife. Both cut through the pretension and fill their 40-50 with nothing but great tunes.

55. Antony and the Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now

As we get higher up on the list, you'll definitely get a sense of the acts that had the most powerful impression on me. If this were a straight up Top 100 list from a major publication, I Am A Bird Now would almost certainly be in the top 20. This is one of the best albums of the decade. Very much its own genre, Antony bucked all of the current trends in music, to produce something sad, beautiful and unique. Many of the songs succeed due to its minimalism, nothing more than a piano and Antony's voice. "Fistfull of Love," however, is a full-bodied, painful ode. It is the grandest song here, using horns and building drums to powerful effect. The 2009 effort The Crying Light is a worthy follow-up, if a bit of a retread.

54. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary

Just five years ago, I'd never heard of a guy named Spencer Krug. Now, he's released, by my last count, 143 albums. The first where he appeared front and center was Wolf Parade's spectacular debut. A 50-50 collaboration between Krug and Dan Boeckner of Handsome Furs, Wolf Parade was poised for success right from the beginning. There was considerable buzz behind this release, largely due to its producer, Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock. The songs go back-and-forth between songs by Krug and Boeckner, but nothing seems out of place. Both songwriters have highlights, though Krug may win out in a popularity duel for his anthemic "I'll Believe in Anything" and the zippo-lighting "Dinner Bells." Boeckner's contributions are not to be ignored, though. "Modern World" and "Shine A Light" are emotive foot-tapping rock jams. Wolf Parade wins out on this list over Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown (Krug's other outfit) because, simply, every song on this album is just what it should be.

53. MF Doom as Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain

V. Vaughn, the traveling Vaudeville Villain
Who don't give a flying fuck who ain't not feeling him
Watch what ya' dealing him: ace, king, death card
Strong-arm the wrong man, pardon the left, god
Get money and earn it, then everything you touch turn shit
Got much to learn kid, light it up burn shit
Light it up like the Dutch when the hash melt
Only time they see him is when they need him with the cash belt

52. TV On The Radio - Dear Science

I was never as gaga about TOTR as the mainstream music community until Dear Science. The accolades for Return To Cookie Mountain were well-earned, but the love-fest with TOTR through the middle part of the decade were, I thought, a bit premature. Dear Science proved me wrong. This is a group at the top of its form, blending modern indie pop with some African beats, some drum machine, some dope percussion, and putting out their tightest, most accomplished work yet.

51. Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway

In a decade filled with explosions of sonic creativity, synth revivals, endless mixing and sampling, and perhaps even the death of rock, Mark Kozelek continues to make quiet music, songs that live on their melodies, guitars and lyrics. Ghosts of the Great Highway is his first album under the Sun Kil Moon moniker, and Kozelek's voice comes through clearer and his songs are more focused than in most of his Red House Painters work. Lead-off track "Glenn Tipton" is vaguely about a serial killer, and the title comes from a series of disputes about guitarists, boxers and singers: Cassius Clay was hated more than Sonny Liston. Some like KK Downing more than Glenn Tipton. Some like Jim Nabors, some Bobby Vinton. I like 'em all... "Salvador Sanchez" continues to be a fan favorite at shows (it features an electric guitar and may actually be the hardest of all Kozelek's work...hard as in rocking hard).

Top Albums of the 2000s: 70-61

2010-06-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Older posts: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81, 80-71

70. TIE: Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover and YACHT - See Mystery Lights

Two reasons for the tie. First off, I screwed up and had 101 on the list. Rather than go back and changing everything, I'm giving these two wonderful albums the same rank. That's about all they have in common. Random Spirit Lover is currently Spencer Krug's greatest singular work, an album with very few gaps between songs that highlights his structural eccentricities while displaying some of his greatest songs ("Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days," "Trumpet, Trumpet, Toot! Toot!").

YACHT's breakthrough, See Mystery Lights, is one of the decade's funnest, most danceable albums. Seeing these songs performed in a live setting is a treat. Jona Bechtolt extends his limbs always in perfect harmony with the beats, dressed in his white suit (with white jeans when the slacks get dirty). Claire Evans is all in black, the yang of the groups, with stirring vocals that provide a stirring balance during "Psychic City (Voodoo City)" and "I'm In Love With The Ripper." A fantastic album.

69. Burial - Untrue

One of the greatest entries in the emerging dubstep genre, Untrue is dark, subtly melodic, and gripping throughout. Upon its release, Burial's true identity was unknown. It was only about a year later that he was revealed to be William Bevan, a South London producer and Soundforge artist. Keeping this in mind, and knowing that the opening untitled track contains a sample from David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE, you can imagine just how mysterious and forboding is the music.

68. Blitzen Trapper - Furr

There's no "Country Caravan" on here, to be sure, but Furr is Blitzen Trapper's greatest complete musical experience. More cohesive and genre-specific than almost-as-good predecessor Wild Mountain Nation, Furr drifts into the realm of alt-country, while not being pinned down or losing any of their fun. "Black River Killer" is a country murder ballad worthy of Dylan or Cash.

67. My Morning Jacket - At Dawn

My first experience with My Morning Jacket was when my freshman roommate in college played "Strangulation" for me. It comes at you quickly, those first harsh chords before the bass comes in. But, it's not a rousing rock ballad. It's a dark and melancholy song whose first lyrics sound spoken by a man alone at the bottom of a well, far away from everyone. "Strangulation / I don't wanna feel a thing / When your hands close tight around my neck / And force the air that I breathe / I don't wanna feel a thing." Of course, when you listen to At Dawn beginning to end, by the time "Strangulation" rolls around an hour later, you know the voice is that of Jim James, warm and comforting, folksy but rooted in rock. At Dawn contains some of My Morning Jacket's best and most understated songs.

66. The Twilight Singers - Blackberry Belle

Greg Dulli's post-Afghan Whigs project has its best release here, with its slightly off-kilter take on 90s alt-rock. Too brooding to be radio-friendly but still not quite anti-mainstream. The songs on here aren't afraid to show feeling; "Decatur St." could almost be on Pearl Jam's Yield. It's closer "Number Nine," however, with guest vocals by current Gutter Twins bandmate Mark Lanegan, that moves this album out of the ordinary, even past follow-up Powder Burns, into classic status.

65. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity

Deerhoof has always been a polarizing band, and rightfully so. Their jigsaw puzzle songs and the shrill squeaky voice of Satomi Matsuzaki are too much for many to enjoy. My girlfriend of several years ago saw them with me at the Echo on Sunset Blvd, out of pure kindness, and promptly sat in the corner with head in hands to keep from getting a headache. That was before Friend Opportunity, and I'm convinced that if she gave it a listen (not gonna happen), she'd at least love "+81," one of the most pop-accessible songs of their career. In fact, I'm convinced that "+81" and a handful of other tracks on Deerhoof's eighth full length would play just fine on the radio. Perhaps that's just my reaction after so many albums of brilliantly jumbled horn/guitar mishmash. This is Deerhoof's pop album, and even if "The Perfect Me" or "Matchbook Seeks Maniac" couldn't fit in between The Killers and Muse, it's a hell of a fun 37 minutes and one of Deerhoof's second best album to date (#1 coming up in the teens, hint hint).

64. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

One of the best moments of Coachella 2010 was watching Dirty Projectors perform "Stillness Is The Move," the best song in their discography and Amber Coffman's vocal tour-de-force. The song is the centerpiece of an album full of memorable guitar riffs and stops-and-starts. One of only a few albums on this list from 2009, Bitte Orca is instantly memorable and you can surprisingly sing along after only a few listens.

63. Deerhunter - Microcastle

Microcastle is Deerhunter's most accessible album and also their best. Bradford Cox's ambient art rock project has more straight-up songs than their sophomore album, Cryptograms, and the ones that stand out really stand out. "Never Stops" and "Nothing Ever Happened" see Deerhunter emerge from their shoegazing shell and play songs that, performed live, could genuinely rock -- even if that isn't their bag. The album also came with a bonus disc of original songs, Weird Era, Cont., which is really a fantastic piece of work in its own right.

62. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

The debut of the original indie rock Canadian supergroup. Before there was Swan Lake, there were The New Pornographers, with Tweedy-esque pop songwriting guru A.C. Newman, emotional core Dan Bejar and angel-voiced Neko Case. They've had a whole bunch of great albums, but this was their best. Even years later, I still can't listen to "Letter From An Occupant" without posting a big smile.

61. Jay-Z - The Blueprint

This album is probably too low on the list. In fact, it's probably a crime that this is the only Jay-Z album on the list. Often regarded as the greatest hip hop album of the modern era, it deserves all the accolades it gets. This was the height of HOVA's cigar-smoking, best-rapper-alive persona. "Girls, Girls, Girls" and "Jigga That Nigga" headline a string of classic tracks. While not my favorite hip hop album of the decade, I could not argue with anyone who praises it as such. The Blueprint is, in a historical sense, the seminal rap album of our time.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 80-71

2010-06-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Older posts: Honorable Mentions, 100-91, 90-81

80. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

By this time, I should have learned that you can never predict the sound of a Flaming Lips album. Embryonic not only thwarted the predictable, but pretty much went off the charts of current scientific theory....if that makes sense (if not, whatever, it's the Flaming Lips). Embryonic is not a subdued Lips album, despite lacking the sugar-pop highlights of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots; this is a heavy, paranoid experience. Opener "Convinced of the Hex" sets a pretty ominous tone; it's the Lips equivalent of "Tomorrow Never Knows." "Powerless" is the best song they've done in years, a song you really must listen to with headphones. On one side is the four-note baseline and the other is the -- I don't know what to describe them -- exploding cymbals? Then at about 2:00, the psychedelic guitar comes in. It's near perfect.

79. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

You wouldn't think a band as pleasant and bubbly would be perhaps the most polarizing act of the decade. Derided by many as obnoxious and low-on-substance, my theory is that they're all just jealous. Even if you're embarrassed to tell people you like it, Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut is a dizzyingly fun 11 songs on teenage love, educational inquiries, and African dancing...kind of. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" sums it up. Imagine watching one of those nonprofit promotional videos from Ghana. The ones where all the kids and workers are dancing together, because they're all happy. Also, Peter Gabriel covered the song because he's referenced in it. Awesome.

78. Outkast - Stankonia

Most certainly the hip-hop album of its year, Stankonia saw the collaboration of Andre 3000 and Big Boi at its most electric, before they started to work on their own projects. Like most listeners, I first heard Stankonia on the radio, through singles "So Fresh, So Clean" and "Ms. Jackson." "B.O.B." is just too much for the radio, but it's the album's centerpiece and holds up as the definitive musical statement from this essential hip-hop duo.

77. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

In case you don't know, here's the quick version. Justin Vernon broke up his band, moved into the woods in Wisconsin and recorded an album. He didn't think anyone would ever hear it (which is pretty much the only similarity For Emma, Forever Ago shares with my screenplays), but when indie label Jagjaguar heard it, well, that was it. It helps to know the story, because you want to be in the woods when you're listening, contemplating loneliness, loss, misty morning air, and the like.

76. The National - Alligator

Now here's one that took me by surprise. At a time when the straight-up slack pop of The Postal Service and its variants were dying out and attention turned to the synth and drum beats of Daft Punk's descendants, The National came along with music that defied everything modern, by creating something remarkably simple and beautiful. Though The National have recently released another masterpiece in High Violet, Alligator will always be their breakthrough. When Matt Berninger's deep, affecting voice comes through in the opening seconds of "Secret Meeting," it's as if something very familiar, very comforting but sad, has emerged from a room in your house that's always been there, even if you didn't know it.

75. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part

In a decade that saw Nick Cave become a more active film composer and screenwriter, his 2001 album No More Shall We Part is a beautiful collection of vaguely-religious odes to love and illness. Though No More Shall We Part is technically the follow-up to 1997's equally awesome The Boatman's Call, the two couldn't be more stylistically and thematically different (in between the two albums, Cave fought heroin and alcohol addiction). The album has Cave at his grungiest ("Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow") and the Bad Seeds at their most wonderfully restrained ("Gates of the Garden"). Warren Ellis definitely gets his chance to shine, though (most notably on "Hallelujah," which he co-wrote).

74. Animal Collective - Here Comes The Indian

To call Here Comes The Indian a lesser Animal Collective album is like calling Let It Be a lesser Beatles album. These days, nobody will think Here Comes The Indian at first mention of Animal Collective, the band that took pop music and turned it on its head. This was them before "Fireworks" and "My Girls," before even "Leaf House," when they were still just a confused band of wanderers, banging on bamboo drums out in the forest. This is tribal music, with the songs hidden within. If you're in the right mode, that is...if you're able to transform your dark room into the enclosed circle of the woods where Twin Peaks' red room becomes visible, listen to "Infant Dressing Table" and feel the trees come alive. This is genius that would soon give birth to even greater genius.

73. Radiohead - In Rainbows

When I first bought In Rainbows (for $5, or £3.38?) I didn't know what to make of it. I was initially underwhelmed -- I even thought the beautiful songs (like "Nude") were just retreads of other, more potent songs (like "How to Disappear Completely"). I still think that they made a mistake including "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" on the album, probably their most boring song since Pablo Honey. Now that that's out of the way, I was totally wrong. In Rainbows is the work of a band that's found its second footing after years of analysis and counter-analysis. It's a solid and composed work, with as many perfect moments as Amnesiac, and more than Hail to the Thief. The second half surpasses the first. "Faust Arp" brings back the unsettling paranoia of "In Limbo," and "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" and "Videotape" are as confident closers as they've ever done. This is still a band that may have some of their best work ahead of them, and In Rainbows shows that they're far from done.

72. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar

I kind of hate Zach Condon in a way. He's a rich white kid who got to travel around the world and absorb all manner of eastern European traditional sounds. Oh, and he's a musical prodigy. Condon is now just 24 (he was 19 when he recorded this, which is why I hate him). The music, however, is undeniably beautiful. "Postcards from Italy" is an uplifting, danceable dune with ukelele (or something like it) and horn. You don't need to be in Budapest to love this stuff.

71. Mark Lanegan - Field Songs

I had to put at least one or two albums on this list that my mom might like even more. That should tell you everything you need to know. Lanegan's voice is bluesy, coarse, pained. "One Way Street" opens with haunting night sounds -- backward-played guitars make it sound like ghosts are in the air. Lanegan's voice comes through: "The stars and the moon aren't where they're supposed to be / for the strange electric light it falls so close to me." Lanegan was an original member of the grunge band Screaming Trees, he did heroin with Kurt Cobain. He now does blues-rock, but his origins are clear in his whiskey-gargle voice. This is his best solo album since Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (hmm...whiskey and ghosts...how strange I thought of that independently).

