Crappy the Smart-Assed Toilet

Yes, we know that’s not news.

But there is Burnett-related news, reported at SurvivorPhoenix this weekend, that two former contestants will join 16 new ones in Survivor: Guatemala, and that does prove the point of the title. WTF were they thinking?

Okay, to be fair, we doubt Mr. Burnett actually come up with this, nor spent more than a millisecond or so approving it, since he is probably incredibly busy with other activities this summer (coming up with a plausible explanation for how the Michael Hutchence-less INXS can justifiably be called “Rock Star“s, attempting to determine if Roma Downey is really an angel, and practicing his hypnotism, to fool NBC executives into continuing to ignore that their ratings suck, and that nobody watched the CBS Martha Stewart-knockoff, Wickedly Perfect).

But still, throwing two ex-contestants in with a bunch of newbies? Did he not watch his own Survivor: All-Stars (more correctly called All-Star Survivor, or ASS)? What made him think the two retreads would be anything but easy pickings for the first two boots? And if they’re somehow immune from such activities, what’s the point of them being there in the first place? Anyway, this “twist” strikes us as nothing but dumb.

We hereby dub this season, officially still called Survivor: Guatemala, as “Partial All-Star Survivor”, which you’re free to shorten as either Half-ASS, or just do the sane thing, and give it a PASS.

(Oh, and as you may note below, we’ve retroactively created a “Survivor crap” category for posts. Sorry about the redundant category name).

We love it when Amazon asks rhetorical questions:

Note to “comic” strip writers, ad-writing hacks, sitcom foisters, and snarkier-than-thou bloggers:

Now that the American Film Institute has released their handy list of “100 Movie Quotes: America’s Greatest Quips, Comebacks and Catchphrases“, please restrain yourself, physically if possible, from ever again using variations, homages, references and (god forbid) verbatim quotes from these now-threadbare pieces of our cultural fabric. The chances that doing so will somehow be “funny” are now officially somewhere lower than zero. Please use the handy link above to lame-reference-check your work before unwittingly releasing it upon the public.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. We note the dearth of Mike Myers-penned lines, which suggests AFI was actually able to overlook the Annoying Catchphrase category, with the obvious exception of #25. So feel free to include anything ever appearing in a Mike Myers film on your do-not-recall list. Monty Python quotes as well, unless your audience is entirely made up of geeks.

Survivor: Guatemala started filming today, if anyone cares. You know, Survivor, that embarrassing personal habit? Basically junk? Anyone? Anyone? Nah, didn’t think so.

But while we’re on the subject of retreads, with the recent reunions of the Pixies, Slint, Gang of Four, Kraftwerk and even Pink Floyd, we think it’s about damn time At the Drive-In got back together. The Hero Twins, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez may be technically proficient, but as Mars Volta, they lack the focus and immediacy of their previous incarnation. And the Sparta dudes, outside of “Cut Your Ribbon,” are, on their own, fairly dull.

Or for that matter, bring back Drive Like Jehu. There, it needed to be said.

Any listmaker is going to take abuse. And for the most part, SPIN does a decent job with their new list of the top 100 albums from 1985-2005, although we’d quibble that in their effort to select only albums that “stand the test of time,” they ought more accurately to call it 1985-2001, or so. But they generally hit big albums, and select the best from the artists they pick. There are, of course, some bizarre inclusions, such as an overabundance of 1990s hip-hop (seriously, in SPIN’s entire existence, has a single person, anywhere in the world, actually purchased a copy to read about hip-hop?) and glaring omissions. That’s where we come in.

