Now, I'm still trepidacious about who's driving, I'm willing to pay for gas, but driving in Boston freaks me out. Any city kinda bugs me out, plus I don't trust my car. We'll have to play it by ear. But this is gonna be badass. Gamez, port... is there any good pizza in Boston, Stone? And yeah, SNL is the best it's been in years. Last night they had a talk show featuring only '80s movie villians. It was rad.
Check this shit out...
Hey y'all, just letting everyone Jocie's throwing a party celebrating the end of the Bush Administration. Honestly I don't really care one way or the other. I'm no fan of Bush or anything he has done at all during his reign, but I don't think the world is going to turn into sunshine and lollypops the second Obama takes office. If any of you can make it I would appreciate it heaps. I realize it's a schlep up here to Cromwell, but I'm just terrified with all of Jocelyn's hippie friends that this is going to turn into some Marxist blowjob festival. So come on down Saturday the 17th, around 7:30.
Now this is truly a topic for thought. As a fan of modern music, I can really only take the last five decades of the twentieth century into account. The first five decades were pretty boring with a bunch of boring grandpas doing the Charleston to music that sounded like it was coming out of a tin can. Then there's this decade, but you truly need to have the whole decade behind you to look at it in retrospect. So here's my thoughts on the pop relevance of each decade.
The 50's - The decade that birthed rock 'n' roll, the bastard love child of previous popular musics of it's time. It's basically what happened when a bunch of country-western playing crackers heard some black bluesmen playing and said "We can do that." This decade produced such notables as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Sun Recording Artists (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Weylan Jennings), and gave us the first pop radio sensation in "The Twist".
The 60's - A tumultuous decade that, much like the 20's Jazz Age, seemed to be shaped just as much by the music as it was the political climate. We start to see a return to older musics, in some cases hundreds of years, in the folk music movement. This fad introduces us to Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Of course leave us not forget the Beatles. Honestly I think they're incredibly overrated, but the court of public opinion says there the greatest creation that man has ever beheld, so I guess that's something. Then there's the Rolling Stones. While I don't think the Beatles should be canonized, I have to give them credit for branching out, and pioneering new sounds. The Rolling Stones pretty much stuck to one formula, but churned out great music using that one formula. It's a classic argument; which is better, dynamism or stasis?
On the West Coast of the United States you had the psychedelic scene which gave us Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, and the Mamas and the Papas.
There are also some R&B greats to come out of this era. The most important, without a doubt would be the founding of Motown Records. A hit machine, they churned out The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the Jackson Five amongst others. Phil Spector perfects his "Wall of Sound" formula on countless girl groups. Ike and Tina Turner make their debut.
This decade gives us some great guitar heroes as well. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, all incredible guitarists who surfaced in the 60's.
The 70's - I have to say that I'm on board with Stone on this one, this is my personal favorite decade, but is it the best? The 70's was a strange decade for the country. We were for the most part jaded and hung over from the party that was the 60's. Hope of radical revolution just sort of extinguished. We lost the values but we kept the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. This decade was perhaps best known for the hard rock bands that dominated the airwaves. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Allman Brothers, David Bowie, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Lynard Skynard, Aerosmith, The Eagles... I could go on all day. The 70's also saw the birth of Heavy Metal with Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, Van Halen, Motorhead... the pioneers of this outrageous genre all started here.
There's also Disco, which while shitty, did lay out the rudiments of Hip Hop, and was an interesting experiment. Disco's dark mirror image would have to be Punk. If Disco was a shitty music that laid the groundwork for great music, then Punk was an equally short-lived music form that was interesting but laid the groundwork for a lot of crap that would follow it. Seriously, while the Sex Pistols are great, I'd rather chop off my own ding dong than listen to Blink-182.
The 80's - Honestly Mikey... The 80's had a lot of good stuff? I'll give you Hip Hop, Prince and Michael Jackson... But other than that this decade was pretty much just background music for gay dudes to snort coke off of each others cocks to, hollow music for hollow people. Even great artists from previous decades did their worst work in the 80's. There were a lot of pretty cool rock acts in the Metal scene... Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue just to name a few, but 90% of the Metal produced in the 80's was terrible as well.
The 90's - The 90's kinda makes me giggle these days. As a knee-jerk response to the "me decade", everyone felt it was really important to take up a cause, and be an activist for something. But no one stopped to think that these causes were just as shallow as the decade they were trying to escape from. Honestly, which cause are you more likely to take up and protest for, The spotted owl not having a place to nest, or not having your ass shipped off against your will to some third world hell-hole and shot by native people who don't want you there?