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 90-81

2010-06-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

Older posts: Honorable Mentions, 100-91

90. No Age - Weirdo Rippers

Despite living within a few miles of No Age during their emergence, I never saw them at The Smell when they were mainstays at the Downtown L.A. venue. Weirdo Rippers was my introduction to these modern noise rockers, and it's an assured debut reminiscent of Sonic Youth's Evol. It's a breakthrough that introduces them as a force in rock that's both fuzzed out and stripped down.

89. At The Drive-In - Relationship Of Command

Throughout the early part of the decade, you were either an At The Drive-In fan or a closet At The Drive-In fan. Very few of us in those days weren't turning up the volume on "One-Armed Scissor," even if we'd never do so in public. Relationship Of Command is the post-hardcore band's best album, and pretty much superior than anything Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have done with The Mars Volta.

88. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock And Roll

An antimeta-meta rock album, Art Brut went out of their way on their first album to let you know that they were very cool without being your idea of cool. Eddie Argos sings on opener "Formed A Band," And yes, this is my real voice, it's not irony. But is it? Either way, these are 12 high-powered songs, only three clocking in at over three minutes. "Modern Art" may be my favorite, as it certainly "makes me want to rock out."

87. Beach House - Devotion

Beach House's wonderful second album showcases Victoria Legrand's voice as one of the greatest assets in modern pop. Add that to dreamy songs like "Turtle Island" and "Heart of Chambers" and you've got a beautiful 44-minute lullaby that works just as well alone in your room as it does driving up the PCH.

86. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies

Dan Bejar had a busy decade. He added a deft and complex songcrafting style to The New Pornographers and Swan Lake, but his style is on display full time under his Destroyer moniker. Destroyer's Rubies is the best of these albums. It's bookended with "Rubies" and "Sick Priest Learns To Last Forever," the former a 9-minute mish-mash of everything Destroyer, while "Sick Priest" opens with a more familiar classic rock jam. It's a complete album, ordered just as it should be.

85. Cam'ron - Purple Haze

One of the most misogynistic albums ever made, Purple Haze piles on the guests, the skits, the samples, and ends up with a giddy, overwhelming 70 minutes of hip-hop. I'm not sure if anybody's counted, but it must have more "niggas" and "bitches" per minute than any other album. Cam'ron introduces himself (Killa!) at the beginning of each song. He wants you to know exactly who's responsible.

84. The Deadly Snakes - Ode To Joy

When you title your album "Ode To Joy," you better have something impressive in store. While The Deadly Snakes produced something perhaps not quite as instantly memorable as Beethoven's ____, their third album is a hell of a fun trip back to 60s energy-rock. Think The Monks and Bob Dylan circa 1966 mixed together. In fact, "Everybody Seems to Think (You've Got Some Kind of Hold on Me)" could have fit right on Dylan's infamous Manchester setlist. A fantastic album that far exceeded the more popular Vines/Hives sound of 2003.

83. Black Mountain - In The Future

One thing the 2000s had a lot less of than the 1970s was drug-addled hard rock. Oh sure, 1967 had plenty of psychedelia, re-energized in this past decade by Black Moth Super Rainbow and the like, but Black Mountain make the drug-fueled sounds of old, classic rock-style jams enhanced by Stephen McBean's subtle latter-day hippieishness. Interestingly enough, several members of the band volunteer for an organization that helps provide the needs of drug addicts and the homeless. On In The Future, their second album, Black Mountain explore more complex, drawn out songs, but they're at their best at their most simple. "Angels," would have topped the charts in 1971 and loses none of its punch over time.

82. Califone - Heron King Blues

Califone's 2004 concept album about a weird druid man-bird contains some of Tim Rutili's most brooding and even "groovy" sounds. "2 Sisters Drunk On Each Other" and "Sawtooth Sung A Cheater's Song" are as close as Califone gets to danceable. Heron King Blues and its mysterious tone flow beautifully. The title track and a curious "Outro" take up 17 minutes and close out what may be Califone's finest moment.

81. Peter Gabriel - Up

This one really came out of nowhere. Gabriel's first proper studio album since 1992's Us was dark and demented, but in a far less radio-friendly way than "Shock The Monkey." His most experimental work since the 1970s, Up sees Gabriel lamenting the watch-anything media in between the major themes of birth and death. The album begins with "Darkness," the album's scariest song (after all, coming into this world is scary), and ends with the soft and touching "The Drop." Though it seems perfectly in place on the album, it's interesting to note that "Signal To Noise" is played during the opening fight sequence of Gangs of New York. Up is Peter Gabriel at his most outlandish, proggy best, and he's still able to mix it up and make it mainstream nearly 20 years after "Sledgehammer."

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: 100-91

2010-06-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Care about the honorable mentions? They're right here. Now on to the list:

100. Vitalic - OK Cowboy

The French electronic artist's first full-length offers a bit of everything for a dance party. Perhaps this album is closer to me than Justice's † because I've just had a better time dancing to it. "Poney Part 1," "No Fun," and "Newman" are the highlights, but you can just put it on and hit play, then turn out the lights, turn on a strobe if you got one, and sweat for the next 52 minutes.

99. Califone - Roots and Crowns

It was a prolific decade for Califone, who evolved from a minimalist post-rock band into a more intricate, nuanced, minimalist post-rock band. Roots and Crowns is likely their most accessible album, but no less ambitious than their previous work. The music sounds organic, as traditional instruments are played to sound like raindrops and wind gusts. A cover of Psychic TV's "The Orchid" is the standout.

98. Deerhoof - The Runners Four

"A 56-minute Deerhoof album?" I exclaimed upon purchasing The Runners Four. I didn't know if I'd even be able to handle a full hour of their up-and-down sonic acrobatics. Fortunately, the 20 songs on The Runners Four flow as well as anything in their discography. No track is out of place, and the pop highlights are perfectly dispersed. "Spirit Ditties of No Tone" and "Siriustar" are the only tracks that run over four minutes, and their placement at the 1/3 and 2/3 mark of the album are perfect. You might also remember those two the best, after the first listen, though more emerges with each subsequent spin. Despite its low placement on this list, The Runners Four packs as much immediacy and energy as any Deerhoof album.

97. Espers - II

When you first hear psych-folk sextet Espers, you'd probably think they were a band made up of the undead in Kentucky. They're actually from Philadelphia, but don't let that creep into your mind as you're listening. This is as good as modern Southern gothic folk gets. Meg Baird's vocals throughout are haunting; she sounds almost like a ghost on the brilliant opener "Dead Queen."

96. Matt Sweeney & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Superwolf

Though I haven't made a specific count, I'm guessing this is the first of several wolf-related albums on the list. It's unclear whether Superwolf is just the name of this album or the name of the briefly-lived collaboration between Matt Sweeney and Will Oldham, as some of the songs therein suggest. A bit of a transitional album for Oldham, Superwolf came right after the darker, withdrawn work of the first three Bonnie 'Prince' Billy albums, and right before his more recent, lighter, country-infused albums (as of this writing, he's released four full-lengths since, but that could easily double by the end of 2010). The collaboration between Sweeney and Oldham works splendidly here, as the latter's filthy, black market lyrics perfectly complement Sweeney's bass-guitar fueled folk.

95. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

I resisted Sufjan Stevens for a long time. I still think he can be rather long-winded, and even looking through the track list of his 74-minute masterpiece, it seems a bit absurd. I don't know how to singularly describe Illinois, except that it is pretty relentlessly entertaining, and any missteps are not nearly as memorable as the songs that really work. You just can't deny a song like "Casimir Pulaski Day."

94. The Angels of Light - Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home

That's right! Curveball, baby! I remember this album and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to leave it off. Michael Gira's post-Swans act is less abrasive, but still crafts dark, melodic songs with limited guitar use. Gira's voice is the focus of the album. It's worth mentioning that The Angels of Light released a collaboration album in 2005 with Akron/Family, another great experimental folk group that unfortunately doesn't appear in the top 100. It's a genre that is losing followers even in the hipster community. Hey Pitchfork, the next time one of these guys releases a new album, give it an 8.1 or something at least.

93. Scott Walker - The Drift

About 10 years ago my friends and I were driving to Knott's Scary Farm in late October. We wanted to set the mood, so we put on Scott Walker's Tilt. It was pretty much the scariest album we knew of. A decade and a half later, Walker decided to release an album that was even scarier. The Drift is a relentless, spine-tingling experience. Walker's voice will often jump out of nowhere. But, make no mistake. He's much more Repulsion than The Hills Have Eyes.

92. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum

Scroll down to the cover. That's pretty much the best artistic description of what this album sounds like. What would you call this? Experimental fuzz-pop? Something like that. There are voices within, but they're distorted, blended together, mixed with about 1,000 instruments, and topped with syrup. And also completely awesome.

91. Cat Power - You Are Free

The album that still stands (so far) as Chan Marshall's crowning achievement. It still retains the brooding, slowcore tone of Moon Pix, but adds a healthy assortment of straightforward guitar work, some of her more memorable songwriting, and guest vocals by Eddie Vedder. The first track, "I Don't Blame You," wasn't originally going to be included, but it reminds the listener right away that this album is still Cat Power, but it certainly won't be a downer. Well, maybe just a little bit.

Top 100 Albums of the 2000s: Honorable Mentions

2010-06-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

I know I'm late on this, but it really has taken this long to solidify my list and suck up the strength to actually sit down and write it all.

Previously, I'd planned to do away with the "albums" list and just stick to the 50 greatest musical artists of the decade. This would prevent me, I thought, from mentioning the same artists over and over. Then I realized that an artist that released four or five landmark albums in one decade certainly deserves recognition. Plus, I spent all the time making the list.

For this first post, I want to throw up some honorable mentions that didn't quite make the list. They're fantastic albums, and I'm sure I'm missing even more that aren't on here. They deserve a listen if you haven't heard them, and in another year they could easily appear in the Top 100.

Here we go:

M83 - Before The Dawn Heals Us

My first M83 album, Before The Dawn Heals Us kicks off with its two best tracks, "Moon Child" and "Don't Save Us From The Flames." The former begins with an instantly recognizable minute of floating-through-space female spoken word. It then blasts us into a Pink Floyd orchestral rocket ride. That's the best I can explain it.

Tom Waits - Blood Money and Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards and Real Gone

The only reason Orphans isn't on the list is that it isn't a studio album-proper. It's a collection of brilliant recordings from years past, segregated into the three most distinctive Waits categories. I've always thought his Bawlers were the best, but it's a bit odd to listen to them all separately instead of mashed together as on his studio albums. Blood Money is also fantastic, but it's probably not in the Top 100 because it doesn't age quite as well as its closest counterparts, 1992's Bone Machine or 1999's Mule Variations. I might like Real Gone the best out of all these albums. It's not included because, well, I just don't think I could recommend it to anyone who doesn't want Tom Waits spitting all over them for 70 minutes.

The Blood Brothers - ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn

Some of the best screaming of any album of the decade. When your album starts with a 35 second blast as good as "Guitarmy," you know you're in for an experience.

Outkast - The Love Below.../Speakerboxxx

As good as this album is, I can't help but wonder if it would have been considered an absolute masterpiece had the fat been trimmed and condensed into under 80 minutes. Still, try listening to "Hey, Ya" and not doing that little dance-swivel in your chair.

TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

I'm guessing my brother will give me crap for not including this high in the 20s. It's masterful and moody, but isn't as jarring or fun or accessible as follow-up Dear Science.

The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

The most underrated album of The White Stripes awesome career, Get Behind Me Satan improves on the more intense sound they crafted on Elephant and is as good as any White Stripes album not called White Blood Cells.

Jay-Z - The Black Album

This is one I still listen to frequently, often just as often as The Blueprint, which is saying quite a lot. "99 Problems" and "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" deserve to be right next to "Girls, Girls, Girls" and "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" as some of Jay-Z's best singles of the decade.

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

I liked this album much more than others. It helps if you think of it without wanting another Apologies to the Queen Mary. The 10-minute closer "Kissing The Beehive" is an intense, wonderful song, serving as a transition from the earlier nearly-power-pop songs from Wolf Parade's first album and moving them into even more ambitious territory, that I hope is matched on their upcoming follow-up, Expo 86.

Spoon - Kill The Moonlight

In terms of straightforward indie rock bands, Spoon did exactly what they needed to in the last decade. They continually release awesome studio albums. Kill The Moonlight is probably just as good as some of the others. I probably just don't listen to it as often as those I selected to include in the Top 100.

Explosions in the Sky - The World Is Not A Cold Dead Place

The best album from a band that records in a dying genre. With a more accessible sound than the somewhat similar Godspeed You! Black Emperor, one of their songs was actually used as the theme to Friday Night Lights. They have that ability to fill you with a temporary dread, but then lead you to heaven. My friend Brian once told me that he cried near the end of opening track "First Breath After Coma," the first time he heard it.

Boris - Pink

I'm kind of afraid of this album. Putting it on is kind of like being blown back in your chair like the Maxwell tapes guy.

The National - Boxer

It kind of kills me not to have this in the top 100. It's pretty much as good as Alligator, which is on the list. You know what you're getting right after "Fake Empire" starts off the album. Melancholy, beauty, and one of the best voices in modern rock.

Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender

The album that introduced most of the world to one of the great poetic voices of our time. I hate that someone younger than me can write music like this. The biggest complaint most have about Newsom is that they can't get passed the squeakyness of her voice. After becoming a fan, it's impossible to think these songs could be heard any other way.

The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

An album that suffers only because it would be nearly impossible to match Funeral, their debut. Songs like "Intervention" and "Windowstill" are just as grand as the best songs on that record, however, and deserve repeat listens, preferably in the dark alone.

My goal is to do a post a day until we're at the very top. If you've got nothing to do over the next 10 hours (and if you're reading this, I'm going to assume that you do), get these albums and listen.

Spend Your Entire Day Moderating An Obsolete Facebook Page, Asshole!!

2010-06-01T15:45:00.001-07:00

I'd like to make fun of a guy named Joe Frahm and, by extension, people on the Internet. Here's some quick background.

After the Leno-Conan-NBC debacle, I felt that I had to find a way to share my anger with the world, i.e. twelve morons online. Like many other youngish people, I feel like it was time for The Tonight Show to have a new host, and that Conan O'Brien was the most talented person to take over.

So, naturally, I thought I would do what any significantly lazy comedy fan would do: create a Facebook group. Team Conan was up and running, intended to get the support of other Conan fans out there. This was, I should mention, at the same exact time that Mike Mitchell released his "I'm With Coco" image, which has since become the emblem for the online Conan movement, as well as Conan's current comedy tour.

