THE DUST AND THE SCREAMING, THE YUPPIES NETWORKING

my sincerest of apologies for the lack of postings this week. but as you know, the cogs of corporation must spin vigilantly. awesome new posts next week, but until then, enjoy this innuendo-esque pic which subliminally (but completely) recaps my week. watch how crm team lead, hogan, demands certain things out of his plebes, his warriors, his me.

[...if you care, right at this instant i hear within temptation's the dance...]

EPILOGUE, OR THE SUM OF ALL MY HATE

and so ends my first blog post ever. it only took me several weeks to finish it too - the model of efficiency. just to recap, you, the accidental reader, should check it out in this order:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

and finally the current monstrosity.

should you have laughed? maybe. should you have been moved? probably not. should your only lasting memory of this overdrawn bullshit be a burgeoning desire to question the legitimacy of ll cool j's career? fuck yes (see #3 above).

ladies love cool james todd smith has given the world an abundance of bizarre spoils courtesy of the most dubious of careers. from making shit albums, to making shit movies, to public speaking gigs with the shit republican party (not a joke), it's hard to believe that a schmuck who is responsible for the incomprehensible foible of never being seen without a baseball cap (which ultimately resulted in the popularity of these hideous creations) could, at one time, successfully 'knock you out.' as far as i'm concerned, he'll forever be pegged as the pile of human waste that had to take a backseat to justin timberlake. if that last pic was intended to provide budding actors with some visualization depicting the increasing stages of on-screen prowess, job well done. and by 'well' i mean 'makers of edison, go commit mass suicide.'

there are a few honorable mentions to hand out real quick. i'm going to make any mention of them really quick and really tiny from left to right, they are:

• dynamite hack covering nwa's boyz in the hood. hilarious, but loses points because it's not the whole song. plus i hate ugly frat boys that get more chicks than i do.
• steve burns covering they might be giants' dead. loses points because the vid makes no mention of tiny toons.
  
• some guy covering some other japanese guy's (koji kondo kataku) super mario brothers theme. loses major points for rushing. lay off the rubber cement huffing (why the hell is he playing bass in shop class?) for one hour and slow...the...fuck...down.
• opeth covering iron maiden's remember tomorrow. loses points because you need a game genie strapped to your face to watch the vid. why the hell do people do this? tekken vids? really?
  
• kelly sweet covering aerosmith's dream on. loses points because she's less feminine than steven tyler.

another thing - it seems that experienced bloggers and annoying intarweb pop-up coders alike opt to add those smiley icons and/or current song of choice to indicate their frame of mind during the creation of an entry. i actually kinda like this concept and i'm more than comfortable in claiming that i invented the practice. so, in a vain attempt to conformingly sexify this blog, i'll add a simplified mood vehicle in the form of what album is inspiring me to write the latest drivel. scroll down and check it out for yourself. apropos, if you're stupid enough to click on a smiley download pop-up and now your computer has chlamydia, good - you deserve it.

maybe you'll notice that the album sometimes steers an ironically contradictory tone in my writing that you can call me out on. like, how on earth could someone enjoying a meekly conservative lindsay lohan cd perform the venomous and heinous act of producing such a hate-filled diatribe? actually, don't answer that. but it's still ironic, kinda like in the way fidel castro would enjoy the fruits of some capitalist utopia. but that could never, ever happen.

i leave you with a final musing. the overall popularity of a band can boil down to one simple ratio that i've cleverly dubbed 'one simple band ratio,' (or 'nambla,' for short). nambla can be defined as:

nambla(x) = (# songs other bands covered by x) : (# songs by other bands x covered)
where x = artist

just for us laymen, the higher the number on the left side of the ':' with a corresponding lower number on the right indicates a more prolific band/artist. in other words, if the number on the right is bigger than the number on the left, you've got a pretty shitty band. and yeah, i stole the whole nambla thing from the daily show, but again, i have no problem in saying that they stole it from me. observe below these points of reference to give you an idea of what kind of scale we're dealing with:

nambla(limp bizkit) = 1:9
nambla(korn) = 1:2
nambla(u2) = 3:2
nambla(alice in chains) = 2:1
nambla(paul anka) = 5:2
nambla(david bowie) = 3:1
nambla(nirvana) = 15:4
nambla(celtic frost) = 13:3
nambla(beatles) = 14:1
nambla(pink floyd) = 76:1

and the absolute showstopper (in my highly comprehensive and sophisticatedly scientific method), the runaway winner of this event is abba with a staggering nambla of 102:1. (i'm really glad that nobody else claimed that 'nambla' moniker for themselves. especially not some wacko organization that is clearly a vicious underground child molestation ring operating under the guise of gleeful summer camp enabling young boys to explore their sexuality. yup i'm glad; really glad. so glad that you can go ahead and add the 2nd 'a'.)

[...if you care, right at this instant i hear dark tranquillity's damage done...]

NUMBER, WHAT?

i'm due for one of my trademark changes of heart that makes me ever so popular with all my closest friends. i've decided to go with a song that's not exactly a cover to cap off my list of well, best covers.

about as often as kirstie alley tries to obliterate the fuck out of her esophagus by cramming fistfulls of pure lard through her system, an artist or band will completely run out of money. naturally, as their thirst for expensive hookers and papi's finest llello remains unquenched, this forces them to do some inexplicable things to help recoup their losses. sometimes a band will release some half-assed 'remix' album that was completed end to end in the studio by a visionless, mixing board-slider molesting intern. incidentally, the typical custom for the band during this critically important recording period is to sit thousands of miles away in a vomit-soaked living room of some 'homeboy's crib,' passed out and pantsless. needless to say, the results speak for themselves.