The “WTF?!” list:
#8 - Prince’s Sign o’ the Times. Come on, we’re just as sad as you that Purple Rain came out in 1984, but that’s not a valid reason to give a lifetime achievement award to this clunker. Move Slint’s Spiderland up here from #94 (!) and maybe we can talk.
#11 - U2’s Achtung Baby. That’s right, never mind that Joshua Tree (1987) was their last semi-listenable album. And it’s all well and good that U2 wanted to reinvent their tired arena-rock schtick. But this, and all subsequent U2 output, still sucks.
#53 - Rage Against the Machine’s The Battle of Los Angeles. There are already two Public Enemy albums on the list. Pathetic attempts to mine PE’s sound for cash aren’t statements of artistic prowess.
#85 - R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People. Wait, there’s no Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)? Ok, they must have gone with Document (1987) then, right? Nein. Hell, even the commercial cashing in of Green (1988)? Nope. Oooookay.

The “I must have missed it somewhere, I’ll go back and re-read” list:
(As in, where the hell was… in alphabetical order)
- Archers of Loaf, Icky Mettle (1993) and/or Vee Vee (1995)
- Death Cab for Cutie, We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes (2000)
- Drive Like Jehu, Drive Like Jehu (1993) and/or Yank Crime (1994)
- The Jesus Lizard, Liar (1992)
- Pedro the Lion, It’s Hard to Find A Friend (1998)
- The Shins, Oh, Inverted World (2001)
- Superchunk, No Pocky for Kitty (1991)
- Tortoise, Tortoise (1994)

Maybe these problems will be remedied by the time SPIN gets around to figuring out it’s “last 50 years” issue. But since they’re still running the painfully uninteresting “real-life rock tales” on the back page, we won’t hold our breath.

… you get the scarily similar covers of Audioslave’s new Out of Exile, and David Pajo’s (under the name Pajo) new self-titled release (below).

Freaky.

You can tell the difference, of course, because Audioslave has a professionally-rendered band logo on theirs, which, in addition to the metallic fire spilling from the “O”, also has blue tones in the water, whereas Saint Dave opts for the traditional, straight black-and-white, completely text-free imagery of Slint’s last release. As you might expect. But other than that, freaky.

If we were enterprisingly pranksterish record store employees, we might just switch out a few dozen or so copies from the Audioslave display at the front of the store with Pajo discs. True, it would be cruel, and you wouldn’t have the benefit of seeing the kids’ faces as they belatedly realize they are unlikely to be kicking any ass in the car on the way home, but hey: It’s the concept that counts.

Okay, we get the near-zero (on Pitchfork’s 1-to-10 scale, 10 being the best) scores for the Weezer and Louis XIV albums. In fact, in the case of Louis XIV, that may have been a bit high. And we know the opinion of some online indie geek at Pitchfork (or here, definitely) doesn’t really affect the success of musicians too much one way or the other. But we are a bit confused at the logic of Pitchfork’s scoring system sometimes.

Case in point: Two consecutive days, two New York City bands with five-word names. Pitchfork’s Brian Howe gave a 9.0 (and Best New Music designation) to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s debut disc, while Marc Hogan gave a whopping 4.8 to Say Hi To Your Mom’s recent Ferocious Mopes. Two indie hipster bands (the latter essentially the solo work of Eric Elbogen), both trafficking in understated, lo-fi-ish, poppy tunes. So CYHSY must be twice as good, right?

Well, if popularity is the only measuring stick, yes. Howe goes on and on about how buzz-rich the Clappers are, and how he thinks the sound a lot like a happier Arcade Fire (this, despite the fact that dourness is TAF’s only redeeming attribute, is apparently a compliment). Hogan meanwhile rants about how horrible it is that Say Hi’s Eric Elbogen (1) is also a feisty indie music critic, and (2) has tools available to make his songs sound like… the Arcade Fire! (Which might be a valid reason for a markdown, except Say Hi doesn’t remotely sound like the Arcade Fire). “How convenient” he sardonically opines. So Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are good because they’re popular and have a trendy sound, while Say Hi are an abomination because of an imagined trendy sound. Okay, got it.