Little did I know when I created this page how successful it would be. Within days we had tens of thousands of people in the group, posting messages at the rate of about 20 every minute. The group topped out about a week later with over 200,000 members. My co-creator and I were incredibly excited about our influence, and we briefly had control over a large group of, apparently, unemployed stoners. We created teamconan.com (which now redirects you to teamcoco.com, the official site for Conan's comedy tour), and I had a brief, star-making interview with Moose in the Morning on KAZR 103.3 in Des Moines.

It was great fun. We got to promote Conan and be part of the movement that sparked this tour and likely convinced TBS that the man has a huge youth following worth pursuing as viewers. I also received a signed letter from Conan O'Brien himself, thanking me and my compatriots for our support, which pretty much made my decade. Just to give you a sense of how big this thing was, the Team Conan page went live the same week as the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. For my job as the editor of HuffPost Impact, my entire month was spent collecting ways people could get involved with relief efforts. It was a terrible tragedy, and a news story I wish I never had to cover. Despite this, I received hundreds of e-mails that week about Conan, with individuals from all over the country asking me how they could help. It was a bizarre experience.

Now, it's been several months and the Team Conan Facebook page is still up and running. It's got over 212,000 members now, though admittedly the page is not nearly as well attended as in January.

Now we're at today. I have a job where I work about 60 hours a week, and I simply don't have time to log onto a Facebook page that is now largely irrelevant. I believe that Conan is going to be just fine, and I'd love to hand over the reins of the Conanverse to another dedicated fan.

It appears now, however, that the unattended to Facebook page is getting a bit crowded with spam, an attempt from people to promote non-Conan-related business. Very unfortunate, as the Facebook page was, of course, originally intended to be a Conan-based venue. However, I do receive spam from time to time in my Gmail inbox and elsewhere and, as a reasonably intelligent and sane individual, I ignore it.

Which brings me to the making of Joe Frahm which I plan on doing for the remainder of this post. I receive e-mails like this all the time from self-obsessed losers, but Frahm's is by far the most irrationally angry. He writes:

Subject: SPAM, AND IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED NOW JON!!!!!!!
There is spam ALL OVER THE TEAM CONAN WALL! One bitch has posted sexually suggestive pictures... None of which have anything to do with Conan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please. for the love of god, just moderate your group page once in a while... Say if there is someone who mentions this on the television, wont we all look bad? So for the sake of the image of Team Conan's group members... Fix this mess.

I love this e-mail! It is funny and upsetting for so many reasons. Funny because it's so stupid, upsetting because, well, he's serious.

According to Frahm, this spam absolutely needs to be fixed right now (with seven exclamation points). The spam, by the way, is the most pleasant spam there is. It is a fake sexy girl showing pictures of herself. If a page is going to be spammed with tame filth like this, spam away!

He's angry not just because the girl is posting sexually suggestive photos, but because they have nothing to do with Conan. I suppose if the photo included a Walker Texas Ranger Lever, it would have suitable Conan-relation to merit inclusion on the page. Joe Frohm, I will not remove this delectably seductive fake post from the wildly popular Team Conan page.

Then, Frahm turns his anger from spammers to ME, the very person he should be praising for giving his life some purpose!

for the love of god, just moderate your group page once in a while...

He's not asking much, folks. Once every few days, just stop what I'm doing, managing a page on one of the most popular news sites on the Internet, and read through nonsense posts by bedridden mouthbreathers engaging in discussions about assorted assclownery. I mean, it's not like I haven't had time to do this. For the love of GOD, I am truly an inconsiderate asshole.

His final argument is truly the most staggering.

Say if there is someone who mentions this on the television, wont we all look bad?

Oh goodness, he's right! Some heartless jackal could report on FOX News about the horrific spam rampant on Facebook's second most popular Conan O'Brien fan page! Some TBS executive will see that and exclaim, perhaps spitting out his whiskey should he be drinking it at the moment, "Guh?? Spam on the Conan page? This is an outrage! Mindy, call that Jew lawyer of his. I want him fired before you can say 'Unintelligible Fanboys!' That man will never work in Hollywood again, or my name isn't Terwilliger McStereotype!"

Yes, Joe, even you will look bad. Even you, who never did anything but write the most sensible and thoughtful posts that didn't reek at all of inanity. Posts like this:

i GOT IT ONTO THE radio that NBC and leno sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and

Some group thinks that conans next new show will be called "Conan tonight" Now, I just think that's fucked up... If there is already "Lopez Tonight"... We want our Conan to be distinguishable from other talkshows... Like "the show tonight" or last hour of tonight call and it's late" or "Late tonight with Conan O'B...rien"

Joe, I'm so sorry. I must immediately clean up the riff-raff at once so that Nabokovian wonders of prose such as this may keep the airwaves clean for Conan.

Now, I'm picking on Joe here, but that's not to say he's the only Team Conan member with extreme concerns over the page's current visitors. Sound designer Eric Lozada has the following comment for me:

Yo Jonathan gte control of your grouppage dude. start kickin these spammers already.

Seriously. I do have some heavy grouppage.

As a die-hard Conan O'Brien fan and a dedicated supporter of grammar, I would hereby like to give up control of Team Conan to one lucky member. All you have to do is post a comment to this blog post with why you want to be the new manager of Team Conan and its 200,000 members. The only requirement for this post? It must be a complete sentence and use no more three exclamation points. That's it! One complete sentence. You know what? I'll sweeten the deal. It can even be a run-on sentence. I don't care! Use semi-colons at your whim! All I want is one complete sentence, and the page is yours.

Act now.

LOST Finale -- No, It Wasn't All A Dream

2010-05-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to write anything about the LOST finale, but too many people online seem to have missed the boat. Now, I'm not saying it was a great episode. In fact, I think the way they wrapped things up was kind of like telling everyone who actually cared about people in the alternate world to fuck themselves. But, some of you seem to be pretty confused about what we just watched. Spoilers below, so if you still haven't watched it (and only if you've watched every other episode ever), check it out now:

****SPOILERS BELOW YADA YADA****

Okay, so you watched it. The first thing a bunch of you are saying on the blogs and on Twitter is "so wait, the plane never crashed and it was all a dream?" Um...no. The plane did crash -- and the alternate world was, while not a dream, a dream-like creation to organize the souls of the characters after their deaths. The viewers were led to believe that the bomb that Juliet set off at the end of the fifth season negated all that Swan energy and that flight 815 never crashed. Instead, here's what happened, chronologically.

1) Juliet sets off the bomb in 1977.
2) Juliet, Sawyer, Kate, Jack et al are transported back to 2007 (why? who knows.)
3) Season 6 (the stuff on the Island) takes place. Jack kills the smoke monster. Hurley takes over the island with Ben Linus as his #2. Lapidas, Miles, Sawyer, Kate, Claire and Richard escape the island on the plane, and presumably return safely home.
4) Unseen events occur. Hurley and Ben protect the island for a period of time. Might be a week, might be several decades. We don't know. We do know that they must work together for at least a significant period of time (since, in the afterlife, Hurley tells Ben he was a great #2).
5) All the character die -- again, at some point in time. We don't know when.
6) The parallel universe (2004, where the plane doesn't crash) begins.

This brings up a few interesting questions, some troubling, some rather brilliant.

Question #1: What did Juliet mean at the beginning of season 6 when she said "It Worked?"

Since it (the bomb blowing up) obviously didn't work (they were all transported back to 2007), she must have meant something else. Since she was the first of the full group that had survived to that point to die, she must have seen this "created afterlife" somehow, and understood that her and Sawyer would meet again there.

Question #2: Why would the afterlife start on flight 815?

This makes sense, I suppose, since it's the moment when all of their lives collided. Also, the afterlife presumably begins right after one's death -- so as soon as Jack closed his eyes in the very last shot, he probably experienced opening them immediately on flight 815 in Alternate-land.

Question #3: What happens to those who escape the island?

This question sucks, because we'll never know. It's quite possible they all kept living for a very long time -- maybe Kate and Sawyer got together, though it's doubtful considering the Jack-Kate/Sawyer-Juliet resolution.

Question #4: If the bomb didn't change reality (which it didn't), did it blow everything up?

Remember, the big question at the end of Season 5 was "Will the bomb make it so none of this ever happened?" as Jack thought, or, "Will the bomb simply be a bomb and blow us all up," as Kate thought. It turns out, neither was true. The bomb simply pushed our characters forward through time. Well....what happened to the rest of them in 1977? Obviously, it didn't change anything, since the hatch is still built, Desmond still pushes the button and Flight 815 still crashes.

So...was the bomb the thing that made the hatch necessary? Was it a dud bomb? Did all the Dharma people die prematurely? Again -- these questions don't have answers since they never bothered to provide them. This wouldn't be a big deal if the entire 6th season hadn't set up a scenario where we'd find out what the bomb really did. We spent the entire season believing that it created two universes, which would have been fine, but now it turns out that the bomb did nothing except send our heroes back to the future.

----

What I liked and what pissed me off.

I like that we found out what the characters all "realized" when they had their island-flashback. They didn't realize that the world they were in was not where they were supposed to be (like we all thought) -- it's that they realized they were dead.

I like how Ben decided to stay outside. Somehow, if all the characters "move on," he'll understandably be somewhere outside of that journey, as he was never 100% affiliated to the group, even after he became a de facto good guy.

It pissed me off that the alternate world was the afterlife. For the entire season, we were led to believe there were two parallel realities and that they would somehow connect. It turns out the two were completely unrelated, and it was unnecessary to even have them mashed together the way they were.

The other reason this pisses me off as that we'll never know the answer to the question, "What would have happened had Flight 815 not crashed?" Since the alternate reality didn't happen in real life, it's not a fair representation of that scenario. I doubt Cuse and Lindelof knew how it would end when they began the season, because if they did, why show the island underwater at the very beginning? The entire alternate reality exists only in the characters' collective posthumous consciousness, anyway, so why would the island be underwater in that consciousness? I'm thinking about it too deeply, obviously.

It pisses me off that the sixth season set up a huge, tantalizing question that never got answered: What happens if the smoke monster gets off the island? Jacob had led everyone to believe that shit would get seriously fucked up if he was allowed off. But, since the smoke monster was really just a human, and turned back into a mortal after Desmond shut off the water-light-electrical-whathaveyou, it seems like he would have just been another dude out in the world. What would have been the big deal about letting him go? Not that I want a big spin-off monster movie of the black smoke terrorizing L.A., but still, you don't set up a scenario that good and never pay it off. (Side note: if pulling the plug caused all the "rules" for Jacob and Smoke Monster to break, how come Locke didn't turn back into the Man In Black? Whatever.)

Okay....that's probably enough. There were elements of tonight's show that were fantastic. The candy machine, the Jack-Locke fight, Vincent next to Jack at the end. But, ultimately, there were tens of millions of us thinking they had a little something extra up their sleeve. Not quite. Oh well. See you in another life, brother.

8.7 Rating Delivers Severe Jolt To New Titus Andronicus Album

2010-04-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

New Jersey-based rock band Titus Andronicus was rattled this week by an 8.7 review from music site Pitchfork. The shaking began around 6:30 a.m. ET, when Pitchfork critic Rob Mitchum declared the band's new album, The Monitor, a "65-minute endorsement of angst," and compounded the intense rumbling by saying the album paid homage to "the Hold Steady in its mythology of intoxication, the Pogues in its cathartic singalong gutter-punk, and Conor Oberst's Desaparacidos in its brazen earnestness."

The rocking was felt as far away as San Francisco, CA, where Office Depot clerk and Titus Andronicus fan Brent Selko said the music was "fucking dope" and that it "got an 8.7, which is pretty high even for [Pitchfork]."

The tremblor caused minor damage to a MacBook Pro in Luton, Ariz., when it was accidentally kicked by 26-year-old Neil Portner while rocking out to The Montior opener, "A More Perfect Union."

The album cover for "The Monitor," whose 8.7 shockwaves caused extensive damage across areas of Silver Lake, Calif.

Aftershocks are expected from the 8.7 rating, though a follow-up EP is likely to only score a 6.9 on Pitchfork's scale. Music analysts say this EP will cause a significant shock to hardcore fans, though casual listeners may not even feel it.

The last bombshell of this magnitude occurred in February, when Joanna Newsom's triple-LP "Have One On Me" registered an epic 9.2.

Musicologists have not yet formed an explanation as to why these tremors are increasing.

"Pitchfork gives out a Best New Music every freakin' week now," said Amoeba records employee Eddie Singh. "We're forced to duck and cover much more frequently than in previous years. Instead of a monthly shaking, we're hanging on for dear life several times a week due to stampedes who suddenly can't wait to get the new Fang Island record, whatever the hell that is."

These events are notoriously hard to predict, though experts believe that the spring and summer are sure to bring more intense quakes. Many music store owners are already prepping their buildings for LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening, which some believe could score a 9.5 or above.

Create Your Own Hipster Band Name

2010-04-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

It's easy to come up with a name for a hipster band! Just follow these simple instructions:

Step 1: Choose a word from the first column.
Step 2: Follow it with a word from the second column
Step 3 (optional): If you want to really blow their minds at The Gold Room, add the word in the third column.

Voila! You've just formed a hipster band.

Fox News: All About The Common Good (When Personal Finance Is Involved)

2010-03-16T14:52:00.001-07:00

Next up on the list of things that are bugging the shit out of me. It's the FOX News hypocrisy when it comes to the notion of personal responsibility. Anyone who's watched the right-wing media machine lately knows that they hate taxes. Any taxes or spending on products that they don't specifically deem worthy are considered, at the very least, huge wastes of money, and at most, evidence of the U.S.'s descent into a socialist dystopia. Sean Hannity even has a Waste 102 segment on his show, targeting the government projects he believes are a waste of taxpayer money. (On this list are horrific un-American things like "#78: Eighteen North Carolina teacher coaches to heighten math and reading performance." Those commie bastards! Teaching kids to read?!? Blech!

Anyway, I bring it up because their notion of personal freedom and personal responsibility clash so frequently, I'm surprised that Roger Ailes hasn't publicly recognized it yet. After all, he already said that the White House is right to have a gripe with FOX News.

On the one hand, FOX News believes that many of Obama's policies may be infringing on our personal freedoms, our abilities to work where we want, choose the health care we want, and make our way without outside intervention. Now, I think most reasonable people, regardless of which side of the aisle you're on, would agree that personal freedom is important, as long as it doesn't negatively effect someone else. Where most of us disagree is how equal "corporate freedom" should be to "personal freedom." I would argue, as I'm sure most people would, that corporations should also have freedom to work in the free market as long as they don't negatively effect others. Most conservatives these days, I think, disagree with this assessment. Republicans regularly advocate deregulation of businesses and expansion of the free market, despite the negative impact those corporations may have on the American public. (see: here and here). Okay, so we've established that the right has no problem when a corporation's decision may have negative effects on the American people, but now let's take a look at today's FOX News article about Donna Simpson.

