Jake Gets Photoshop; Next Up On The Writing Block

When Alice in Chains, one of the most successful rock bands of the 1990′s, lost their frontman in a drug-related suicide, they thought their days as monsters of rock were over! However, friend and 1993 Cy Young Award-winner Jack McDowell  disagreed. McDowell made some calls, and before you could snuff the rooster, a new frontman was recruited; one with nearly 3,000 hits and 400 home runs over the course of a lengthy career as a major-league baseball player. Huzzah!

Coming soon, the heart-warming story of a band of rockers looking to recapture its past glory coupled with the incorporation of a Chicago White Sox legend. Ladies and Gentlemen…

TCV Announce Record Release Date, Living Finally Worthwhile

Them Crooked Vultures’ eponymous, self-produced debut album will be released on November 17th. Not surprisingly, the QOTSA-esque “New Fang” has been announced as the first single.

Serious Business At ABC News

Yes, ABC News actually ran the following story:

“The Fugz Hall of Fame: When Ick Men Happen To Hot Women”

However, the real gold is in the comments:

“These men are so strong in character. That is so sexy and a turn on. Women are not always looking for good looking men.” Totally agree. I’m no looker, not rich in money terms. But throughout my life I have been blessed (and continually surprised) by the succession of HOT ladies that want me as theirs. I finally came to the conclusion it is because of the breadth of my character. I am great with kids (mainly because I treat them each as a person not as a little human, regardless of age), a great and adventurous cook, amateur percussionist who benefited from music scholarship at university (marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade), seasoned traveler (lived in Japan, Turkey, Scotland, Panama, Korea, Greece, Vietnam, Thailand, Alaska, Florida, Ohio, Texas, NY (upstate; traveled or worked in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Philippines, Antigua, Puerto Rico, Canado, Mexico, Hawaii), teach firearms safety and marksmanship, speak and teach Chinese Mandarin; speak, French, German, Greek, Turkish; studying Spanish; shoot (aper targets) competitively out to 1000 yards; have logged more than 250 combat missions; flown in more than ten different types of historic multi-engine aircraft (Ford Tri-Motor, DC-3, RAF Shackleton, Lockheed USNavy EP3, C130 Hercules, DeHavilland Comet, and many more) portray a WW2 Scottish soldier as a re-enactor; reload my own ammunition; write techinical documents for software companies professionally; design websites and online help programs; am a 100+ unit blood donor; read everything; have a sharp, subtle, and incisive sense of humor; dress conservatively yet with class. I am totally amazed that the sexiest and most attractive females have flung themselves at me since I was in 7th grade, and continue to do so. It works! – Apricots21 10:53 PM

Book Review

The reason John Ortved’s just-published book, The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, is so effective lies with John Ortved’s apparent self-awareness—John Ortved appears to be fully aware that, practically speaking, no one cares about John Ortved. Rather than a series of fawning deconstructions on what drew the author to his subject, An Unauthorized History consists mainly of interviews with Conan O’Brien, Hank Azaria, and a plethora of names easily recognizable from The Simpsons‘ credits. The result is an overstuffed oral history from as close to the source as one can get when the source is a family of cartoon characters.

Continue reading…

Cleveland Show Apparently Reaching Weird Niche Demographic

On the Hulu streaming broadcast of the latest episode of FOX’s Family Guy-spinoff, The Cleveland Show, the second advertisement was for the DVD of the film Jumper.

This is weird, as Jumper came out almost two years ago and was released on DVD on June 10, 2008.

Who is the demographic to whom FOX believes they need to advertise a moderately obscure film that has been available to the public for more than a year? I am flummoxed.

Hayden Christensen, sans Darth Vader costume for some reason.

Text Message Exchange During Phillies-Dodgers NLCS Game 3; Sunday 10/18/09

Unnamed Friend (9:50pm): Andre Ethier looks a lot like [[Local pot dealer]].

Jake Rake (9:53): Probably has better weed though.

Unnamed Friend (9:55): Maybe’s he’s Manny’s hookup.

Jake Rake (9:56): The Dodgers have to smoke the most weed of any team in baseball. Maybe the Brewers.

Unnamed Friend (9:58): Is Royce Clayton still playing? If so, I bet it’s his team.

Unnamed Friend (10:02): Also, don’t forget the Lincecum-Fred Lewis-Travis Ishikawa trio.

Jake Rake (10:04): Yeah, that’s a good one. Burnett/Sabathia probably makes for a nice tandem too.

Unnamed Friend (10:07): If I were a Major League baseball player I’d get so fucking high.

Jake Rake (10:09): Obviously.

