Is Bart Simpson The New Mayor Of Tijuana?

Seems like it...

Update!

Nevermind. I think it was a bit of an exaggerated tale, despite NPR mentioning it on this week's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! According to the Washington Post:

Tijuana police initially stopped patrols after their guns were taken, saying it was too dangerous, but most later returned to work. In some cases, officers were accompanied by armed state police. Others patrolled in larger numbers than normal. One officer was seen holding a slingshot that he said was for his protection.

Oh well. Sounded fun.

Syllable Counting 4

The Draft In A Million Pieces (Epitaph)

Hot Water Music!
How I miss your rugged songs.
This is pretty close.

Jinxing Them, Again

Take The Venom Out Of A Cobra And What Are You Left With?

My old punkrocks.net comrade and till-recent housemate Barry Scatton has finally done the world a favor and started his own blog. He moonlights as a writer for Decoy, but the censorship he's subject to is depriving the world of his A+ material. If you enjoy relentless ranting, action movies, Bigwig, or take pleasure in the outspoken agony of a lifelong Red Sox fan, you're going to want to pay attention.

(A belt.)

Syllable Counting, Thrice

Saliva Blood Stained Love Story (Island)

Hahahahaha
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Worst band of all time.

Syllable Counting, Again

Shiny Toy Guys We Are Pilots (Universal)

That song "Le Disko?"
Yeah, total one hit wonder.
Very Depeche Mode.

Syllable Counting

Here comes another regular feature. I plan to start writing haiku reviews of records that surface at our house that only barely deserve to be reviewed in the first place (I tried this once before). Normally I won't give this little intro paragraph to really put the focus on the all-encompassing nature of the haiku itself, but let's just call this one an explanatory example. Freya is comprised of most of the members of Earth Crisis, and is probably one of the least important bands in music today. They don't completely suck, but you get the idea.

Freya Lift The Curse (Victory)

Remember Slither?
Earth Crisis gone groove-metal?
Same thing, pretty much.

Mundane Basketball Terms Redefined

In the second part of this continuing crusade to rejuvenate the common basketball phrasebook, we rename several court locations with especially boring names.

The "lane" (current nickname: "the paint") is now referred to as Hot Lava or simply The Lava. Example: "The Clippers are dominating the lava this evening, grabbing a season-high 20 offensive boards."

The "free throw line" (current nickname: "charity stripe") will, from here on out, be known as the Freedom Parallel (and "free throw percentage" naturally becomes the Freedom Index.) Example: "Despite a league-low 68% freedom index, The Bucks iced their victory last night down the stretch shooting a perfect 8 for 8 from the freedom parallel in the final 3 minutes."

The "three point line" (current nicknames: "long distance," "the arc") is henceforth called The Rooftop. Example: "Though not considered a shooter, Chris Paul made 6 of 8 from the rooftop last night on the way to a game-high 31 points."

We'll stick to only three terms today - we'll have more next week. Don't think the "sideline" and the "key" aren't prime candidates for new monikers.

I'm Sure I Won't End Up Going...

...but this year's Coachella lineup is pretty outstanding.


We could all dream though...

MVP

When Michael Redd, who just so happens to be the new most underrated player in the NBA (now that Gilbert Arenas has officially taken over the world), can't do anything but smile when Gilbert sinks a 35-foot game-winner against his team, you know there's something special brewing. I haven't been this excited about pro-basketball, well, ever.

Admittedly, there was a brief moment of excitement about 8 months ago during the 2006 playoffs, when Gilbert (I can address him by his first name because I suffered through literally a lifetime of terrible DC basketball) drained a 40-footer to force overtime against the Cavs, only to have my entire month ruined by Lebron James' 3rd buzzer beater in four games. That's so incredibly not happening this year, even if me writing about it on the internet could potentially jinx it.

Gentlemen! You Can't Fight In The War Room!

If this doesn't conjure up images of a real-life Dr. Strangelove (particularly considering the presence of the creepily similar Stephen Hawking), I don't know what would... you know, other than Slim Pickens surfing a misfired nuke right into the heart of the Urals. While I do endorse the pro-time travel characteristics of this so-called "clock," it seems mostly just like a desperate plea for attention from personalities in science now well-past their respective primes. Like we really want to know what Arthur C. Clarke thinks after reading the waste of trees that was 3001. Can't these people unite their scientific and technological acumen to create a fully-automated doomsday clock? The Mayans managed to come up with a system thousands of years ago, and they had to overcome that senseless base-60 number system and lack of Microsoft Excel.

The founder of Swatch would be spinning in his grave (assuming he's dead).

Lofty Dreams

I've never been one for remembering my dreams. On the off chance that I do, they frequently coincide with my astrological sign (Virgo), which, as best I can tell, dictates that I should lead my life like a housewife... not that I wouldn't be a great housewife. I'm usually either washing dishes or picking up buckets of chicken from KFC without any real incident or excitement. I think in one particularly racy dream, I bought printer cartridges while wearing cutoff shorts.

Maybe my mood is changing, but I recently had what I consider to be a tremendously action-packed dream, even if I can sum it up in about two sentences. The Washington Redskins had somewhat of a disastrous season this year, finishing 5-11 and missing the playoffs for the 12th time in the last 14 years. My dream begins on the last day of the season - the Redskins are going into their final game of the season against the New York Giants and, from what I can tell, it's a big game. The details on the game are a bit fuzzy - I was probably over at CVS picking up Dixie Cups or something - but as the Redskins mount their final drive down by two points, I find myself warming up on the sidelines for a potential walk-off field goal. Not surprisingly, the Skins march down the field into the 40-yard territory, and I come on the field. Of course, I miss... but some sort of strange penalty that seemed more like the officials partaking in a filibuster led to me getting a second opportunity. I split the uprights and the Redskins go on to win.

They finish the season 6-10 and get the 12th pick in the draft.

Hopefully my next pro sports dream involves a team over .500.

Episode 84: Coincidences

From Suburban Home:

Sean-Michael from Mammoth Press and Kevin Wade formerly of Punkrocks.net are both habitual drunk dialers. I thought it fitting that although Sean-Michael and Kevin Wade were on opposite coasts, they both called within minutes of each other. Neil and Sean of Mammoth Press called together on the East Coast and mention that Sean has no pants on while recapping their favorite records of 2006 which included the Hold Steady, Drag the River, The Pippettes, amongst others. Kevin Wede and dudes from Yellowcard call from a party in Hollywood and it sounds like everyone is getting their Spanglish on. Happy new years guys. I hope I get to see you in Vegas next week!

Listen to our geographically and diametrically opposed drunk dials here.

Mundane Basketball Terms Redefined

Welcome to what I hope to be my first recurring theme here, now that they allow the ever-popular tagging on blogger. Alongside co-geniuses Casey and Michele, we've begun to retool the standard basketball journalist's phrasebook to make the sport sound like the true man-to-man war that it is.

Today's redefinition is for the term "loose ball." You know, like, when the ball is in no one's posession and all the players go diving for it. Sounds a little more exciting than "loose ball" lets on, right? From here on out, we collectively dub the loose ball, the Alabama Scramble.

Named for the late Alabama Franklin of the New Orleans Jazz, the Alabama Scramble became a popular local term in the south in the 70's as Franklin was rather adept and denying inlets to the high post and swatting away the point guard's posessions, but could never quite recover possession without causing a mass of flying bodies resembling a bad game of Twister. We'd like to dedicate this exciting occurrence in basketball to him.

My New Years Resolution Is To Talk About 2006 A Lot.

I resisited composing a best-of list for 2006 for a few reasons, the most obvious being that I no longer run a music website. Additionally, I just hate writing lots of paragraphs of mini-reviews backing up my picks. It's impossible to avoid thinking about, however, and as I started putting my list together, I noticed a lot of similarities between the best records in my player this year. For me, 2006 was all about punk rock actually getting good again beyond the biannual efforts from Bad Religion and Green Day.

The Riverboat Gamblers - To The Confusion Of Our Enemies

The Loved Ones - Keep Your Heart

No Trigger - Canyoneer

The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta

Ryan's Hope - Apocalpyse In Increments

Rise Against - The Sufferer And The Witness

Good Riddance - My Republic

Ignite - Our Darkest Days

Latterman - We Are Still Alive

The Falcon - Unicornography

I'd love to see someone do a study on the inverse relationship between the quality of punk rock and the president's approval rating. While bands like The Riverboat Gamblers don't necessarily have a sharp political bent, all of these records are inspired and thrilling efforts that should make any fan of fast music smile.

The second grouping of great records in 2006 is basically just a list of the Vagrant 2006 roster (not counting Senses Fail and Saves The Day... please). After a few years of pedestrian releases and label-building, Vagrant strung together a number of great releases, all from bands offering their Vagrant debut.

Protest The Hero - Kezia

The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America

The Lemonheads - The Lemonheads

Moneen - The Red Tree

Alexisonfire - Crisis

I lied - Moneen's on their second record for Vagrant but, honestly, who really noticed? As a bit of a corollary, Alexisonfire's side project Cancer Bats dropped easily the best hardcore record of the year (speaking of... it was a rough year for that genre).

The final cluster of releases that contributed to my car stereo's untimely death over the summer were the guilty pleasure records. These might not have been the most groundbreaking or intellectually challenging records, which means pitchfork writers and their related devotees will mock my ignorance for enjoying these, but someone once told me that you can't argue with taste... so, more or less, fuck you.

Set Your Goals - Mutiny

Saosin - Saosin

Gnarles Barkley - St. Elsewhere

The Sounds - Dying To Say This To You

DJ Shadow - The Outsider

Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage

Maxeen - Hello Echo

The only record I left out of these three categories because it managed to stick out completely on its own to battle with the Gamblers for my record of the year is one I wrote about a couple months ago. The Long Winters' Putting The Days To Bed is the one record that you should buy this year, regardless of your tastes.

And for the worst record of the year, I'll throw it over to this interview with Mike Patton. Dead on.