This woman is eating a ton of food so that she can weigh 1,000 pounds, apparently. FOX News is seething because "you, the taxpayer, could wind up paying for it." So, obviously, this woman is making a horrible health choice and I would not want to personally pay for her future health costs. However, the fact that FOX News chooses to feature and be outraged over this one specific person instead of the thousands of people affected by the unethical decisions made by Monsanto, Tyson, McDonald's, Bayer, etc. makes me wonder where their priorities are (that's rhetorical, no need to tell me about their priorities).

The point is, FOX News wants you to be outraged about one person who may be abusing taxpayer dollars instead of the multinational corporations which are abusing billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies and then using them to do harm to us.

Here's a good example. I can't find a single article (and correct me if I've missed it) where FOX News covered the Bayer scandal. For those who don't know, Bayer was knowingly selling products that gave people HIV. Literally -- that's not out of context. They knowingly sold products that gave people HIV. No warning label like on cigarettes -- no nothing. Here's the story:

Anyway, conservatives don't care about this stuff. Hey, that's just the free market. But, a fat woman who'll cost you money? Hell no, Obamacare!

The 10 Best Films of the Decade

2010-01-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

10) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) dir: Wes Anderson

Seeing The Royal Tenenbaums in theaters, it was like a new genre was invented. Wes Anderson's most notable influence was Truffaut, but Anderson's style in Rushmore and again in Tenenbaums paved the way for a whole bunch of shitty knockoffs, including Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, and everything Jason Reitman has ever done. They want Anderson's style, but nobody does it quite as well. Tenenbaums is hilarious, gorgeous and touching. The only recent film to have captured this same magic is Anderson's own Fantastic Mr. Fox.

9) The Aviator (2004) dir: Martin Scorsese

With all the news made by Gangs Of New York and The Departed, Scorsese's best film of the decade may wind up a bit overlooked. This was the movie that made me say, "Wow, that DiCaprio is actually a pretty great actor." The expansive, otherworldly story of Howard Hughes, his eccentric projects and eventual surrender to dementia, is chronicled impeccably. It's a long movie, honored for its craft and performances, but what I think gets lost to modern audiences is what a broad entertainment it is. It never wavers or bores -- and by the end we feel like we knows Hughes, as well as anyone now living can say they know him.

8) Match Point (2005) dir: Woody Allen

Who knew Woody Allen still had it? Match Point is a sumptuous thriller, full of wit and surprises, and the best film Allen made since Manhattan. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a working class, former tennis pro in London who befriends the wealth Tom Hewett, played by Matthew Goode. Wilton is embraced by the affluent Hewett family and eventually married Tom's sister Chloe. Of course, Wilton didn't count on Tom's sexy ex-girlfriend Nola to come into the picture, and throw his perfectly constructed future into chaos. When Tom wants to break up the affair and Nola gets hysterical, what lengths will Wilton go to to keep his structured life in place? If you've seen Allen's Crimes And Misdemeanors, you can probably guess, but the outcome of events in Match Point is too clever for even 1987 Woody Allen to have put together.

7) Requiem For A Dream (2000) dir: Darren Aronofsky

Requiem For A Dream should be required viewing for all 12 year olds. If you want to show a young person that they should never touch heroin, I think this will beat them into submission. Requiem is a tough film to watch, and runs with the pace of Aronofsky's tornado-like editing. We see the effects of drug abuse on a mother, her son, his girlfriend, and their companion. The tone is set right from the beginning. The outcome will not be good. Though Jared Leto's fate is physically the harshest, Ellen Burstyn's miraculous performance as Sara Goldfarb is a knockout punch. This film will emotionally drain you like few others do, but it really is a must-see. You've been warned.

6) Lord Of The Rings (2001-2003) dir: Peter Jackson

This isn't cheating. All three of these films are masterpieces of the imagination, Tolkein's novels brought to life and crisply realized. Waiting for each new film to come out must have been what it was like waiting for The Empire Strikes Back in the late 70s. The excitement at the unfolding for the story, the wonder at seeing more of this breathtaking world, the anticipation of the inevitable victory by the Hobbits. (Sorry, did I blow it for you?) It's a shame that a Lord Of The Rings film can't come out every year, but it's a testament to the longevity of Jackson's films, that I still frequently hear about people holding all-day-extended-edition marathons. It would be hard to garner as much excitement for screenings of any other films.

5) Children Of Men (2006) dir: Alfonso Cuaron

I don't think anyone expected this film upon its release. A surreal and breathtaking action epic, Children Of Men was released on a limited run in December 2006, when it should probably have opened on 3,500 hundred screens in July. Children Of Men is, quite simply, awesome. It begins with a bang (literally) and holds you in its grip for two hours. Another classic film whose written inspiration I haven't read (this one by mystery writer P.D. James), it's hard to imagine the same wallop contained on the page. Alfonso Cuaron shows himself as a master with this film. Del Toro and Amenabar, take note.

4) City Of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002) dir: Fernando Mereilles and Katia Lund

Often referred to as the Brazilian Goodfellas, City Of God follows a young photographer from childhood through adolescence, growing up in one of the most dangerous slums in the world, a run-down area outside Rio de Janeiro. We follow his acquaintances as they fall into the drug trade and take over an area of the city. We see the hotheadedness of L'il Ze, one of the great characters of the decade (think The Joker, but somehow more violent and wild-eyed). We see the lives most of the world's young people lead, and the difficulty in stopping a system that's out of control with excess and violence. Despite all this, City Of God is a really fun movie, and one that can be revisited several times.

3) There Will Be Blood (2007) dir: Paul Thomas Anderson

Wow. Can P.T. Anderson remake The Jungle next? There Will Be Blood is notable for a few reasons. One: It contains the best performance of the decade, by Daniel Day-Lewis. Two: It is one of the most beautifully shot films that I've ever seen. The sequence where Plainview carries his unconscious son to safety, then runs back to stare at the fire that his discovery has birthed, is perfect. Three: It takes you exactly where it should, but never where you think it will. I thought Punch-Drunk Love would be Anderson's masterpiece, but he makes a definitive statement with There Will Be Blood.

2) Kill Bill (2003-2004) dir: Quentin Tarantino

Again -- not cheating. Volumes 1 and 2 should probably be watched back-to-back, if you've got a free four hours. Volume 2 makes you realize just how brilliant Volume 1 really is. The character of Beatrix Kiddo is fully realized, though you don't fully realize it at first. Tarantino's attention to detail and willingness to go off on tangents has never worked better, but it's the pacing of Volume 2 that really drags you in and helps you understand the story as a whole. There's a long sequence in Volume 2 where The Bride is buried alive, and the audience is kept in suspense through a flashback involving the teachings of a mysterious martial arts leader. Perhaps the greatest triumph of Kill Bill, is that he's setting us up for a huge payoff without evening knowing it.

1) Mulholland Drive (2001) dir: David Lynch

After I first saw Mulholland Drive, I was talking with my friends about how amazing it was, and I said I didn't know if I'd see a better film the rest of the decade. It got a laugh at the time, but honestly, I never did. In 2001, I had perhaps the greatest film-viewing experience of my lifetime. I sat in complete awe of what Lynch is able to pull off. Mulholland Drive is a film that makes perfect sense, after maybe the third viewing, and takes you along for a whirlwind tour of madness, through the dark recesses of the human mind.

Here is a plot summary from IMDb:

After a brutal car accident in Los Angeles, California, Rita is the sole survivor but suffers mass amnesia. Wandering into a stranger's apartment downtown, her story strangely intertwines with Betty Elms, a perky young woman in search of stardom. However, Betty is intrigued by Rita's situation and is willing to put aside her dreams to pursue this mystery. The two women soon discover that nothing is as it seems in the city of dreams.

Um...yeah...right. You can't really summarize anything about Mulholland Drive. That's why it's a movie.

You may notice that Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE is not on this list. That's also a great film, but is such a harrowing descent into insanity that I would never recommend anyone see it, and if they did I would not blame them for one minute if they told me that it was a useless piece of shit. That's completely fair.

Mulholland Drive, however, is everything film should be. It's exciting, intriguing, never boring, fascinating, surreal, and a joy to be immersed in. No film since has been as relentlessly enjoyable.

Read the complete list:
50-41
40-31
30-21
20-11

The Best Films of the Decade (20-11)

2010-01-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

So, before we go any further, I have to cheat one more time. When I got to the Top 20, I realized I still had 21 films on the list, so we'll have two that are tied for the 20th spot.

So, this is it. The best films of this past decade. Here we go:

20) Brokeback Mountain (2005) dir: Ang Lee

There's not much left to be said about this film. It sent social conservatives into a frenzy. How dare they present homosexuals as normal individuals instead of over-the-top flaming freaks? You never heard a conservative complain about the Spirit Fingers sequence in Bring It On. At any rate, Brokeback Mountain is fantastic because of the believability of its love story and the strength of its two main actors.

and

The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006) dir: Ken Loach

Probably one of the more ignored great films of the decade, this intense and exciting drama about the Irish revolt against the British in the early 20th century won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 2006, but promptly disappeared from the public discourse. This is not a boring period drama. It's suspenseful, intriguing and features great performances. (Cillian Murphy's greatest since Red Eye?) It's available to Watch Instantly on Netflix, so, ya know, get on that.

19) Black Book (Zwartboek) (2006) dir: Paul Verhoeven

Another one you probably haven't seen, Black Book follows a Jewish singer in Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II. She pretends to be a gentile and, at the behest of the Resistance, begins a romance with a Nazi officer. This is a movie about espionage, not the Holocaust. It's one of the most effective suspense thrillers of the decade, and unfortunately did not get a wide enough release in the U.S. It's also on Netflix Watch Instantly.

18) Traffic (2000) dir: Steven Soderbergh

This was the year that Gladiator won Best Picture, and conspiracy theorists still believe that Elizabeth Taylor was so out of it that she meant to say "Traffic." Soderbergh's film shows the futility of the American drug war from multiple angles, that of the privileged white teenager, the surprisingly uncorrupt Mexican cop, and the D.C. drug czar. Soderbergh's color schemes and documentary-style directing lend a beautiful realism to Traffic. Definitely worth revisiting a decade later.

17) The Fog Of War (2003) dir: Errol Morris

The best documentary of the decade, and an endlessly affecting film on the decisions made by former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Morris' interview style, usually behind the scenes, is very noticeable here, as his passion about the actions taken during the Vietnam War were in full focus, though the camera was always on McNamara. I saw a screening of The Fog Of War before its theatrical release at the Harmony Gold theater in Hollywood. Errol Morris spoke after the film, and he said that the rabbit hole that was Vietnam seemed to be resurfacing (these were the first months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.) I somehow doubt Morris will be able to make a film that shows such a humanity from Donald Rumsfeld, but if anyone can...

16) Oldboy (2004) dir: Park Chan-wook

My friend Bryan describes Oldboy as a two-hour punch in the gut. After you first see it, you really feel like you've been holding your breath the entire time. Oh Dae-su is a South Korean businessman. One night, during a drunken binge, he's kidnapped and imprisoned inside a windowless room. He stays there for 15 years, after which he's inexplicably released. The film follows his pursuit of who imprisoned him, why, and why he's suddenly been set free. The ending is not so much a twist as, well, a forceful punch in the stomach.

15) Minority Report (2002) dir: Steven Spielberg

No film favored repeat viewings this decade as much as Minority Report. On the first viewing, you're just spinning inside a visually fantastic future. The second time, you make sense of the deceptive story and piece together all of the whos and whys. On the third viewing and beyond, you can really appreciate the detail within each frame, the Tom Cruise-y-ness of it all, and dig into the subtler moments. My favorite sequence remains Cruise in the icy bathtub, hiding from mechanical spiders.

14) The Dark Knight (2008) dir: Christopher Nolan

It's likely that The Dark Knight would still have been widely praised had Heath Ledger not passed away a few months before its release. However, when we looked back on Ledger's brief career, and his transition from teen heartthrob to serious actor, his performance as The Joker achieved something much greater. Everyone loves playing the villain, and The Joker dreamed up by Nolan and Ledger is about as good as it gets. Not only that, but The Dark Knight has one of the most well-crafted stories of any mainstream action film I can think of. It's intensely gratifying to watch.

13) Punch-Drunk Love (2002) dir: Paul Thomas Anderson

How did anyone come up with this? Not since Fritz Lang's M has sound and action been so brilliantly intertwined. The soundtrack to Punch-Drunk Love would not mean anything without its visual counterpart, and the film would certainly not be as good without Jon Brion's soundscape. It's incredibly funny, subtle and poignant about love, beautiful to look at, and contains one of those great, 10-minute Philip Seymour Hoffman performances that he used to be known for before getting all actory.

12) Wall-E (2008) dir: Andrew Stanton

Who knew that one of the greatest love stories of our time would be between a couple of robots? No animated film did as much or looked as good as Wall-E. Pixar retained its complete dominance over the genre this decade, putting the pitiful, albeit financially successful outings by Dreamworks to shame. Wall-E is a beautiful film to watch and to experience. It has its environmental commentary, sure, but it's also about humanity -- and the robot which shows the greatest aspects of it.

11) The Pianist (2002) dir: Roman Polanski

A passionate, intense story of survival during the Holocaust, the finest moment of The Pianist comes near the end, where the universal language of music transcends rudimentary ideology. Adrien Brody shocked everyone at the Academy Awards when he won Best Actor (over the favored Daniel Day-Lewis) and kissed Halle Berry on stage. Brody's performance in The Pianist is his best to date, and given his selection of projects in recent years, it's likely to stay that way for awhile.

P.S. You can still hate Polanski. It's ok. Mozart may have been a dick, too.

The Top Ten is on its way. Have you filled up your Netflix queue yet?

Read the rest of the list below:
50-41
40-31
30-21

The 50 Best Films of the Decade (30-21)

2010-01-01T14:47:00.001-08:00

30) The Wrestler (2008) dir: Darren Aronofsky

I was seriously worried about Aronofsky after The Fountain. But, once he got that bit of claptrap out of his system, he was ready to go back to some real filmmaking, and The Wrestler exceeded my expectations. A touching story about a man who does the only thing he knows how, and his attempts to connect to his daughter and a stripper. It's a fairly straightforward story, the kind of movie Capitol Pictures wanted Barton Fink to write. Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke make it genuine, though, and powerful.

29) 2046 (2004) dir: Wong Kar-Wai

That's right. Better than In The Mood For Love. Go to hell.

