Category Reviews

Gaylord Comes With A Bone Of His Own

The usual gang of suspects got together to watch Rifftrax Live: Christmas Shorts edition. To make things more festive, we dressed up…but more on that later. The JOURNEY is also important.

You see, I had to run an errand before meeting everyone at Shindig for the happiest hour of the day, so even though Emily kindly offered to come pick me up, I decided to take the bus so I could make a stop along the way. This was mistake number one.

After I ran my errand and waited and waited and waited at the bus stop, I was joined by a man in his late twenties/early thirties who seemed agitated when he asked if he could smoke in the bus shelter. I am not one to further provoke the agitated unless they REALLY deserve it, so I indicated I didn’t mind, and he sat down and started to smoke. Have you already guessed my second mistake? You are correct, oh clever friends, not bringing headphones to discourage conversation from strangers WOULD be my second mistake. He started to huff and kicked the inside of the shelter, and then told me that some kids had grabbed his laptop and run off the bus, and that he was so pissed, man, just so pissed off, man, he can’t believe how pissed off he is. He then proceeded to grab a 40 out of his pocket and chug it down, interspersed with ejaculations of “just so pissed, man, can’t believe it, what time does the bus come, so pissed off”. Out of his other pocket came a bag of pepperoni, and while he was stuffing these down his face, he again indicated that he was just so pissed off, man. Always Helpful Mellzah inquired if he’d filed a police report because then if the kids who stole it tried to pawn it, he could get it back, and no, Pepperoni Boy’s plan was to ride the bus line back and forth until he found these kids and beat the shit out of them. Yes, surely, this seems like a wise, rational plan.

When the bus FINALLY arrived, of course Pepperoni Boy chose to sit next to me, while continuing to stuff pepperoni in his face hole and surreptitiously swigging from his (another?) 40. I was enveloped in a greasy fog of spiced meats. Pepperoni Boy then asked if he could use my phone. Always Helpful Mellzah…hesitated. And went to hand it over. Pepperoni Boy realized his hands were greasy and instead asked if I could send a text message to someone, the message body consisting of “Never mind, he doesn’t have it anymore.” When I inquired as to who the message was from, it was answered with “They’ll know*.” To me, that read as vaguely ominious and I did not like it one bit. Furthermore, who are these people that they just expect calls and texts from random phone numbers and magically know who it’s from?

Thirty seconds later, with no response to the text, Pepperoni Boy rubbed his hands on his jeans and asked if he could use the phone to call the recipient of the ominous message. Always Helpful Mellzah handed him the phone. After that display of human kindness, obviously Pepperoni Boy felt I was hot for his bones, and tried hitting on me, explaining that he normally is too shy to talk to girls but he’s just so pissed off that he can today. Oh boy Oberto!

When he FINALLY left and the air started to clear, I breathed a sigh of relief and rode in silence the rest of the way to Shindig, where our holiday festivities began.

Emily wrapped a tree skirt around Jim and he came decked out as the King of Christmas:

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Anne wore a festive holiday sweater with trivia questions on the back. The answers have been lost, so the answer key to any we did not know was changed to ‘your mom’. And to those we did know as well, let’s be honest, because I’m about twelve mentally and ‘your mom’ is always a funny answer to me.

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Emily wore her fab-u-lous holiday sweater with glowing lights and a tinsel moustache.

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I copped out and just wore my Santa hat, as full-regalia Santa On The Bus once was enough for me.

When we eventually made our way over to the theater, preshow we were treated to some Rifftrax trivia.

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This outing was a little less heavy on hoopla than the last one; the guys came out, wished everyone a merry christmas, happy festivus, great feast of cthulhu (YES! Increased penetration for my alternative holiday), and then got to business, riffing on creepy old christmas specials, incredibly homoerotic advertisements for children’s toys, and a segment on…swimming? Also, for as much as they advertised the inclusion of Weird Al, he only came out for one short and spoke maybe five lines, total. How about ‘Fleeting appearance by Weird Al’? Or ‘Blink And You’ll Miss Him–here comes Weird Al!’? Or ‘Even though he’s totally known for his music and you would expect him to sing or be more involved as our special guest, he’s really only here for five minutes and is mostly a name to sell tickets and will not be performing so let’s all welcome Weird Al!’? It’s like those DVDs that boast amazing special features and then when you crack it open and watch, you realize the only special feature included is the trailer and the knowledge that you’re a sucker for marketing.

*Apparently they did NOT know as I received a text back an hour later that read (I am not making this up) “Who dis?”. DELETE.

An Open Letter To Swollen Members

Dear Swollen Members,

I bought, not downloaded, your new album, ‘Armed to the Teeth’. I’ve given it several listen-throughs, and not half-assed listen-throughs while doing other things, but actual, concentrated listening, so believe me when I say I’ve given it a fair chance.

I hate it. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever done. It is an enormous step backward from ‘Black Magic’ in every sense.