This decade was a bunch of whiners with nothing to whine about, and it was reflected in the music. Who amongst us can forget Eddie Vedder scrawling "pro choice" on his arm in Sharpie marker during Pearl Jam Unplugged. Way to stand up for a Supreme Court decision that has no chance of being overturned without decades of red tape, that's sticking it to the Man. Or how about Kurt Kobain who's rock star lifestyle was so bad that he had to complain about it on songs like "Serve the Servants" and eventually made him blow his head off. Most people call the music in the early part of the 90's "The Grunge Movement". I prefer to call it Complaint Rock. These songs were just dark and depressing for the sake of being dark and depressing, all under the pretentious air of being socially responsible and politically correct. Gag me.
Now Hip Hop on the other hand went in the exact opposite direction. With the rise to popularity of West Coast Rap, most notably Death Row Records stable of artists (Tupac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, et al.), artists were rapping about themselves, and what they could gain at any costs. While I don't condone that world view, I can respect the fact that they knew who they were, and they were honest about it.
The industrial music scene had some interesting moments as well. Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, while these guys were a bunch of nihilists, at least they weren't pretending to care about something.
The decade closed in a surge of Nu Metal, and Rap/Rock that I feel is best typified by the actions of the fans of this music at Woodstock '99: a bunch of drunken fratboy cave men beating each other up and lighting shit on fire.
The Nineties can best be summed up by a line from what I feel is the ultimate '90's movie: Fight Club. "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives." That's a good summation of the '90's in my opinion.
I went into this rant thinking I was gonna declare the 70's the greatest decade for music ever, but as I was writing this and looking at each decade, I changed my mind. I gotta go with the 60's. I think it had the most going on socially and politically, which led to the most going musically. The 50's were "meh..". The 70's were fun. The 80's were lame. The 90's just make me mad now that I stop to think about it. Make mine the 60's.
Man, this sucks. I recently got all hooked on the Saw movies while staying up late one evening. I was so super jazzed about the next one. I went to see it this evening, and it feels like someone took steaming dump on my lap. These movies have survived as a franchise for so long because of three things: Clever traps, characters you care about, and a twist at the end of every movie that M. Night Shyamalan couldn't see coming. This had none of the above.
The Traps: Though still horrible and brutal, a jigsaw trap is usually meticulously thought out, and usually requires swift thinking and keen problem solving skills. The traps were overly simplistic and had the characters taken 2 minutes to ponder the rules given to them, they would have realized HOW they were supposed to be solved.
The Characters: The characters in the main trap are practically of tertiary importance in the story, a huge mistake in my opinion. They practically exist in the story to justify the violent traps. At least they're utterly reprehensible and I got to smile when they all died. It mainly just centers on the new Jigsaw and the FBI agent chasing him. First there is only ONE Jigsaw, accept no substitutes. Secondly, the FBI agent is dull as dishwater and is a lame, anemic version of Danny Glover's badass obsessed detective from the first Saw. And they kept the most IRRITATING of traditions in Saw films by throwing in a scene that has no explanation in the movie and only exists to set up another sequel. They still haven't answered story breadcrumbs from 3 movies ago!
The Twist: My favorite part of any Saw movie. This movie had NO twist. Not one that I can discern. Not to ruin the "twist" but the new Jigsaw frames the FBI agent for his crimes. That's not a Saw twist... That's a twist on a mid season episode of Dexter. Geh...
So if you don't like the saw movies stay far away from this one, if you do... wait till dvd.
I don't know, at most I can wrangle Monday or Wednesday... It's gonna be tricky.
I was talking to Mikey and he said he wants to go for a level 7 or 8... which is fine by me. That's where it's most fun in my opinion. Your not so weak that fighting a kobold with a pet boar is an epic adventure, but you aren't capable of walking up to a dracoliche and killing him by kicking him in the nuts. I don't know... I might play as Reinhardt Von Billstein, son of my second favorite D&D character. Might make something from Oriental Adventures also... I dunno... there was so much cool crap in D&D I never got to play as.
And I second that bottle of port...
Yeah... good idea about the characters. If anyone needs a copy of the DnD 3rd ed rule book let me know, I think I have 2 or 3 floating around. What level are we going to be? And don't make me have to hunt you down like a dog for my dice Devs...
Ok guys, so I've been thinking about the logistics of game night. I need to know what night is best for everyone. According to the Facebook site, Mike's gonna be in town from an indeterminate time on Sunday, to an indeterminate time on Friday. That eliminates the ability to game on a Saturday, Sunday's probably a washout too unless Mike is getting here on a red-eye. Tuesdays are best for me and Spo. I may be able to finagle another day, i don't know. So what do you guys think?
Another question is where? I'm perfectly willing to offer up the Filth Home, but it's up here in Cromwell, which is a bit of a hike from Branford. We could do the Filth Hole... but that can only be used on a Tuesday, the parents get on my ass when my work schedule varies even a little. Anybody else know of any large spaces we can be loud and obnoxious in?
Anyway... anyone who's in, get back to me.
You mean that the "In the Deathly Hallows" movie is supposed to focus solely on Dobby? Yea, I'd be pretty pissed about that too...