28) Amelie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) (2001) dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

We should probably feature Amelie on HuffPost Impact, the message of this film is so pure and uplifting. French girl tries to pay it forward so she doesn't have to deal with her own life. Amelie introduced much of my generation to French cinema, though I doubt many went back to rent Delicatessen. Amelie is so fun and Audrey Tautou captures childlike innocence so well, you desperately wish these characters and this story were real.

27) The Departed (2006) dir: Martin Scorsese

From the opening montage to the closing bloodbath, The Departed is a good time. It looks like one of the funnest movies ever to make. Think about it: screenwriter gets to write fast, snappy, vulgar dialogue, actors like Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, and Jack Nicholson get to completely embody ferociously indulgent cops and robbers, and Scorsese gets to tie it all together, and nobody does it like him. I'm surprised how often I still watch The Departed and find new bits of dialogue to enjoy and new sequences to admire.

26) Sin City (2005) dir: Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller feat. Quentin Tarantino

Every other graphic novel (i.e. long comic book) adaptation after Sin City has attempted to recreate its dark, lush quality. The Watchmen didn't do it (and from what I've heard, The Spirit reaaallly didn't do it). Like The Departed, the Sin City is a violent, vulgar, destructive romp, with endless fun to be had in its two hours.

25) A History of Violence (2005) dir: David Cronenberg

Cronenberg's most accessible film still contains plenty of face-exploding eccentricities. It's like a more fun, more upbeat Straw Dogs, replacing Irish thugs with a fascinating William Hurt, and rape with unusually passionate stair sex. I also loved Eastern Promises, but History of Violence seemed to leave a more indelible mark on the decade.

24) SiCKO (2007) dir: Michael Moore

I think SiCKO is Moore's best film. He tells stories to get you emotionally involved, rather than relying solely on gimmicks. He presents an argument and avoids pandering. It's also both his funniest and most startlingly depressing film. With the debate from this past year still raging on, SiCKO may be more important now than it was even two years ago.

23) The Incredibles (2004) dir: Brad Bird

That the best action movies made these days are animated says a lot about the technology we're now working with. Unlike other faux-animated action movies like Transformers or Speed Racer, The Incredibles takes a simple story and engages audiences effortlessly. The second hour is pure excitement, and despite being a cartoon, it feels more real than any other action movie in a long time (with the possible exception of the recently released Avatar).

22) A Serious Man (2009) dir: Joel and Ethan Coen

Wow. The Coens have done it again. The best film of 2009 is also the Jewiest. This says nothing about me, I promise. You may need to have grown up going to synagogue to get all of the references, but the struggle faced by Larry Gopnik can be found in all religions and cultures. This is a man who strives to do as much good as he can, and is thwarted with misfortune at every turn. After a few minor mid-decade missteps, the Coens returned with some of the greatest entertainments of their careers.

21) Zodiac (2007) dir: David Fincher

Zodiac is not your typical serial killer movie. There are very few moments when the protagonists are in any physical danger, and yet it rivals The Silence Of The Lambs for uneasiness and sheer terror. The story unfolds like the best true crime novels -- though we may never know for sure who the real Zodiac was, Fincher's film makes a very convincing argument, and stays chilling the more you think back on it.

The 50 Best Films of the Decade (40-31)

2009-12-31T20:08:00.000-08:00

40) Casino Royale (2006) dir: Martin Campbell

The best Bond film ever made with some of the best action sequences of the last decade. The only bad thing about Casino Royale is that the best sequence comes within the first 15 minutes, a high-energy chase through a construction zone in a developing African city (I could look up which city, but really?) Quantum of Solace wasn't terrible, but please give the Bond films back to Martin Campbell. He did this one and another pretty good one (Goldeneye). Let's just stick with what works, ok?

39) Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) dir: Werner Herzog

Honestly, given another few months, this film might move up on the list. A perfectly written, perfectly conceived, and perfectly cast film. Nicholas Cage is the only person who could have played this role, and there are very few roles that I could say that about. Cage's hyperactive, frantic expressions work brilliantly here. John Updike once wrote of Vladimir Nabokov: "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written. That is, ecstatically." That's how Werner Herzog directs Bad Lieutenant.

38) Adaptation (2002) dir: Spike Jonze

Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze made amazing films before Jonze went to the big leagues and Kaufman started getting all up in his own business. (Maybe I should see Synecdoche, New York again?) A silly, twisty comedy that becomes a thriller that becomes a comedy again, Kaufman managed to adapt a book about flowers and make it completely about himself. Sounds like something I would do.

37) High Fidelity (2000) dir: Stephen Frears

Frears' best film since My Beautiful Laundrette (boo-ya!), I almost forgot High Fidelity still came out within the last ten years. I was still in high school when I first saw it, and it was maybe the first time I saw a comedy in theaters that was both really funny and "a film." Intensely enjoyable with the performance that made Jack Black a star.

36) Munich (2005) dir: Steven Spielberg

That's right. Spielberg was in top form this decade -- and Munich was neither pro nor anti-Israeli. It presents the story of what men do when they feel threatened, and the systematic process by which war can be conducted in modern times. The film also looks great, and Spielberg creates some wonderfully suspenseful moments. I'm thinking of the sequence where the little girl runs back into the apartment where the bomb is ready to explode.

35) Gran Torino (2008) dir: Clint Eastwood

It's been difficult for me to fully embrace Clint Eastwood as a director. I enjoyed Mystic River, but thought Million Dollar Baby was way overpraised. In the last few years though, I finally got it. His best film is Gran Torino, though the also excellent Letters From Iwo Jima could also be on this list (one of those many Honorable Mention omissions). Gran Torino allows Eastwood one more chance to be the ultimate bad-ass, though he's a bit more crotchety here than when he made films with Sergio Leone.

34) Swimming Pool (2003) dir: Francois Ozon

One of many glorious mindfucks that came out in the past decade, Ozon lets us watch two fine actresses do their thing, with motivation and agenda always under the surface. Charlotte Rampling plays a mystery novelist tired of doing the same old stories. She travels to her editor's empty home in France to get some inspiration. What she finds there is his sexually bold daughter, and a mystery far more cerebral than your standard Agatha Christie.

33) You Can Count On Me (2000) dir: Kenneth Lonergan

"Remember what we used to say to each other when we were kids?" Thank goodness Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo leave that question unanswered. It's part of the often-brilliant subtlety of this drama. Lonergan's follow-up film, Margaret, comes out this year. We can only hope it's as incisive and well-structured as You Can Count On Me.

32) No Country For Old Men (2007) dir: Joel and Ethan Coen

The film that finally got the Coen brothers their directing Oscar is a masterpiece of suspense. Javier Bardem's performance as Anton Chigurh is one of the most menacing and eerie in recent years. His eyes show no conscience and no remorse. It is his actions, contrasted with the persistent but ultimately flawed police work of Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff Bell, that lead to No Country's spare and nihilistic conclusion. The Coens' first film, Blood Simple, also took place in rural Texas. This setting is the perfect backdrop for characters that simply get up to no good.

31) The Lives Of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) (2007) dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (spelled correctly on the first try!)

If you haven't seen this film yet, do yourself a favor and Netflix this action. Some people think it suffers from Return Of The King Neverending Syndrome, but I think it ends exactly where it should. For a story that crosses over so many years, and with lives that are undeniably connected, each new twist lends new meaning. Ulrich Mühe plays an agent in the East German secret police in the 1908s. He's charged with spying on a playwright who's suspected of acting against the government. This story develops not because of political intrigue, though, but because of a woman. Even the most hardened of communist politicians have weaknesses.

The 50 Best Films of the Decade (50-41)

2009-12-31T13:33:00.000-08:00

I turned 18 in 2000 and spent the better part of the last 10 years watching movies, often more than one a day. Narrowing down a list to 50 was particularly difficult, not just because there were so many good films, but that so many of them resonated and stuck with me throughout the years. This list, therefore, can never be a definitive representation of my real thoughts about the movies listed. More accurately, these are the films that I watched repeatedly, that struck a chord and shaped my outlook.

I'm also going to forgo the usual "honorable mentions" list, as there were literally hundreds of films that I saw and loved that didn't make the top 50, any of which might be on the list in a different time.

Without further ado, counting backwards:

50) Dancer In The Dark (2000) dir: Lars Von Trier

This film somehow survives as the least draining and depressing film Von Trier ever made, and that's just because it has some nice songs in it. Dancer In The Dark explores a young woman's imagination, and Selma Jezkova's is a colorful one indeed. She sees Technicolor Hollywood musicals in a grim, dreary world of deceit. Get performances by Bjork, David Morse, Catherine Deneuve and Peter Stormare round out this sorrowful depiction of rural American life.

49) The Return (Vozvrashchenie) (2003) dir: Andrei Zvyagintsev

Many of the films on this list concern the relationships between estranged fathers and sons. However, unlike the more whimsical take we get from Wes Anderson, Zvyagintsev gives us a harrowing "adventure" in the Russian wilderness. A father returns to take his two sons on vacation in a remote area of Russia after having disappeared 12 years earlier. Zvyagintsev's follow-up film, The Banishment, is still unavailable in the U.S.

48) Death Proof (2007)/Inglourious Basterds (2009) dir: Quentin Tarantino

Okay, I promise I'll only cheat a few more times during the list. Death Proof was technically part of Grindhouse, though I own the DVD separately from Planet Terror, and Inglourious Basterds is a different film altogether, however I'm still struggling with only having a few 2009 films on this list (things take time), so let me put these two together. In Death Proof, Tarantino made a straight-up, 70s B-movie with A-list talent. Most other filmmakers would have made a boring dud, but Tarantino's sharp dialogue keeps us glued until the final car chase, which is really worth waiting around for. With Inglourious Basterds, he does about 10,000 things in one. It's a jumble of WWII archetypes, with a brilliant villain, and some of the best structural set-ups of any film in recent memory.

47) Sexy Beast (2002) dir: Jonathan Glazer

One of only a few debut films on this list, Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast is a heist film that's barely about the actual heist. It's all about Ray Winstone's Gal and Ben Kingsley's Don Logan. In the best performance of his career, Kingsley plays a temperamental (to say the least) criminal who flies to Spain to recruit the retired Gal for one last job. What happens when he receives a decisive "No" becomes one of the most quotable and memorable sequences of the decade.

46) Talk To Her (2002) dir: Pedro Almodovar

My favorite among Almodovar's many great films of this decade, Talk To Her, analyzes the relationship of two men and a woman in a coma. There's a level of un-reality in this film, as there is in Volver. We're not sure if we want Alicia to come out of her coma, as perhaps the relationship between her and Benigno is better as long as things remain unsaid, or unheard.

45) The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) dir: Joel Coen

Back in the early part of this decade, each new Coen brothers film release was an event, if only because us college-folk thought another Big Lebowski was on the way. That's not what we got, but The Man Who Wasn't There is the Coen's ingenious take on old American noir. It's grim and futile, but like most of the more nihilistic Coen films (Barton Fink, No Country For Old Men) extremely funny.

44) The New World (2005) dir: Terrence Malick

The Thin Red Line (1997) contrasted the beauty of nature with the frenetic confusion of war. In The New World, we got to really see the beauty the way John Smith must have seen it, or at least as portrayed by Colin Farrell, a much better actor than he's given credit for. Slow and bright, like all of Malick's films, this story is perfectly suited to his lens. (Note: I've only seen the theatrical 135 minute version, not the extended 172 minute edition.)

43) Collateral (2004) dir: Michael Mann

It was a big deal in 2004 that a major filmmaker was shooting an entire film digitally. This format was frightening to see on the big screen at first. But nobody ever captured the grainy, subdued look of Los Angeles the way Mann does in Collateral. Add that to its exciting premise and a story carried by two top-notch performances by Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.

42) L'enfant (2005) dir: Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Bruno and Sonia are a young couple in love. He's a petty thief always looking for an easy way to score, so when Sonia presents him with their newborn child, Bruno sells it for a quick buck. Sonia freaks out and Bruno goes in search of the child. This is a film with a clear look at youth, and the fighting forces of responsibility and frivolity.

41) Undertow (2004) dir: David Gordon Green

The best film by one of the decade's greatest new filmmakers, Undertow is equal parts drama, adventure and suspense. Green captures the mood of a decaying South better than most, and Undertow gives us a character in Deel Munn who is greedy, ruthless, and fascinating. We identify with the two runaway children, but want to see more of Munn each minute.

The rest of the list is coming tomorrow.

What I Love And Hate About New York

2009-08-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

I've lived in Los Angeles for the past 10 years and just visited New York City for the first time since I was five years old. Though I've typically defended L.A. against the standard east coast attacks -- lack of great food, alienating environment, governors who starred in Jingle All The Way -- I think I now understand the charm and allure of New York.

There's definitely a feeling of camaraderie and shared experience in the city that it's hard to achieve anywhere else. That's why, from a true "western" perspective, I wanted to share a few things that I love about New York, and a few things that drive me nuts.

First the good stuff:

1) Jaywalking is legal. There seems to be an unspoken agreement between the police, the cab drivers and pedestrians: we get to walk when cars aren't coming, the police get to hit on girls all day, and cab drivers get to finish their turn as long as the front bumper doesn't come within three millimeters of the back of your heel.
2) Accessible public transportation. I appreciate being able to travel from one area of Manhattan to another in just a few minutes. Once you figure out the placards, maps and signs, apparently written in Swahili lest an undesirable figures them out, you can get pretty much anywhere you want in about 15 minutes. If you get lost, any number of compassionate molesters will come quickly to your aid.
3) Bread and cheese. Your pizza is too damn good. I'm lucky I don't live in New York, because if I did I'd eat about three loaves of bread a day and start looking like some sort of Mario Batali-John Madden hybrid. Why can't Los Angeles replicate that? Is our water somehow not sludge-filled enough?

Okay, now to anger all you hardcore New-York-is-the-best-city-in-the-world purists, a few of the things that make me glad to live where I do:

1) In New York, air conditioners have only two settings: Off and Fortress of Solitude. Seriously, I know it can get muggy, but literally every building I went into for a week had the A.C. cranked up (or down, I should say) to about 45 degrees. Apparently, you're all storing dinosaur embryos, because no room should ever be that cold. You know what we do in L.A. when it gets hot? Open a window!
2) Your beautiful women are actually successful. In L.A. we have tons of beautiful women as well, but at least here they're all struggling actresses or musicians and are desperate for approval! In New York, there are tons of gorgeous women, and yet they're all successful marketers or art gallery curators or journalists. There's no way they'll ever talk to me. I just can't get behind that.
3) Pompous Direction People. Some New York citizens, often just after meeting you, will immediately ask how you got there and what route you took. "I took a cab," I say. To which they reply: "Oh you could have just taken the N train to 14th street and then walked three blocks east to Lexington, or you just walk to 12th and University and take a cab from there up Broadway because it'll save you time, it's like a hypotenuse, then walk four blocks past the National Arts Club to Madison Square Park and pick up a rickshaw from there down to 28th street..." Yeah, I get it, you know your way around. What are you, a Sherpa?

