gremmie.net

In the dawn of days God created the earth, and he saw that it was good. More recently God created the iMac G5, and marveled at its glory - and it was good.

For those of you who still think the PC is boss, let me introduce you to the new iMac G5. What does G5 stand for? Fuck if I know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it stands for ‘Super Awesome’. The picture below speaks more than I could eloquently convey through any manner of diction. Just so its clear though, in the picture below - that’s the ENTIRE machine. The CDROM and DVD media goes into a slot-loading drive on the right and the computer is essentially behind the monitor. Maybe Buckaroo Bonzai isn’t too far off.

“Then your aphasia strikes a bargain with the barter yardie. I got to box her for the money.”

Lyrics of this caliber don’t get written anymore. The new age bullshit like Yellowcard and The Strokes simply do not possess the introspective depth to match a quiet juggernaut like Mike Doughty. Most of you gremmies know Mike Doughty - or just plain Doughty - as the former frontman of the hipster group ‘Soul Coughing’ whose early 90’s hits Super Bon Bon and Circles are gathered popular steam and airplay.

Like most avant garde bands, Soul Coughing’s brief attachment to fame made their few popular hits a poster board for all they were in the public eye. The above lyric is from a song called ‘St. Louise is Listening’, a tune off their last release ‘El Oso’ which is Spanish for ‘The Oso’. And like most avant garde bands who managed a hit or two, the best music is a little deeper than the 3 minutes radio clips the teenage girls go GA-GA for. I mean come on, is Pearl Jam really just ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Evenflow’? This gremmie says no. But alas, this post is not about Pearl Jam, nor is it about Soul Coughing.

This gremmie recommends Doughty. His old school New York lyrical stylings coalesced with his deep, heavy voice make him a subject difficult to pass up. He has put out a handful of EP’s since the late 1990’s including Skittish, which was recorded in a single day with just one guitar and a voice and whose tracklist includes an acoustic cover of Mary J. Blige’s “Real Love”, Smofe + Smang, a live disc released before the live disc craze took effect, and his latest, entitled Rockity Roll which is a 6 track marvel that creates as many new sounds as it emulates.

Shortly, the media section will be up. Once it is, I’m going to begin posting songs from the laundry list of bands I’ve been recommending these past few weeks. And if you have begun to wonder why I have been consistently giving reviews 4 or 5 gremmies out of 5, the reason is this - I can review what I want. That being the case, I have chosen so far only to review things that I find very interesting and of distinct merit. For good measure, perhaps I’ll review Alien vs. Predator or some other warm shit heap just to balance things out.

As has been the case thus far, I will continue with stories from my college days as most of you gremmies can best associate with them.

I am ashamed to say that it was a Friday night. It was spring time in Albany and the weather, while not exactly friendly and warm, wasn’t exactly bitter and cold. It was the kind of night where you open your windows just enough to let the chilled air in. Rob Banas had just recently acquired a host of Lazertag gear because that was the kind of thing Rob Banas did. As it turns out, Rob Banas also enjoyed sex with pigmy goats, probably still does. Since more people in my cadre of friends stayed in on friday nights than went out, we all decided to do a little of both; go out, but stay on campus and play Lazertag. There was a small forest on the outskirts of the campus that consisted of a huge mound of dirt, a foul man-made lake, and endless dead shrubs and trees. This was to be our locale for the game we had decided to play to occupy our night. Lazertag. The cast was Matt M - “King”, Matt A - “Goof”, Brandon Martin - “Only Say Enough to Sound Intelligent”, Rob Banas - “I (heart) Pigmy Goats”, Dave Berkowitz, Steve Miller - “Funny as HELL”, Chris Anderson - “I like when people shit in my chimney”, and possibly Dave Dowd though I cannot confirm that.

The teams were divided as to make them fair. And since there was a preponderance of lethargy in our midst, it was rather difficult. The list of guns was interesting and I’m fairly sure that Chris Anderson brown nosed his way into buying more gear either earlier that day or sometime thereafter; we had a couple of Lazertag rifles, some Lazertag grenades, light action vests, and a few Lazertag pistols. When I say Lazertag I don’t really mean in the traditional OLD SCHOOL style because this was a next-gen version of Lazertag whose name escapes me.

The games began. Several rounds had gone by between the two teams and I have to admit that I was having a good time playing. The stealth and strategy were vastly overshadowed by the limiting technology. For example, some of the guns essentially required you to stand up someone’s ass just to score a hit. Wow, that sounds gay. It was amusing though to hear people say things like, “Oh I SOOOOO got you.” only to be let down by the scope of their dinky lazer pistol.