Them Crooked Vultures Do New York

It is a rare occasion that anything lives up to massive hype – Alex Rodriguez, iPhone, Inglourious Basterds, Lebron James and Artichoke Pizza among them, but you can now add to that list the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. Thoughts following Thursday night’s set at the Roseland Ballroom in New York:

1.)   Josh Homme is the greatest frontman of the current generation (Eat your heart out, Wes Scantlin), and because of this, Them Crooked Vultures bears more influence from Queens of the Stone Age than any of the other bands in its rockin’ pedigree. Homme appears along with his wingman, Queens guitarist Alain Johannes, and the two of them have a chemistry that makes Mr. & Mrs. Obama look like Mr. & Mrs. Clinton.

2.)   Good for John Paul Jones, who not only keeps up with a band of dudes who grew up listening to his music, but is an active participant in creating music with them that is more cutting edge than just about anything produced in the past couple of years that doesn’t involve people named “Yorke,” “Greenwood” or “Rodriguez-Lopez.”

3.)   Dave Grohl is, first and foremost, a drummer and the heir apparent to John Bonham as the hardest-hitting dude in rock. The fact that he fronts his own band that is perfectly average at worst is the equivalent of a star shortstop strapping on a pair of skates and being a league-average hockey player.

4.)   Them Crooked Vultures works where other supergroups fail (Velvet Revolver, I’m looking your way) because TCV is better than the sum of its parts. Where as Audioslave was Rage Against the Machine with a different singer and the Traveling Wilbury’s were a bunch of frontmen standing next to each other with their guitars and microphones, TCV consists of one frontman, one talented but reserved perennial second fiddle and a drummer who is perfectly aware of his role as the badass backbone of the operation.

5.) The instrumentation throughout the show was a bit offputting. I’m pretty sure that during one song both Jones and Johannes were playing bass and during another, a keytar made an appearance. The keytar is obviously awesome, but the song they used it for was a bit too weird, with Homme putting down his guitar and prancing around the stage like Patrick Bateman getting ready to kill Paul Allen with an ax.

6.) No Encore = Amazing. I’m tired of the drill.

Al Qaeda Video Taking Forever To Buffer

Afhani women flashing some wrist.

From a magazine called Foreign Policy via the desk of Adam Rosen (now available bearded) comes word that Central Asia’s favorite band of oppressive, misogynistic Anti-Semitic rapscallions, The Taliban, have finally launched its own YouTube Channel, giving the word its first taste of what viral video would have looked like in the year 932.

The only working video posted on the channel thus far is a beautiful montage of the barren lifeless Central Asian landscape that for whatever reason people have been fighting over for thousands of years, accompanied by a sample of the beautiful atonal cacophony that is Middle Eastern music.

Cheers to the Taliban for embracing social media at a time in which the United States Military is contemplating a ban on it.

List of Fictional Willies

• Groundskeeper Willie – Proud Scotsman and noble custodian of Springfield Elementary (The Simpsons).
• Tollbooth Willie — Hapless tollbooth attendant in or near Worcester, Massachusetts (Adam Sandler’s 1993 comedy album, They’re All Gonna Laugh At You!)
• Willie Mays Hayes — Cleveland Indians’ center fielder, played interchangeably by Wesley Snipes and Omar Epps (Major League; Major League II).
• Willy Loman – Suicidal titular salesman, tragic hero (Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman).
• Willie Beamen — Sxith-round draft pick turned starting quarterback, Miami Sharks (Jamie Foxx, Any Given Sunday).
• Willie the Pimp — Khaki-clad titular whoremonger of song (Frank Zappa, Hot Rats).
• Willy Wonka — Eccentric candy mogul (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory).

For some real-life Willie action, check out District Eats.

Harlem Coffee Shop No Joke

W. 167th St. btw. Amsterdam and Audubon

Black Guys, Eight Teams

Why did I compiled this list?

* = played in 2009.

How To Create A Thomas Pridgen

Check out this video, another treasure contributed from the Ted Berg web-scouring enterprise.

BONUS: YouTube user Beastboy8711 is unimpressed, expressing his opinion that the child’s performance is somehow tainted for having practiced the song in advance of performing it:

“well if you practice hard everyday then i guess anyone can do anything like it’s showed here. cause i really don’t think that’s the first time he played this song.”

“I can do that, I just don’t want to.” – Bart Simpson

Tim Lincecum = Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner

Despite looking like a couple of teenage douchebags, these two have combined to spend more time inside women than your entire family tree.

Closest rockstar-baseball player lookalikes since the ol’ Tom Morello-Raul Ibanez tandem?