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, you guys. I'm definitely open to receiving hate mail, but if you send it through the postal service, could you pack some Chinese food from Dumpling House?

People Sounds Like Peephole

2009-08-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

This is a poem I wrote while sitting on a park bench at W. Broadway and Beach St. in lower Manhattan. This is not your typical New York poem.

At the intersection of five streets
at an oval-shaped park with
two trees jutting from where the
eyes would be
At the meeting place of buses,
taxis, couples, vagrants, children,
cell phone addicts, those with
their heads down, those with
a poodle in hand
I've practically collapsed on a bench,
My backpack and duffel bag dragged
along beside me, my left heel
pulsating and throbbing with red,
cartoonish pain, and I sit here
and try to take the pressure off.

I have hours to kill, nowhere
to go, no feelings to feel or
companions to tease or criticize, and
I wonder if my entire life has
been building up to this, nearly
three decades of walking, listening,
looking, thinking, experiencing,
to a point where I move my
left foot and try not to feel,
pick my head up and
try not to look,
pull my bags closer toward me
and try not to possess.

There is definitely something here
but I lost it, somewhere between
the bars, the work, the hotel, the
text messages, from that point
to this one.

And here I am now, and there are
beautiful women and babies in strollers
and pigeons and trash and fire escapes.

There are delis and pharmacies
and Irish-themed pubs and
people from Seattle and
Puerto Rico and India and
Chile and New Zealand.

There are street signs and buildings,
water and mail boxes and construction.

And there's also me in there somwhere
With my backpack and my duffel bag,
my swollen heel and my jeans and
shoes and my shirt with the fish on it,
and my red hair and my small hands,
my pen and my notebook and the bench
that I sit on.

Tonight, I'm the only thing that will
be gone. And the wind breathes calmly
and people keep walking and the
sun peaks out through the clouds.

Cause in 60 Seconds

2009-07-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

Causecast has a new show we're going to be pushing out every few weeks called Cause in 60 Seconds. For each episode, we'll explore a different event or cause and try and break it down for you as quickly as possible (hint: it'll be about a minute long).

Our latest episode covers the How It Ends event from late June, co-sponsored by Invisible Children, Resolve Uganda and the Enough Project, aimed at supporting the LRA Disarmament bill in Congress.

The video has already sparked some great discussion on Causecast, most notably from the mind of active commenter "revolutionforamerica" who comments:

awesome another bill for the american tax payers! and im sure u all criticized bush for spending money for the war in iraq. liberal hypocrites

Thanks for watching! Be patient, the next video will be coming out soon.

Cemetery Junction - Funniest Film of 2010?

2009-07-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Clearly.

The Invention of Lying looks good. But, the teaser trailer for Cemetery Junction really raises my hopes. Those guys have a really hard time not being funny.

NY Synagogue Terror Suspects: Real Threat or Just Jokers?

2009-05-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a post I wrote for Causecast.org about the NY terror suspects.

Americans woke up this morning to discover that a terrorist plot against two synagogues in the Bronx, New York, was foiled by the FBI working with New York police. The most troubling thing about this new plot is that the suspects likely had no connection to al Qaeda, Guantanamo Bay or the Taliban.

It should come as no surprise to Americans, however, that there are people out there who don’t like us or that it would translate into negative sentiment at home. Despite our “fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here” mentality, it’s very difficult to segregate communities in the 21st century. Muslims in America are certainly cognizant of civilian deaths in the Middle East, and it is quite clear that these suspects intended to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That being said, the new question is, How serious was this threat? The FBI learned about the disgruntled Muslims from a confidential informant, and supplied the suspects with what they thought were IED missiles and plastic explosives. Had the FBI not seen the plan through to the moment when the suspects believed they were setting the bombs, would they ever have made it this far? IED missiles, though plentiful on the streets of Tikrit, are not quite so easy to come by in the Bronx. I don’t think you can just walk over to Ray’s Pizza and order a few with your slice.

Would these four nuts have been as successful in tracking down real explosive devices? According to the Washington Post, the detained men said they were disappointed that the World Trade Center was no longer around to attack. That’s kind of like when you see a really good price for a CD you already own and you wish you could buy it again. Something tells me that the guys who came up with this plot weren’t exactly criminal masterminds.

Terrorist Leader: Alright men, we’re going to blow up the World Trade Center!

Underling: Um…boss…that’s kind of already been taken care of. Maybe we should come up with an alternate target.

Terrorist Leader: Okay, then. Plan B! Where do the Jews hang out?

A couple of synagogues must have been more inspiring than Katz’s Deli on East Houston.

So, I’m obviously thankful that dutiful law enforcement prevented an attack, but I’m not sure these guys were plotting the next 9/11.

No Stairway. Denied!

2009-05-18T18:21:00.001-07:00

Now I get it! Wolfram Alpha is just a devious scheme to promote classic Powell & Pressburger films!

Brian Hayward: Get On Twitter!

2009-05-05T20:27:00.001-07:00

During tonight's Ducks-Red Wings playoff game (The series is tied 1-1 and the Ducks lead 1-0 after the first period), play-by-play announcer John Ahlers was promoting Fox Sports' new Twitter account. Ahlers then asked color commentator Brian Hayward if he was on Twitter yet. Hazy said that he wasn't quite on Twitter yet.

Let me just say that I'm a huge fan of the broadcasters on Fox Sports Prime Ticket. I've been a Ducks fan for years and years, and any modern hockey fan will tell you that you really form a bond with your local commentators, simply because you spend about 80+ nights a year watching and listening to them (you see, in hockey, most of the games are not televised nationally, and I prefer Ahlers and Hayward to Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk anyway.)

Brian Hayward has a pretty strong following in southern California, for his ab-solutely sen-sational analysis of hockey and his nightly "Hockey 101" and the pun-ny "Breaking Through the Hays" segments. Because of his affability and local notability, I am hereby requesting that Brian Hayward start a Twitter account as soon as possible.

As both a Ducks fan and Managing Editor of an Internet start-up company, I am volunteering myself as the perfect person to teach Brian Hayward all about Twitter. For one thing, I hate social media and the culture surrounding it as much as any head-scratching middle-aged person (Hazy is 48). Also, I can teach him how to keep his tweets focused, humorous and informative. Though my Twitter feed is a mish-mash of song lyrics, sports news, jokes and Diddy-isms, I feel I have the optimal amount of experience and know-how to transform Hayward's Twitter feed into an O.C. sports phenomenon.

Within weeks, I guarantee we'll have Jim Fox and Stu Lantz begging me for Twitter tips (or Twips, if you will).

How about it, Hazy? Give me a shot.

Second period is about to start now. Go Ducks!

How I Survived Swine Flu or Pork: The Other Black Death

2009-04-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

Practice!

Ha ha. Just kidding, of course. No, beating the swine flu is a grueling battle between Man and Virus, with pigs in between, perhaps serving as referee. I have a few tips that I've gleaned in the past few days, my head hovering over the toilet like a frat boy, the illness spreading through my bones like the sweet current of heroin. I also did my research through Causecast's Swine Flu Safety tips.

Tip #1: No making out with pigs. I can't emphasize this one enough. If pigs had the flu and now we had the flu, it serves to be true that making out with our ham-hocked friends might be a bad idea. Skip it for now. You'll live.

Tip #2: Sneeze into a tissue or, failing that, a nearby spittoon.

Tip #3: No more than one McRib sandwich per week. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's important for our bodies' immune systems to receive small bits of acrid poison, in order to build up suitable antibodies. A small amount of swine flu, a runt flu, if you will, is just what the doctor ordered.

Tip #4: Watch Charlotte's Web, but after the film ends, pretend the farmer takes Wilbur out behind the barn and shoots him. This will suitably build up ones hatred of pork, a potent antiviral attribute.

Note: These statements have not been analyzed for accuracy by the FDA, CDC, or The Who (listen to Baba O'Reilly backwards....trust me, it's all about swine).

Ptwitty has his fingers on the voice of the people

2009-04-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

While the rest of Twitter is abuzz about Swine Flu and The Rescue, Diddy is attacking the real issues:

'One Of My Kind,' Conor Oberst documentary

2009-04-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

I would say "I hate to plug," but I'm actually quite excited about the opportunity musician Conor Oberst has given Causecast. Guitar-tech Phil Schaffart filmed Oberst and his bandmates as they recorded an album in Mexico. The result is the 60-minute film One Of My Kind, the story of Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. Watch the trailer below:

All you have to do to get the film for free is to sign up on that page. Tomorrow, April 15, you'll receive an e-mail with instructions on how to stream or download the film. Causecast hopes that you'll take the time to explore our list of organizations and donate to a cause that inspires you.

If you don't have any money to donate (and who does, really?), I'd encourage you to read about the organizations we're partnered with. Our goal is to connect nonprofits and people to inspire activism in this new era of hopefulness. Whether it's universal health care, animal rights, poverty, clean water or gay rights, you can connect with a group through Causecast that can help you get involved in the cause you're passionate about.

Giving away the Conor Oberst film is just one way we're trying to bring attention to our prestigious list of nonprofit organizations.

Okay, back to sperm jokes.

Jason Statham Poster Contest

2009-03-15T15:54:00.001-07:00

I'm announcing a new contest here on Country Caravan. Below are a series of Jason Statham posters. Your job is to guess each of the films that they're from. I promise that I have not altered the images in any way except to Skitch out the titles and co-star names. These are all 100% real posters for different Jason Statham films.

The first one to post the correct answers as a comment on this blog will receive a one-time Country Caravan Shout-Out. Don't think that's worth anything? Remember, Arcade Fire got big because I mentioned them here.

Also, please do not use the Internet to find the answers to these. We're on the honor system here. Let the games begin!

Joining the Causecast Team

2009-03-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

I announced about two months ago that I would be leaving Mahalo.com to pursue other opportunities. Though I maintain a very good relationship with Mahalo and plan on soon being a stockholder in the company, I felt it was time to take a break and think about what I wanted to do in life.

Much sooner than expected, I've landed a short distance away (you don't know how literal this is) at the socially conscience start-up Causecast. I'll be acting as their Managing Editor, working to add inciteful, thoughtful and original writing to their already deep and impressive index of videos and nonprofit connections. I hope, through this position, to further contribute great content to the Internet, in the form of essays from notable figures and writers who are truly passionate about causes. I also hope, quite selfishly, to give back to my community in the form of time and commitment (money is, after all, a bit scarce for us all right now).

Causecast is up to some very exciting things and I'm pleased to be a part of the team. A few employees will be at SXSW next week for the Mustache March. Check out the latest video:

off the record

2009-02-20T21:05:00.001-08:00

In the first few months of the inception of a personal blog, one tries to inject, immediately, a sort of creative originality to the already tired structure of hourly, daily, or weekly posting. Those of us who blog and also claim to be actual writers will try to write about our lives with texture and nuance, not reaching the respectability of David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs, but hopefully a step above the MySpace journal of a teenager. This is not to say that teenagers don't have anything thoughtful to say, just that we adults like to pretend our lives are not so banal and petty.

However, despite previous efforts, Country Caravan has become a source for me to post trailers for movies I'd like to see, tell you all about how cool my music is, and occasionally complain about being short.

There's nothing wrong with any of these things, except it makes me feel entirely unoriginal. Not only am I the same as everyone else, but everyone else is a freaking blogger.

The hardest part about pretending to be a writer is realizing that you don't think you have anything to say, and that even if you did there would be no reason for people to listen to you. At the very least one can hope to be entertaining. After all, I may not have great insights, but I could hopefully make you laugh. The obnoxious thing is that most people think they're good at whatever it is at which they're mediocre. It could be writing, singing, entertaining others, drawing, pretty much anything creative. I wish my ambitions were more simply defined. If I was really into basketball and wanted nothing more than to be a basketball player, it would be easy to squash those dreams. I'm just not very good at it. I don't have the physical attributes or the skill necessary. I don't think anybody would attempt to hide this from me, and if I had unbearable confidence and still thought I could make it in the NBA, you'd be right to assume I was a little bit off my rocker.

Yet, in more subjective areas, everyone can be a genius. Nobody can tell you you suck at drawing. After all, there's no such thing as good drawing, right? Yeah, there are those people who are really good at drawing Disney characters, but my 12 squiggly lines here have just as much artistic merit. Right?

The problem is that people are much more hesitant to say that you suck at something like drawing or writing poetry. Oh Christ, don't get me started on poetry! How many terrible poems have you read in your lifetime? I've definitely read more bad than good. I don't know what it is that makes a poem good because some words sound nonsensical on first listen, but you can tell the difference between J. Alfred Prufrock and some weepy teenage crap. But, that's just it! If you tell someone they're a shitty poet that makes you a total jerk. It's a huge double standard.

At any rate, where is this going? I don't know. This is what I thought blogs were before I started one. A bunch of losers whining about life. Can I do it like this for awhile?

Oh, and if you're a possible employer, I'm not usually like this. I'm really good at stuff.

Inglorious Basterds trailer. Oh. Hell. Yes.

2009-02-11T14:15:00.001-08:00

Thank you thank you thank you for this. I now have a reason to save 12 dollars so that I can buy a ticket for Inglorious Basterds on August 21.

Watch the trailer:

Now I need a nap. So many kinds of awesome.

Lil Wayne Somehow Gets More Fascinating

2009-01-31T10:45:00.000-08:00

I know he's been the subject of several posts on Country Caravan and featured in my dreams on Super Eco, but Lil Wayne just keeps managing to amaze me.

Here's a sneak preview of him on Katie Couric's Grammy Special:

I mean Jiminy Christmas Wow. He's a journalist, a rapper, a gangsta and a junior. I actually have weird man-crush daydreams where Weezy and me are hanging out on the street, talking about social injustice. His name is Dwayne and he dropped the "D" so I'm thinking about doing the same. Just call me Onathan.

FAKITY FAKE FAKE

Best Albums of 2008

2008-12-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

There was a wealth of inspiring music this year, but it can't all make it onto the list. I'm sure they're endlessly disappointed at not making it on Country Caravan's annual wrap-up, so I wanted to assure The Walkmen, Love is All, The Gutter Twins, Of Montreal, Frightened Rabbit, Health, Women, Deerhoof, Destroyer, Marnie Stern, Crystal Castles, Portishead and Vivian Girls that it's nothing personal. I should also mention that Bob Dylan's fabulous Tell-Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series, Volume 8, is not a new album of all unreleased material, so I felt it should be ineligible. It's 30 incredible Dylan songs, however, so you should really check it out.

