News

The Carcharodon Megalodon Is Being Saved for the Oncoming Animal Assault

Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, June 10th, 2010 8:15 pm

Months ago a trainer named Dawn Brancheau was murdered by, of all things, a killer whale. We casually abduct animals, tear them from their natural environment, place them in captivity, feed them minnows and then force them to do black flips and balance beach balls while we do the wave and eat cotton candy. Coincidentally, they’re filled will murderous rage and we’re shocked by it.

Scientists insist these are random acts brought on by stress. I don’t know. I just saw The Cove for the first time, and I’m rather convinced the animals know what we’re up to. MORE »

Beauty Bias Effects BP Oil Spill, Barbara Boxer, Every Office Ever

Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, June 10th, 2010 4:45 pm

In the latest edition of Newsweek, which I suppose could be the last edition of Newsweek, Dahlia Lithwick, the magazine’s Justice correspondent, commented on the American beauty bias, which she deemed a pervasive force in our country “compounded by a virtually unregulated beauty and diet industry and soaring rates of elective cosmetic surgery.”

After admitting she’d like to stuff croissants down the throat of a too-thin Sarah Jessica Parker — perhaps peanut butter would have been a better choice for fat intake, as croissants are amazingly unhealthy — she proceeds to detail the broad points of Stanford Law professor Deborah Rhode’s book, The Beauty Bias.

Rhode and Lithwick agree that the beauty bias, an inclination derived from the inherent human trait causing us to embrace physically attractive people and shun the uglies, is unfair, economically disruptive and immoral. Rhode believes “uglism” is a discrimination issue on par with racism, sexism or agism. As such she insists it be legally banned like its aforementioned cousins. This is crazy. But, considering recent events, I see the point. MORE »

Don’t Play With Tar Balls (Or Should You?)

Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 7:00 pm

When a waiter tells me that my plate is hot and I shouldn’t touch it, I immediately scoff at the warning, and proceed to find out for myself that the plate is very hot. Yea, it’s pretty stupid, but you can’t tell a man to not do something that seems relatively harmless and expect them to listen.

Now the government is trying to tell us that we can’t play with the tarballs that are popping up along the Florida panhandle. Come on guys! MORE »

5 Up and Comers to Check Out at Lollapalooza 2010

Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 3:00 pm

The Lollapalooza 2010 lineup has been announced, and although it’s flooded with gigantic acts like Green Day (who Perry Farrell didn’t want on the 1994 Lollapalooza because he thought they were “put together” by Warner Bros), The Strokes, and Lady Gaga, as well as indie mainstays Phoenix, Grizzly Bear, and The National, let’s not forget the little guys, shall we? Here are 5 Up and Comers worth checking out, granted you can get up early enough to see them. MORE »

Girl-Repellent Gadgets - Actual Answers From Actual Girls

Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 2:00 pm

It’s Internet Week, and the Internet is the dominion of total nerds. Technology news and review sites, such as Gizmodo, TechCrunch and Mashable are some of the highest-trafficked websites in the world.

I often wonder how guys in the digital space go about impressing girls. Something tells me “Hey, my post on this new limited edition Darth Maul lightsaber got 75,000 views today,” doesn’t quite get the panties dropping like writing, say, “Baby I’m Amazed” for your girlfriend. (Paul McCartney has had tons of sex, by the way.)

Rather than sending .mp3s of obscure bands to a girl you’re trying to impress, or, in the finance world, whipping out your black card to pay for the Paupiette of Black Cod at Le Cirque, tech guys have to rely on impressing girls with what they know best: gadgets. This is a double-edged edged sword, as I found out from conversation with a few female friends. There are some gadgets out there that repel women as powerfully as sweater vests. Here they are, in no particular order: MORE »

10 of The Most Racist Bands Touring America?

Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 2:31 pm

Zach de la Rocha and Kanye West are rounding up artists to circumvent the state of Arizona while routing their summer tours and now Belinda Carlisle of Go-Gos fame has had the Lilith Fair Arizona date be cancelled. The artist ban on Arizona is in protest of the controversial SB-1070 law, which empowers police to profile denizens of Arizona in an effort to root out illegal immigrants.

The controversial law, often referred to as the “Papers Please” law, is viewed by lefties and artists as tyrannical and oppressive. Artists that have honored the activist call include Conor Oberst, Rage Against the Machine, Rise Against, Cypress Hill, Joe Satriani (!), Sonic Youth, Tenacious D, and Michael Moore.

But what should we make of the artists who haven’t? Touring artists will continue to make their way through Arizona this summer. Do they view West and de la Rocha’s activism as overwrought, ambitious and publicity hungry? Do they not care? Are they letting capitalism trump morality (Phoenix is a “top-tier” market, after all)? Or are they perhaps a little bit racist? Here’s a smattering of artists still hitting The Grand Canyon State: MORE »

Political Theater, Melodrama, and the BP Investigation

Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 12:45 pm

By the time Barack Obama was sworn in in January 2009, he had already introduced several initiatives that would define his presidency, namely the public healthcare option, the shuttering of Guantanamo Bay, and an economic stimulus package powerful enough to galvanize our wilting economy. MORE »

Summer of Death 2010 Edition

Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 3:00 pm

On the heels of the Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper deaths last week, The Awl, our greatest culture blog, is contemplating reprising the “Summer of Death” in 2010 lest another media company snatch it up as their, um, IP.