(for example, about two months ago i ended up at the local waxie maxie's as i could no longer slay the violent urge to own my copy of the new white stripes remix album. so you'll understand how cheated i felt when i opened the case and the cd was covered in jagermeister stickers and bong resin. true story.)

((oh, completely unrelated: you did it, yanni - looks like you'll continue to run uncontested in your dubious race to become history's finest role model. don't worry though, while you're getting raped in prison, this fucker will be more than happy to fill in for you on tour. wow, how the mighty have fa-- just...wow.))

it's probably clear by know that i've gone in favor of a remixed song over a true cover. to boot, i've decided to go with a visual masterpiece of which my aforementioned most closest of friends have heard me talking about for the past 2+ years. since i'm all about girth, i'll even make the youtube clip bigger for you by 130 pixels, diagonal (a whopping 125% increase in area).

but before i continue, have any of you accidental readers ever worked in a sterile office environment?? surrounded daily by corporate automatons, steadfastly working in unison to create meaningless crap like the 'delivery efficiency matrix for enterprise strategy e-service initiative'? frequently violated by humorless and incompetent braggarts who constantly obsess over their newest gadgetry, boring family, pissfully dull lives, and have successfully popularized the concept of not ever being caught without one of these pieces of shit?

and similarly, being metally raped by crm team leads who walk around all over the place with those stupid bluetooth earpieces when they're clearly not talking to anyone on the phone? do they think they look cool? are you serious? i mean, when i get off my motorcycle, the first thing i usually do is take off the goddamn helmet, not leave it wrapped around my face like some bizarre, sordid yuppie status trophy for everyone to gawk at. when i was getting coffee a few days ago, some numbnut walked in with the earpiece on, and said 'good morning.' was it wrong of me to assume that he was talking on the fucking phone when i ignored him?? i got the weird cold, skunk-eyed stare as i walked out. fucker.

(sidebar: if the last couple pics were slightly beyond confusing, sap and bearing point are two leading tech development/consulting firms. why the fuck do they have anything to do with golf? 'holy gosh, martha! phil mickelson just hit a birdie on a par 4! looks like we have a new place to do all of our role-based expediency/return on investment paradigm analyses!!')

now that i've wasted so much of your time, just watch the vid. it's simply an immaculate embodiment of hopefully every rebelious employee's dream - seeing their humble daily dungeons demolished by what turns out to be a living shout out to the years past. (plus adding guitars meritorious of dimmu borgir songs doesn't hurt either. [well maybe not, but cheers again if you got the reference.] brilliantly played, depeche mode.)

NUMBER TWO

fiona apple - covering the beatles' 'across the universe'

maybe you were expecting rufus wainwright's version of this song. i happen to really like it too - it's actually better than most of these other covers, but it makes no sense to rant about two covers of the same song in two different places when i can bore you all about it all right here. the big problem with rufus's version (other than the inexplicably long, chokingly-suffocating youtube load time) is that the otherwise beautifully done rene magritte-ish vid is tainted with that brat dakota fanning.

i could seriously go on for days about dakota fanning; about her pretension-laced flicks, her pretension-laced acting, her pretension-laced interviews, but it all comes down to this - she totally thinks she's better than everyone else. and the worst part is, she's probably right. she makes me wish i were dead.

plus the vid inevitably stars rufus wainwright, who i'm not particularly attracted to (yet). which brings me to my next point...

say what you want about fiona apple. anorexic?? maybe. ass-rapingly liberal?? possibly. but if she doesn't have your dong's attention beginning with that scene when her hair starts to come undone ('...images of broken light which dance before...'), you're fucking gay.



(actually, i think fiona's version is one of the best cover songs out there, to the point where it can stand alone as its own thing; its own plagiarized 'thing.' go ahead - attack my convictions. i'm prepared to defend myself.)

(...but i'm not prepared to defend anyone in the event that you're still not convinced about said chokery... what a weird legacy he has left us with.)

NUMBER THREE

brad mehldau trio - covering 'exit music (for a film)' by radiohead

radiohead can be represented in any list ever created; even ones that include any or all of the following words in its title: 'greatest', 'worst' 'sports' 'dunks' 'terrell' 'owens' 'video games', 'ever.'

(those were real lists on espn.com. speaking of which, espn should no longer be considered a credible journalistic outlet anymore. i'm not sure they really were in the first place, but they definitely masquerade as one. that's ac slater in the pic hosting some espn show, people. ac fucking slater.

furthermore, any group that has to resort to the likes of a kid rock giving his angle on anything while on the 'budweiser hot seat' (jeez) should immediately be stripped of its associated press-ship. and the espys?? what kind of pretentious bullshit is that? for starters, it's called the 'espys', as in 'ESP(N)ys'. for the love of christ, why even bother with such a crass display of faux-exclusivity? was the domain 'http://espn.espnespyawards.espn/~espn.html' already taken? seriously though, this is totally a different (and nauseating) topic altogether.

but since i'm a hypocrite, i'm going to continue watching/reading/ogling...)

so mehldau's freakish technique somehow manages to accentuate his insane talent rather than deter from it. just check out the clip about 2 and a half minutes in, where it looks like he's trying to multitask by playing a sick solo while keeping a cell phone secure between his chin and shoulder. that, or he's trying to hide a massive goiter from the crowd. whatever.

napoleon dynamite makes a surprise appearance on bass too.

the only thing knocking this version down a peg is the 'louder than a locomotive' ride cymbal the drummer is clearly trying to rape with his sticks. and violently to boot. give that shit a rest and tittyfuck a hi-hat once in a while - it won't kill you.