But hey, maybe we’re just bitter because we’re sick of bands ripping off Talking Heads (which is partly because, as we’ve said before, we never liked Talking Heads the first time around). Howe smooths this over as “Clap Your Hands traffics in melodic, exuberant indie rock that pairs the shimmering, wafting feel of Yo La Tengo with a singular vocal presence that sounds like Paul Banks attempting to yodel through Jeff Mangum’s throat.” Which might sound believable if, on “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood” (yes, that’s the actual title) Clap Your Hands’ “singular vocal presence” didn’t sound exactly like David Byrne.

We’ll admit that CYHSY do venture farther in their musical plundering. The songs generally have Strokes-lite structures (instead of verse-chorus-verse, an unwavering verse-verse-verse tedium) and deeply buried Will Sergeant-esque leads lurking in the background. But please, they’re not remotely in the same league as Neutral Milk Hotel. And Say Hi’s new album isn’t as good as last year’s Numbers & Mumbles, and may indeed appeal to Jimmy Eat World fans. Fine. Maybe if he were on a trendy label like Jagjaguwar, things would be different.

But then again, maybe we’ve reading the numbers all wrong. Apparently the score is Pitchfork’s version of Yahoo!’s Buzz Index, measuring merely degree of internet interest. If so, we’re okay with that. Carry on.

Are you exceptionally geeky? Like logic puzzles? Feel the need to spend hours upon hours fiddling with numbers and empty spaces? Feel a competitive desire to do so faster than other logic-puzzling geeks?

Well then, look no further: SuDoku

You’ll be sorry. Or addicted. One of the two.

We’re sorry, for jokingly suggesting a few days ago that George W. Bush wasn’t a very good liar, at least compared to Tony Blair.

As it turns out, based on a British briefing paper described variously today in the Times of London and (gasp) the Washington Post, which backs up and expands upon the content of the almost-famous Downing Street Memo, which Bush and Blair each dismissed as inaccurate, they’re both big fat liars.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate, either. Dubya is more of a shortish, scrawny, acquired-drawling liar. Our mistake.

Okay, so we’re the absolute last people in the entire world to comment on (let alone watch) Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, but a couple of questions troubled us. No, not “Did Natalie Portman really get nominated for an Oscar?”, but more Lucasverse-centric (translation: geeky) questions. Mainly of continuity and/or plausibility. Such as:

- Palpatine was intimately involved in the Clone Army project. He’s had his eye on Anakin since he was Little eventually-Orphan Ani, the scampy pod racer. Even as late as the transformation to Darth “Mostly Armless” Vader, couldn’t Palpy have scrapped the silly Jango Fett prototype, and started up the Stormtrooper 2.0 project with a few of Anakin’s amputated cells? You’d think an army of Chosen Ones might kick a bit of ass. Admittedly, Anakin sucks at following orders, but you’d think at the very least El Sid(ious) would want a couple of backup Anakins in the pipeline, you know, just in case the original loses a limb or two, slips into hot lava, or otherwise gets killed at some later date. There certainly should be plenty of spare lightsabers they could have cleaned up from the Jedi temple. Stupid Sith lords.

- For a group of people who can levitate themselves, heavy seating saucers, doors, boulders and the like, Jedi sure seem to spend a lot of time desperately hanging onto ledges by their fingertips. You’d think they’d at least start a seminar series on it for the padawans, or something.

- Why is it that Yoda and Obi-Wan can detect disturbances in the Force when people (not even Jedi) die light-years away from them, or detect Vader’s presence, but they have no clue that there’s a powerful practitioner of the Dark Side right next to them? And Anakin can, with certainty (or at least enough to convince Mace Windu)?

- If the redshirt Jedi masters that Palpatine hacked through like tissue paper were such lightweights, shouldn’t Mace Windu have thought about waiting for Yoda before trying to arrest the super-dangerous Sith lord? Stupid, stupid Jedi.

But maybe we’re just grumpy that our excellent casting suggestions were ignored…