Another disclaimer: I got a bit confused with my numbering, so I ended up writing blurbs for 26 albums this year, not 25. I couldn't bear to remove any album from the list, so I give you

The Top 26 Albums of 2008

26) Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash
A grower, Malkmus' fourth album since the Pavement break-up sees him embracing classic rock while still adhering to the frenetic song structure he's so well known for. Some of the instrumental bits can drag, but the sound here is solid and contains some real standout tracks. "We Can't Help You" is the album's catchiest song, recalling the upbeat melodies of Terror Twilight's "Spit on a Stranger" or Face The Truth's "Post-Paint Boy." Below is the video for "Gardenia."

25) Calexico - Carried To Dust
The prolific Calexico returns with Carried To Dust, a moody and subtle collection of gothic alt-country songs. I used to listen to Feast Of Wire over and over when trying to write a dark, western screenplay (I never wrote it). While Carried To Dust isn't as exciting as Feast Of Wire, it captures the Calexico sound and is probably a great starting-off point for the uninitiated. The first two tracks are the best. Below, the video for "Two Silver Trees"

24) Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins
The Stand-Ins is the thematic sequel to last year's The Stage Names. Will Sheff sings these pop songs as if beaten and chained, with such spare bleakness that you're wondering why his writing is so pleasant-sounding. There are eight songs in between three "Stand-Ins" interludes, but the songs are immediate and chilling. "Pop Lie" is the album's tightest rock song and probably its most memorable. The first single is "Lost Coastlines"

23) Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
I don't even want to talk about the rest of the album. "Feel The Love" is one of the most addictive songs of the year.

22) Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
Deerhunter follow up Cryptograms with a more structured and superior album. Microcastle has that ambient, mythical sound the hip kids can't get enough of today, but the melodies and vocals are what elevate Deerhunter. The second disc, Weird Era Cont., is nearly as good as Microcastle and well worth repeated listens. Here's the video for "Agorophobia".

21) Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
It would still be a great listen even if the album were just the work of DJ Andy Butler, but having Antony and the Johnsons' Antony Hegarty sing on a big chunk of it doesn't hurt one bit. The video for second single "Blind" displays the best of Antony's involvement while keeping the electronic dance beats front and center.

20) Blitzen Trapper - Furr
There's certainly no "Country Caravan" on the latest Blitzen Trapper album, but Furr builds on Wild Mountain Nation in the best way, offering a handful of Basement Tapes-era-Dylan and a pastiche of other Americana songs. Furr is certainly more accessible than the frenzied Wild Mountain Nation and has some great crowd-pleasers that should sway even the most stringent of mainstream music advocates at your next cocktail party. Here they are performing opening track "Sleepytime in the Western World" at a St. Louis record store.

19) The Ruby Suns - Sea Lion
African-influenced folk pop and it's not Animal Collective! A bright bunch of songs that kind of make you want to dance around on the beach. I bought Sea Lion around the same time as Fleet Foxes, which kind of overshadowed them for a time. The Ruby Suns make great music in their own right and can really brighten your mood. Below, the video for "Oh, Mojave" that I also saw saw in a commercial a few days ago. Can't remember which one.

18) Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
The album's title means "With Buzzing in Our Ears We Play Endlessly" and the onomonapoeiac "buzzing" accurately reflects Sigur Ros' continuing venture into more condensed songwriting and away from the ambient sound euphoria that introduced them stateside with Ágætis byrjun. "Við Spilum Endalaust" is another contender for pop song of the year. In the chorus, Jonsi Birgisson sings in the intentionally gibberish-sounding "Hopelandic," but it always sounds to me like he's saying "Is this here, or is it all gone?" and since the "Hopelandic" aesthetic is to interpret the sounds to your liking, I'm sticking with it.

17) Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down In The Light
With Lie Down In The Light, Will Oldham has released probably his most acclaimed album since I See A Darkness. While I prefer Ease Down The Road myself, Lie Down provides Oldham a great chance to create more sexually suggestive lyrics with "love" as a pretense. He's one of the greatest living songwriters and I could easily listen to this album over and over and find new surprises in the lyrics each time. Here's 'ol Beardie's video for "Easy Does It".

16) Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun
Brian Wilson's love letter to southern California really sounds like an album written by a 24-year-old from another time in a fantasy Happy Days-esque world. The songs are catchy, full of life, and you can really picture yourself driving up Pacific Coast Highway listening to it. Now that he finally got Smile off his chest, Wilson is focusing on the bright and sunny pop he's embraced so well over his 40+ year career. His voice remains one of the cleanest and most untouched products of the 1960s.

15) Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak
It really is hard to feel bad for Kanye West. I know he has problems like all the rest of us, but he's the biggest rapper in the world and he didn't even come from the projects. He's had two straight masterpieces, which (sort-of) earned him the right to knock off a quick, vocally-manipulated batch of R&B tunes. Luckily for us, they're enthusiastic, moody and fun, and you can still dance to it. Most one-off rap artist pet projects will be in the dollar bin within a week (Hello Re-Up Gang), but Kanye offers a fresh approach to experimental hip-hop. Here's an intense performance of "Love Lockdown" on David Letterman (it gets better after the first minute).

14) High Places - High Places
Spankin' new Brooklyn-duo High Places learn from Animal Collective as well. Mary Pearson's light and airy vocals are backed up by tribal percussion on one of the year's most interesting and provocative debuts. Though Pearson's vocals headline most printed commentaries on High Places, it's Rob Barber's instrumental verve that gives this band its texture. I've previously featured a segment from Pitchfork Live's coverage on Country Caravan, but here's another taste.

13) Beck - Modern Guilt
Like all new Beck albums, you need to forget about what's come before and appreciate what you're given. It's never going to be Odelay again, but high expectations always seem to make new Beck albums underwhelming to the majority of music critics. Modern Guilt, however, has so much to appreciate that multiple listens are very rewarding to the loyal listener. I had the privilege of seeing Beck perform at a very small show at El Cid in Silverlake, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. I also predict that many tracks on Modern Guilt will be heard in commercials for years to come. Here's "Gamma Ray" behind some footage of 2008's Coronado Speed Festival.

12) Beach House - Devotion
Beach House is another musical duo with a female lead singer. Devotion is their breakthrough album, a collection of beautiful, heartwarming songs that I swear would have broken through on traditional radio had it had consistent playtime. "Heart of Chambers" is the album's centerpiece. I imagine everyone sings along when they play it in concert.

11) Black Mountain - In The Future
One of the biggest snubs from Best of 2008 lists this year is Black Mountain's sophomore album In The Future. Deftly blending a psychedelic stoner sensibility with modern alternative, Black Mountain turn in one of 2008's most engaging and intense rock albums. The music video for "Angels" on YouTube is one of the better user-edited videos I've seen, with footage taken directly from Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire. I've played this song at least once a week all year.

10) Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
Fuck Buttons are actually quite clean, their music uncharacteristically approachable, despite the lack of lyrics and the occasional warped wail. A British electronic-drone duo, Fuck Buttons debut LP Street Horrrsing opens with the nearly 10-minute "Sweet Love for Planet Earth," a track whose subdued first minutes build to a melodic cacophony that sets the tone for the next 45. A startling debut and one of this year's indie-electro darlings.

9) Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner are two of today's most inventive pop songwriters, and on their second album as Wolf Parade, the duo take another step forward from the crowd-pleasing immediacy of Apologies to the Queen Mary, and produce an album that rewards multiple listens, as there's just too much to hear at once. Dan Boeckner's opening track "Soldier's Grin" is the most memorable at first, but the textures behind "California Dreamers" and "Kissing the Beehive" really show themselves the third or fourth time around. Wolf Parade also gave me the second best show I saw all year, with 90 minutes of rock that even had the eye-rolling hipsters dancing in place. "Kissing the Beehive" is one of several songs this year to mention me by name, though, amazing, they may be referring to Jonathan Carroll, who wrote a book of the same name. Here is the lyric: "Jonathan, Jonathan, waterfalls are running thin you know. Here's a holy grail for you to hold." The 11-minute song, with vocals by both Krug and Boeckner, if you've got the time:

8) Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
I feel a bit sheepish putting Department of Eagles so high on the list, since it's the slightly less popular project of Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen, and I'm probably the only list-maker who hasn't heard anything from the latter band's acclaimed canon. I can say, however, that In Ear Park is an immensely fulfilling album, with a couple of stand-out tracks that make you want to figure out how the hell to put a song on repeat on an iPod. I couldn't just choose one song, so I grabbed three from Seeqpod.

7) TV on the Radio - Dear Science
This was the TV on the Radio album I had been waiting for. Though I loved Return to Cookie Mountain, it seemed a bit labored, without the energy I knew this band was capable of. Dear Science puts the fun back in Fundamentally Liberal Free Jazz Post-Punk. Rolling Stone's album of the year is filled with infectious dance pop and pounding African beats. Tunde Adebimpe is having quite a year. He's the lead singer of TV on the Radio and starred as Rachel's fiance in the Jonathan Demme film Rachel Getting Married. Listen to some of it on Seeqpod.

6) M83 - Saturdays=Youth
This is the album I would have wanted if I were a teenager in 1986. Too bad for all those people, but M83 hadn't yet produced this masterpiece. This entire album could be the soundtrack for a John Hughes movie, and unlike those songs, I'm not sure I could really get tired of hearing "Kim & Jessie" or "We Own The Sky." Saturdays=Youth was previously featured on Country Caravan, but here's the video once again for "Kim & Jessie."

5) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes and Sun Giant EP
I've put Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut and Sun Giant EP together, because if you listen to all the songs on shuffle you likely won't know which came from where. This is okay, since Fleet Foxes' 15 recorded songs are all a dreamy bit of folky Americana, and took this year by storm, earning Pitchfork's Best Album of 2008 honors. That distinction brings with it quite a bit of success in the indie realm, as Arcade Fire, Interpol and Panda Bear know so well. It also brings with it the inevitable backlash attached to anything that was once hip that became lame by how hip it is. I still think it's cool. I can promise you that I still will once you start liking it as well. "Ragged Wood" uses my name in a non-me-centric way as well. Download a full Fleet Foxes concert from NPR or watch them perform "English House" from the Sun Giant EP on Conan O'Brien.

4) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend is the brainchild of Ezra Koenig, who formerly wrote comedy songs and appeared in the goofy rap group L'Homme Run. Vampire Weekend's debut album reflects this childlike whimsy. The album is so enjoyable that after a few listens you'll stop thinking about it as a guilty pleasure. Your friends may not be convinced that it should be taken seriously, but don't let that get you down. Chances are they're not taking themselves so seriously either. The video for "Oxford Comma" is a playful parody of Wes Anderson-style filmmaking.

3) No Age - Nouns
This is where the decision-making got hard. How could No Age's explosive, furiously noisy Nouns fall to #3? The best rock album of the year, No Age blows through about 30 minutes of guitar driven intensity that it's probably dangerous to drive to. As dynamic as last year's Weirdo Rippers, the Los Angeles-based group is classified as experimental noise rock, but it builds upon traditional structures and gets to the point quickly. Absurdly rich, Nouns paints the modern sonic landscape with a gut-punch, bang-the-drum approach. They get a bit messy in the video for "Eraser."

2) Sun Kil Moon - April
April was likely a disappointment to everyone who picked it up expecting Ghosts of the Great Highway. That album had the alt-country crowd on its knees with inviting melodies and a Tex-Mex, slightly Latin acoustic-guitar flare. April is much less immediate, but is arguably more gratifying than its predecessor. The 70-minute album has some of the best songs of Mark Kozelek's career. The slow ballads "Lost Verses" and "The Light" sound like warm spring evenings, and would be almost comforting if it weren't for the overwhelming loneliness contained in their lyrics. Will Oldham guests on the seductive "Like The River".

1) Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
I tried to enjoy another album more in 2008, but what can I say? As Weezy says on opening track "3 Peat," "Me! You watch me!" We certainly do. Lil Wayne is bold on this album. It is all undeniably and unabashedly "him." On Tha Carter III, Wayne discusses the usual suspects in modern hip-hop: Cocaine, lascivious women, money, rapping, and why he is the best at it. There's a certain ceremonial didacticism on Tha Carter III, where Weezy is the omniscient professional and you are the lowly pupil. Take "Dr. Carter," where a nurse reads off a list of vocal ailments to the doctor, who prescribes, through verse, everything you need to get that swagger back. But, as you know, noone on the corner got swagger like he do. Even "Let The Beat Build," the album's most memorable non-single, is in itself a lesson. The repeated line: "Now, that's how you let the beat build, bitch." Yes, he says bitch often. And nigger. Just deal with it. His outspoken misogyny is shocking, even by modern rap standards. I'm not a woman, but if I was, I still think I'd have a hard time resisting Tha Carter III's tractor beam. It is the best album I heard all year, and I urge you to listen to it below.

Or, if you just want a quick video, watch "Mrs. Officer."

Thanks for reading! (or, for most of you, thanks for scrolling to the bottom). See you in 2009!

Ongoing Vertical Discrimination

2008-12-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

My friends--

I'm writing today to bring up a great injustice that even in the 21st century still pervades our daily lives and brings shame to our diverse nation. Hateful acts are still being perpetuated on a significant portion of our population. They're not going away and their cause is a just one.

To stand in solidarity with these oppressed people, I have a major announcement to make here on Country Caravan.

I, Jonathan Harris, am short.

The discriminatory history against those of us with limited height is shameful and wrong. Though you may not immediately recognize the restrictions placed upon us, let me tell you a brief story that exemplifies our plight.

A few weeks ago I thought I could make some extra income by donating a resource of which I have no shortage. Sperm banks pay up to $100 a donation and allow you to give up to three times a week (there are donation limits due to some strict campaign finance reforms). You can imagine my disappointment when I came upon the following restrictions from the California Cryobank:

You're reading that correctly. Not only must you be young, straight, a legal American, intelligent or a macho asshole, but you must be at least 5'9". California Cryobank, I thought you were better than this. Also, that sentence isn't even grammatically correct. "Must be at least 5'9" or taller" is repetitive. It could be "Must be at least 5'9" or "Must be 5'9" or taller" but using both "at least" and "or taller" is highly unnecessary. You don't need to rub it in.

But, it's not all the Cryobank's fault. The lonely and childless women who attend this facility have also made a stand. Where are the cries for short man sperm? You are complicit in this injustice by continually seeking offspring that will be taller than the average man. Do you think you can effectively weed us out of society? I assure you, we are not going away. We will not be stranded like Napoleon on this metaphorical Elba indefinitely into the future. Our sperm is just as good as the tall folk.