Though the “Summer of Death” became shorthand to describe the throngs of celebrity deaths that occurred last summer, The Awl was the media outlet to “bestow its appellation.”

The Hopper death, as an American, is particularly wrenching, existentially. There’s no new America to be discovered. There are no Easy Riders out there waiting to be made. All we get are documentaries covering the evils wrought by our corporations or our food industry. I get the whole “Americans are citizens of the world” thing, but whenever Vice produce documentaries about bands touring other countries the results are non-magical and boring. Hopper’s death should make us contemplate the people who have had a lasting impact on our culture. And when they might be dying. MORE »

Coco Rising

Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 10:50 am

We’re going to get a little treat prior to Conan O’Brien’s new show launching this Fall on TBS: A one-hour special, scheduled to air June 27. This means we’ll get to see Andy Richter in action.

The special will supposedly give fans a sneak peek at what to expect from the show: new skits, characters, and the like. Fandom for O’Brien is feverish, so any disappointments will be voiced loudly across the Internet, though it’s probably safe to expect a slew of YouTube clips popping up in real time instead.

TBS presents an annual special called the “Very Funny Festival: Just for Laughs.” At this years’s festival, O’Brien will film a rehash of “Team Coco Presents Conan’s Writers Live,” which was first performed in L.A., for the June 27th special. Also appearing at the festival is Cedric the Entertainer, who is very funny, and Ellen DeGeneres, who is a lesbian.

ExtensionFM Will Revolutionize Your Music Habit

Stephen Blackwell :: Friday, May 28th, 2010 11:30 am

Listening to god-awful indie music on websites is a habit shared by many, many people. ExtensionFM, a plugin for Google’s Chrome browser available for download, has just made it easier.

The plugin is a simple indexer. It sucks in the .mp3s that populate the free-music sites across the Internet that you might visit. If there are twenty songs on a free-music site that might be worth listening to, you no longer have to stay on the site and click around, as ExtensionFM captures all of their offerings and organizes them in a easy-to-navigate tab in your browser. You can listen to the music whenever you’d like. So you can spend two seconds on a site, as opposed to two minutes, more or less eliminating the need for editorial, which is a possibly spooky implication of such a plugin.

So far I’ve downloaded 93 songs from across the Internet and most of them suck (you ever notice there is no qualitative difference between a Wavves demo and an actual release?), but organizing the suck is an elegant and addictive process. Though I am sure that’s not how they’d like their product to be perceived.

Gross-Out Department - Paramore Singer Nude

Stephen Blackwell :: Friday, May 28th, 2010 10:30 am

Here’s a pic fresh from the totally gross department: Haley Williams, lead singer of Twilight-oriented emo band Paramore, tweeted a nude picture of herself. She’s trying to sex it up for the camera — lips pursed, chin to the clavicle — but she looks like a swarthy little beast in this picture. What is that, a maroon tube top? Her mother mustn’t be proud. Click here if you want to see her in all her glory. Not that I would recommend it.

Artist Boycott of Arizona Begins

Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, May 27th, 2010 6:15 pm

Arizona is the closest thing we’ve got to the Antebellum South. Is anyone shocked Zach de la Rocha is pissed?

The Arizona government-approved SB-1070, known as the “Papers Please” law, was designed to track down illegal immigrants and send them back to Mexico, at which time they’ll immediately begin sneaking back into the United States. MORE »

Willie Nelson Joins Haircut Wars

Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, May 27th, 2010 12:30 pm

Pot enthusiast and Maui resident Willie Nelson has joined the haircut wars, shearing off his signature braids in favor of an out-there grandpa look. He still looks look cool, but I’m not sure he can rock the bandana wrap anymore, which is a shame — I assume that’s where he stuck his tabs of LSD. MORE »

Pabst Brewing Sold - The $250M Heist

Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 3:00 pm

Pabst Brewing Company has sold for 250 Million dollars, which is amazing for a variety of reasons. First, the company doesn’t actually brew anything—they outsource production to a bunch of other manufacturers. Second, of the beverage brands Pabst Brewing Company owns, only a few of them are actually beers—most of them, like Schlitz and Colt 45, are actually malt liquors, which means they were never “brewed” at all. But that’s just the beginning. MORE »

Top Kill - Coming to a Theater Near You

Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 12:05 pm

British Petroleum — let’s just all start calling it that again — and their efforts to stanch the oil flow gushing into the Gulf of Mexico have devolved into pure comedy. A top kill? What’s next, a super death shot? This company is as ridiculous as its ignominious record. Though I must admit, “Top Kill” is a fantastic name for an action film. It’s not oil I’m smelling — it’s a franchise. MORE »