Lyrically, the new album hurts me. Almost physically. What happened to the intellectualism? The D&D-playing bookworms? How do you go from this three years ago:

Asymmetrical trajectory as seen by Galileo Ride the horse color pale, reminiscent of Rembrandt Pyrokinesis, enjoy the taste of the kickback Red forbidden planet, amulets that conjure souls Doomed to float forever in the threshold of the crossroads

to

Last night I left the club with a pornstar, she gets around, but I like the way she go hard, yeah, left the club with a pornstar, love to get down, but I like the way she go hard.

You can get a pornstar, you can get a stripper, but I know the difference when it’s quicker on the zipper, she likes it a little thicker, she’s a nasty freak, my energizer bunny she could last for weeks, she can buy her own drinks, she can spin on them poles, she’s a real professional when she hops out them clothes…

I’m a real high rock, I’m a hip hop rock star, we on the block, throwing rocks at cop cars, getting my buzz on, drinking a rock star, my girl wild, ya she party like a rock star, yaaaa, party like a rock star, pound like a pornstar, lamboghini doors, 24’s on my form car, my crew all thugs and goons, we got war scars and everytime I leave the club I got 4 broads, maybe more broads cause we goes hard, busting nuts, popping shots and a ghost car. We getting high like the drace space coaster, come on show some pride and throw your fucking west coast up. ?

Gee, I like the way you rhymed ‘porn star’ with ‘rockstar’, in both its beverage AND personal iterations. And don’t forget ‘car’ with ‘car’ and ‘broads’ with ‘broads’, which is right on par with Evanescence rhyming ‘me’ with ‘me’, except Evanescence is a shitacular pop-rock-faux-goth-I’m-sooo-vewwy-vewwy-sad-all-the-time band and you guys are supposed to be RAPPERS. Rhyming is what you DO.

 

Were you going for a rap-metal sound with that song? For fuck’s sake, you might as well just give up and collaborate with Fred Durst and all of you can do it for the nookie and cookies and milk. And auto-tune? Really? Not only are you not Rihanna, but it’s about six years removed from sounding fresh. Yes, as artists, use the tools available. Please don’t abuse the tools available, and recognize that when you hop on a trend a decade after the fact, it reflects negatively on you.

Guys, this album hurts because it feels like a cash-grab. It’s so mainstream, and I don’t just mean you’ve turned your back on your signature style; it’s mainstream in the sense that it has embraced all of the negative things in rap culture–glorifying violence, drug use and greediness, demeaning women, advocating violence against gays and using expletives as placeholders. I fucking don’t have a fucking problem with fucking swearing but fuck, be fucking constructive with it, for fuck’s sake. You’re better than that. You’re also better than using the same shitty shit shit shit guitar riff in two separate tracks. (See? I can do it, too.) And if you’ve got to reach into the archives to grab a track you put on a b-side album to make this new one recognizable to fans or as filler, maybe you should’ve taken another year off and worked on some more material. I’ll still check out Beautiful Death Machine when it comes out next year, but my hopes aren’t high. If you wanted to lower the bar, this was a fantastic way to do it.

Stop making me sad.

Love,

Mellzah Dildarian

With a ‘stache this rad, the truth is gonna slip

On Saturday, Tristan & I went to see That 1 Guy on his ‘Mustaches and Laser Beams’ tour. Part of why I adore him is that it’s evident he just picks out some things he thinks are fun, like fake mustaches and playing with laser beams and doing card tricks, and incorporates all of them into his show–his attempts at breakdancing have now been replaced with a mustache-based quick-change show.

He also stopped in the middle of Weasel Potpie to talk to everyone about his biggest problem with the Star Wars prequels–not that they don’t have many problems, but one was glaringly bigger than the rest–so, in the third one, after Yoda is finished fighting alongside the Wookiee army that, y’know, we just found out about, he stops and says “It’s been an honor to fight beside you, King Chewbacca.” How, exactly, does he go from being king to Han Solo’s mechanic? HMM?

Yeah. You chew on that.

Since we both walked around in a bit of a eardrum-damage-induced haze the day after the Electric Six show, Tristan brought us fancy earplugs that still allow us to hear the music without being physically injured by the music, in the hopes that maybe neither one of us will be deaf by 40. The earplugs helped a LOT. It was novel to walk out of a show without my ears ringing, and for those of you who insist that earplugs are totally not punk rock, I will let you in on a secret: neither are hearing aids.

That 1 Guy had a performer who goes by the name Heatbox open for him, and through beatboxing and the help of some looping equipment, he put on a really entertaining show–I’d never heard anyone beatbox the tetris theme before. And when he came back onstage to jam with Mike in the encore, I’d never heard such a funky, rocking version of Hava Nagila before!

Any show that you walk into sans mustache and leave WITH a mustache, ladies and gentlemen, is a good show. Unless it’s a dirty sanchez. Fuck those kinds of shows.