In fact, the more intelligent among us are likely to have even better sperm than your standard paramedic or firefighter.

Here is scientific proof from the UK Institute of Psychiatry, suggesting that men with more intelligence have higher quality, more mobile sperm:

The study, which appears in the journal Intelligence, appears to support the idea that genes underlying intelligence may have other biological effects too.

Therefore, if tiny mutations impair intelligence, they might also harm other characteristics, such as sperm quality.

Average sized and tall folk of the world, be aware: We're here, down here, get used to it. My diminutive brothers and I will no longer stand for the hate and discrimination thrust upon us. At 5'6"....ok, dammit....5'5 1/2", I have just as much right to have my sperm surgically implanted into a foreign uterus.

We have progressed much as a nation, but there is more work still to be done. Help us reach the cookie jar. Join with us.

A Lesson

2008-11-22T13:17:00.000-08:00

Son, take a seat and let me tell you a story about me and my father when I was about your age. It was summer, just like it is now, and my friends and I would wait all year for the free, warm days where we could frolic by the drying creek bed and tell each other ghost stories late into the night. Those were truly the days: the air was clean, the only thing cold were the wars, and that was the summer that Penny Dingleheimer kissed me behind the five-and-dime.

One day, my friends approached me on the hilly meadow that bordered the Narrows. They ushered me behind a thicket of shrubs, and showed me what they had in a brown paper bag. My friend Scotty had swiped a pack of cigarettes from his uncle's bedside drawer. There were four left in the pack and he wanted each of us to smoke one at the same time. We had no matches so we scampered into the forest and used our scout training to light a small flame using the sticks and dry leaves from an old, wide Poplar tree. I had my first puff, and as the black smoke reached my lungs, every organ in my body pushed forth to reject the bitter taste. I hacked up phlegm that my sinuses had stored deep inside my head from months prior. It was an awful, guttural feeling, but I didn't learn my lesson. I kept inhaling until the smoke no longer burned my throat. Even though the taste was rank, I liked the way I felt holding it and the way my friends looked at me there in the weeds.

We sat there until we felt the smell had dissipated and then we each made our separate ways home. I stopped by Mr. Gregory's store on the way home, as I often did to buy a chocolate milk and a comic book. You wouldn't remember that place, son. It's a goddamn Sur la Table now. Anyway, Mr. Gregory was helping an old woman bag up her groceries at the front of the store, and didn't notice me as I slunk to the side of the counter and grabbed a sealed pack of unfiltered Chesterfields. They fit easily in the back pocket of my shorts and my heart raced as I approached the counter.

"Chocolate Milk, young man?" Mr. Gregory was amicable as ever as he reached into the ice-chest. I nodded my head and dropped a dime onto the counter. "No Spider-Man, today?" He grinned at me as older folks will often do to young persons your age. I kept my head down and grabbed the carton and rushed out. I didn't look back, though I doubt Mr. Gregory had anything but an expression of satisfaction on his face.

I didn't have a plan at that point of where to put the cigarettes, or if I even would have opened the pack. Perhaps I would have chucked them over the fence into the Buchanan's yard. Maybe I would have buried them in the backyard so future civilizations could have discovered them. It doesn't matter now and it didn't then. As soon as I came home and run up the stairs I heard my father's bellowing voice.

"What's that you got in your pocket, there?"

I was caught and couldn't keep the deception going. I just stood there and allowed my father to approach me. He had his hand on my shoulder and he whispered in my ear.

"Take it on out, boy."

I did and held it in my hand behind my back. I still couldn't look at him. He took the pack out of my hand and swiveled me around by my shoulder. I kept my head down.

"Come with me."

We went into the backyard and he sat me down on the old tree stump that had been there since before I was born. I made sure me eyes came nowhere near his face as he unwrapped the pack and revealed all twenty cigarettes.

"You're going to smoke every last one of these," he said.

And I did. We sat there until it had been dark for several hours. My mother would look out at us from the kitchen window every so often, but kept her distance. She knew what he was doing and was not about to object. I smoked until I could hardly breathe without feeling the tar fumes whirl around my head. The bile kept coming up in my throat, but I suppressed it. I wasn't about to let my father beat me. It was no use, though. I was defeated. To this day, I can't smell cigarette smoke, even for a moment, without thinking about that evening when my father taught me one of the most important lessons of my life. You only have one body, and you'd better not get it on your bad side.

Which brings me to you, son. You can imagine my surprise when I come into your room and find you with a smooth kilo of pure South American cocaine. That's intent to distribute, son. What in God's holy name are you thinking?

Well, I'm not going to let your body get the better of you. I'm going to sit here and you're going to snort every last ounce of that sweet nose candy. How do you like that?

Alright, let's get started. No use delaying it. Cut that up finely, now. No, no, you're going to do it all yourself. Here, you can use my Mastercard. Chop it up now and make those lines full. No skimping.

There, how does that feel? Like you thought, huh? You like them goofballs, don't you? Well, the fun's over. Go ahead, do another line.

Goddammit, boy, this is for your own good. Head down, nostrils open. There you go.

How about three in a row this time? You can do it off the toilet seat if you want to feel like a real rock star. You won't be feeling much like rockin' and rollin' in a few hours, let me assure you.

Son, really, dancing on your bed isn't going to solve this problem. Put your pants back on. Keep going.

There you go. Don't worry, that's just a nosebleed, happens all the time when you're hooked on blow. Long way to go still. Don't lay down, that's not going to help one bit. Come on, boy.

Son? Get on up, now. This isn't the woods, you can't play dead.

Son?

.......

Christ.

Paula Goodspeed, former Idol Contestant, found dead

2008-11-12T10:42:00.001-08:00

A very sad story this morning out of Los Angeles. Paula Goodspeed was an American Idol contestant who was turned down after her initial audition. She was apparently a huge fan of Paula Abdul and was found this morning dead in her car outside of Abdul's home. The police are saying it is a drug overdose.

The focal point of this story for the media is Goodspeed's obsession with Abdul. Her car had several laniards and stickers depicting the pop singer, and her license plate said "ABL LV" (which I suppose means Abdul Love?)

She even dressed like Abdul to her initial American Idol audition. Here's the video below, though it's far more morbid now, considering the segment was meant to mock and poke fun at her. Though I enjoy watching the early, horrible auditions on Idol, it's important to note how starkly some people consider the nature of celebrity, and how a hobby can quickly turn to obsession.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2008-11-08T20:27:00.001-08:00

Today Now! presents the wonderful, heartwarming story of a real fat ass who successfully avoids the ridicule of his slimmer peers by keeping a white T-shirt on while swimming. Take a look.

What To Do About Proposition Hate

2008-11-06T20:53:00.000-08:00

Like many of my peers on Tuesday night, I was both exhilarated at the progress our nation has made and disturbed at how far we still have to go. The election of Barack Obama to the presidency is a remarkable mandate for change and progress in this country, and marks a significant cultural shift away from the greedy aristocracy we've lived in this past decade.

However, let's not forget that people are selfish beings, and that Obama's victory can at least partially be attributed to the overwhelmingly negative situation in which Americans have found themselves. People voted for him not because they necessarily believe in progressive ideals, universal health care, increased dialogue among nations or tougher regulations on big business. Many voted for him simply because they are desperate, poor and distrusting of a system that has pounded them into the ground. Barack Obama has a much steeper hill to climb than many of us realize, and with the illegal and unethical ban of universal marriage in California, those of us hopeful for the future must first face the truth about our present.

California is seen as one of America's most liberal states, and yet over five million people decided that two human beings who love each other should not enjoy the same freedoms as everyone else because they are of the same gender. Despite the lack of any logical argument to the contrary, despite the illegality of imposing such a hindrance on our fellow citizens' civil rights, despite the lies and the bigotry from the "Yes on 8" campaign, nearly five and a half million Californians supported this measure. Just using arithmetic, this number must include at least one million Barack Obama voters. Everyone --- our work is far from over.

There are protests going on right now in the streets around my home. This is progress, but this is not enough. They will ignore you and wait until you've subsided and then it will be business as usual. We cannot stop letting them know what an injustice this is. Here are my suggestions:

1) Take the protests to the people who voted against you. West Hollywood is great, but, you know, you're kind of preaching to the choir. Why not stop by Tulare County? Two hours north of Los Angeles where 75.4% of the electorate voted for Proposition 8. What about Shasta County, up north? 69.9%. Madera County: 73.4%. Kings County: 73.7%. These are people who don't live near Los Angeles or San Francisco. They don't see you every day and know you are living, breathing humans who love just as strongly as they do. Bring the protest from Melrose to Main Street. Force these people to explain to you face to face why they are discriminating against you.

2) Write to everyone you know. If you're gay, chances are you have some straight friends. No, not just the girl you went to see The Devil Wears Prada with who hangs out with you because there's no chance of sexual tension. I'm talking about your co-workers, the people you see every day, your family, your close friends. Everyone. Chances are they're upset about the passage of Prop 8 but they're still just going about their daily lives. Let them know how it really feels to have your rights restricted. Ask them what it would feel like to know that society shuns their relationship and their families. I hate to break it to you my homosexual brothers and sisters, but we outnumber you. And we, like The Force, are a powerful ally.

3) Get a famous in-the-closet celebrity to come out. There have to be at least two or three out there, right? Not Ellen, not Rosie, names that would really blow your mind. I'm talking about Tom, Will, Kevin and Orlando. Let's hit these people right where it hurts. In their blockbuster summer movies.

This is far from over. I'm convinced that this measure will not make it near our state constitution. You almost have to laugh when people vote against the freedoms of human beings, but stand up in overwhelming numbers so that chickens can turn around without bumping each other. This is Los Angeles! Ever been to Hollywood on a Saturday night? You try turning around without hitting somebody in the ass!

*Source: Los Angeles Times (click the drop-down bar and scroll to Proposition 8 for a list of counties and how they voted.)

Election Results 2008

2008-11-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

Mahalo has astounding coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election. Below is (believe it or not) just a taste of what we have to offer tonight:

Keep refreshing our comprehensive Presidential Polls page to see if the returns match the predictions. They were off four years ago, but today's could accurately predict the winner of tonight's election. I also love all the maps the major news sites compile to track states. See them update on real time with our Election Results page.

As we've seen the last eight years, just one state can decide an election. Here are some of our pages for individual battleground states:
Ohio Election Results
Pennsylvania Election Results
Florida Exit Polls
Florida Election Results
Indiana Election Results
Indiana Exit Polls

Can you believe Indiana is in play? Happy Election Day! If you haven't voted yet, do it!

Neil Young at the Forum - Canceled

2008-10-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

I bought my dad tickets to see Neil Young tomorrow night at The Forum in Inglewood. I got an e-mail out of the blue from Ticketmaster tonight that said the show had been canceled. It didn't give any reasons.

After digging around the Internet for awhile, all I was able to find was this Craigslist post which talks about it. Apparently, the church that owns the Forum refuses to negotiate to with Union leader who represents the workers. Thus, the workers are on strike, and Neil will not cross the picket line. The show is going to be rescheduled. That might not be fully accurate, but it's the best I was able to find out. Now, I have to get my dad another birthday gift. Perhaps he'll be content with this video of Neil playing "After the Gold Rush."

Neil Young |MTV Music

Ciroc Obama

2008-10-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

The man is a genius. Every time I think Diddy is going to take a rest, he one-ups himself. I've never seen anything quite like the campaign that Ciroc Obama is running in 2008. A blog a day keeps McCain away. Please make your day and watch:

My Joanna Doppelganger

2008-10-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

We all know the agony I've been in that my beloved Joanna Newsom has been dating that (smog)gy cad Bill Callahan. Her angelic voice should be whispering sweet nothings in my ears, not his, and her fingers that she spins so lovingly on the harp should be making webs in my tangled locks, but anyway.

There's a talented young lady named Abby who plays piano, accompanied by her rat Teapot and she plays "The Book of Right-On" by Joanna Newsom. You hear that, Jo? She's younger than you, too! Watch my heart beats begin to reverberate in a different direction. Don't wait up for me. She's super pro-Obama, too. Making you sweat yet, Newsom? More like Old-som!

UPDATE: Apparently, my doe-eyed seraph is no longer dating Bill Callahan, but has found sawdust and diamonds in that SNL jokester, Andy Samberg. (reference) I'm not sure what to make of this. I mean, it's a step in the right direction. He is Jewish, and we are both white guys who attempt to rap for cheap laughs.

No, I am certainly not Anne Hathaway's mystery man...

2008-10-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

Alright, you can all stop asking me. I've read all about it in People magazine. Yes, Anne Hathaway has a new mystery man. But, who on Earth could it be?

Don't look my way...I have ab-so-lute-ly no idea. Not like she leaves any tasty little clues dropping around. What's this quote? "This guy I know in L.A. is kind of doing it for me right now." Guy in L.A.? Well, that doesn't narrow it down at all. I mean there are 2 million of us strapping young gentlemen in Los Angeles. True, true, not all of them are as well-respected, authoritative, sexual and mysterious as yours truly, but you don't really think it's me, do you?

That article is rubbish anyway. Don't even bother reading it. Okay, maybe a bit more: "I happened to meet a sexy guy the other day. When I think of sexy, I think of him." Oh, Anne, you're a beast. I mean, well...that doesn't mean anything! Just because the mere thought of this person inspires the image of sexiness doesn't mean it's me!

One more quote, if that'll satisfy you vultures: "You know when sometimes you don't know someone very well – you'll probably never see them again – but you just meet them and you're like 'WOW, you really have it going on'?"

.....

I can't keep this farce up anymore. Can I help it if my animal magnetism draws in Hollywood starlets like a Bvlgari store on Christmas Eve? Is it so wrong if the sight of me in slim-fitting Adidas workout sweats sends world-famous beauties into semi-orgasmic frenzies. Don't you dare judge me! Anne Hathaway and I have a love like the sweet summer rain!

Scrub his little ducky tummy

2008-10-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

I used to have this song memorized. Probably the least educational Sesame Street bit of all time. Makes me cry with 4-year-old nostalgia. Bo-bo-bo-dee-o.

It had to happen sooner or later...

2008-10-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

I decided to finally put up the brief "comedy" show I did many months ago. It was filmed and I just avoided making it public, but after nearly a year I'm feeling comfortable enough letting everyone see my humility.

Watch for the brief appearance by famed Bollywood star Rupak Ginn. It's also fun to listen to comments from the crowd, such as "He's getting better," and "Just roll with it." Ahh...my first hecklers.

Anyway, here it is. Be gentle: