Month: June 2004

Blog Implosion.

Steve at Now This provides quality commentary on Dave Winer’s recent weblog meltdown, which I discovered while trying to access Tomb of Horrors. Since Winer has successfully parlayed his whole self-promoting Father of Weblogs schtick into a cushy Ivy League sinecure, you’d think he at least give all those blogs an early warning before he shut ’em down (or, perhaps, convince fair Harvard to pony up some server space.) Still, acting like a self-interested jerk has been Winer’s M.O. for years, so I guess something like this wasn’t unexpected. Update: Winer gets worse.

Beat Box Bjork/The Beasties Bash Bush.

On her upcoming album Medulla, due out at the end of the summer, Bjork goes acapella (with the aid of The Roots’ Rahzel and Faith No More’s Mike Patton.)

Found while perusing the five star RS review of the all-new (and very old skool) Beastie Boys album, To the Five Boroughs, which is very much both a post-9/11 ode to NYC and a virulently anti-Dubya album (“Put a quarter in your ass, ’cause you played yourself.”) As has been the case since Ill Communication, MCA gets a bit too preachy at times (For example, “We’ve got a president we didn’t elect/The Kyoto treaty he decided to neglect” on “Time to Build,” or “Never again should we use the A-bomb/We need an international ban on/All W.O.M.D’s gone/We need a multilateral disarm.” on “We’ve Got The.”)

Nevertheless, I think the new Beasties project is a success, redeemed by (1) the catchy mid-eighties beats and samples (Check out “Rhyme the Rhyme Well”) and (2) the unleashing of the B’s perennial secret weapon, the King Ad Rock, who seems to be having more fun in the game than the other two guys by miles. (For example, “Yo, what the falafel/You gotta get up awful early to fool Mr. Furley“ on “Oh Word”, or when he channels a mean Smooth B on “Crawl Space.”) You already know by now if the Beasties are your bag, so if you want Licensed to Ill-era beats with Hello Nasty rhymes, To the 5 Boroughs is worth picking up. But, one word of warning from “3 the Hard Way”: “If you sell our CD’s on Canal before we make ’em, then we will have no alternative but to serve you on a platter like Steak-umm“) Hey, don’t say you didn’t know.

He just doesn’t get it.

“Never in the two and a quarter centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted.” A bipartisan group of 26 diplomats and military men call out Dubya Diplomacy for causing irreparable harm to the republic, and the statement is heady stuff. “The Bush Administration has shown that it does not grasp these circumstances of the new era, and is not able to rise to the responsibilities of world leadership in either style or substance. It is time for a change.“

Riddickulous.


(I know, that pun’s been made everywhere – still it applies.) I neglected to mention last update that I saw the truly terrible Chronicles of Riddick last Friday. Between this and the just ever so slightly worse Van Helsing, there seem to be some considerable quality control issues over at Universal Pictures these days.

Life’s too short to spend a lot of copy on this flick, so I’ll keep it brief. I generally like Vin Diesel, I thought Pitch Black was an enjoyable, low-key B-movie, and I liked the first 80 minutes or so of David Twohy’s submarine ghost movie Below. But The Chronicles of Riddick doesn’t make a lick of sense…it’s just a lot of glamour poses and wrestling moves. The only thing that stands out is the goofy, over-the-top art direction, which comes off as a pastiche of David Lynch’s Dune, the Joel Schumacher Batman movies, and the video to Duran Duran’s “Union of the Snake.” There’s a long, drawn-out, and unnecessary sequence in the middle of the film where Riddick and his motley band of Road Warrior castoffs are trying to outrun the fatal sunrise of the planet Crematoria, and, frankly, I haven’t seen something so nonsensical in a movie since Keanu Reeves outraced an atomic blast wave in Chain Reaction. (Ok, I never saw Chain Reaction, but you get the point.) Simply put, this film is embarrassing to all involved and will probably give I, Robot and The Stepford Wives a serious run for their money as the worst science fiction film of 2004.

Beasts of the East.

In a surprisingly commanding performance, the Pistons blow out LA in Game 5 to take their first championship in 14 years (and the first Eastern Conference win since MJ’s last Chicago run in 1998.) As for the star-studded, star-crossed Lakers, the future looks grim. I just hope Gary Payton gets rejuvenated on some other team, and that Kobe doesn’t end up with the Knicks as rumored…They’re my team and all, but I’d have a hard time rooting for New York with the selfish, vainglorious Bryant as their cornerstone.

Mars, Inc.

A White House Commission on NASA will recommend increased privatization as part of the space agency’s upcoming redesign. At first glance, this sounds like Dubya kicking more money back to his favorite companies. That being said, my lefty-leaning friends who work in the aerospace industry have told me that NASA’s current culture is far too risk-averse and bureaucratic to ever be very efficient, and that privatization may be the only way to make continued space exploration feasible. If so, I guess I’m for it.

All Over You.

“You are able to take an idea and give it form: the idea that Harlem has hands, feet are flaming, lips are cracked and country, hail hammers and skies crack poems.” In a burst of NY Times Dylanania, Jonathan Lethem reviews Dylan’s Vision of Sin, the new tome of poetry criticism by acclaimed Oxford Professor Christopher Ricks, while Lucinda Williams pays her own respects to Robert Zimmerman. And, elsewhere in the music-themed Book Review this week, Time politico and Primary Colors author Joe Klein proclaims his fondness for Wilco.