After an hour or so Matt A and myself were paired together with the addition of Steve Miller - I think. Regardless it was essentially Matt A and I. Upon our turn to “hide” as it were we both took off for the Southern most point of the forest which was - conincidentally - was the closest point to our dorms. Matt A and I schemed that instead of wasting our time in this progessively boring game that would just forego it altogether, go back to the dorms, order pizza and play some Action Quake 2. And that’s just what we did. All the while the other guys were deep into playing, Matt A and I just walked away without a trace and all of them were nonethewiser.

Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it took the other guys over an hour and half to realize we were nowhere to be found and report back to the dorms. The funny thing was they didn’t seem too upset after being blatantly ditched by me and my cohort. I remember fondly Chris Anderson saying,”Oh we knew, we started playing like 10 minutes after you left.” But you could see it in his eyes that the whole lot of them were mad as shit and just didn’t want to admit it. Matt A and I both knew they had probably searched for about an hour and twenty minutes out of the hour and a half we were gone, the other ten minutes spent cursing us out in the brisk Albany night.

Looking back on it, it was a fucked up thing to do. Ditching a group of friends in the middle of the night during a game of Lazertag to go play Action Quake 2 and eat pizza. But with a little more thought, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Does anyone remember the tremendous loss the Jets suffered last year at the hands of the PRE-season Giants? If you’re a real Jets fans you just shivered from the chill sent rattling down your spine.

Chad Pennington was sent reeling from a broken wrist last year in a game that didn’t count. It was a tough blow to a team whose young Quarterback had not only showed promise the year before by replacing long time vet Vinny Testaverde, but one who was a great leader for a team that desperately needed one.

I have tickets to tonight’s preseason game against the Giants. 2 tickets. My good friend Harlan and I will be going to the stadium to enjoy overpriced beer, questionable hot dogs, and some good mother fucking football. I’m asking all you Gremmies to pray to the Gods of Football Injuries that they not impart their wraths upon the heads of ANY Jets players. The Giants however, they’re free game.

Did anyone watch the Daily Show last night? In a rare happenstance I caught the last 20 minutes of the Daily Show that included an interview with Democratic hopeful John Kerry. I still believe the show was better off with Craig Kilborn, but it’s difficult to argue it hasn’t gotten better with John Stewart. Regardless, gremmies are not political creatures - everyone reading this should know that. Opinions are one thing and zeal for a cause is another, but politics are for the indecisive.

So did anyone find Kerry trying too hard to be charismatic? One look at him and you know he has the personality of wet toast. During the 10 minute interview with John Stewart all I saw was one of those Heinz ketchup packets trying to squeeze its contents out through too small a tear.

There is a new name in Horror Comedy, the genre spawned by the likes of George Romero and Sam Raimi, that name is Shaun, Shaun of the Dead. Listen up Gremmies, this is one you don’t want to miss.

I can see the pitch to the corporate big-wigs now: “Ok so there’s this guy who’s kinda held back by his numbskull friend who plays Halo all day, he works at a Kinko’s in the UK as the assistant manager, and his girlfriend who thinks he’s a joke doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore and she’s hot, then suddenly the gates of hell open up and zombies begin walking the earth!!! Oh yeah then they all meet at a Pub. So, what do you think?” Mind numbiing isn’t it?

Shaun of the Dead is by and large the funniest movie I have seen all year. And I have seen some funny movies (Passion of the Christ anyone?)It’s a horror comedy set in the good old United Kingdom and it’s plot line is as simple as the mock pitch above. A guy named Shaun wakes up one day to find most of humanity has turned into zombies and he must survive. It’s the more subtle aspects of this movie that make it so hysterical. I’m not heaping praise here because I like to see zombies get bopped on the head with cricket bats; rather its the banter between the characters that makes this move go. To dive into all of the nuances of this movies’ humor would be an exercise in frenetic typing as there are far too many to mention. For those in the know, it’s reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. For those NOT in the know, go fuck yourselves - the movie is reminiscent of, well nothing. Go get some taste.

It isn’t often a movie is released that accomplishes what it set out to; Shaun of the Dead does. It makes little pretense about the plot and trying to explain the why’s and the how’s and focuses more on characters reactions and interactions. Kind of like a David Mamet plsy, only without Alec Baldwin saying, “Fuck you, THAT’S who I am.” Of course there’s plenty of action and some gore, but it becomes readily apparent in the first 20 minutes that this is a comedy pinnacle, one that calls on movies like Dawn of the Dead (the original) and Evil Dead 2 as its foundation. That’s it for now Gremmies. But look, do yourselves a favor, go download it. Or if you don’t mind waiting, it hits US theaters sometime in the next few months. But me, I don’t like waiting.

5 out of 5 Gremmies