A collection of really bad (but good) album covers

The Happening

This will be a short review because this movie simply sucks balls.

Plot? A bunch of natural chemicals from plants makes people crazy enough to snuff themselves, so a group of people try to figure out what's happening and decide to move away from where the "terrorist" plants are striking. The group is led by a science teacher, played by Mark Wahlberg.

Flat performances, dumb story and terrible characters. This is just one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Don't waste your time.

WORLD

World was a noisecore band from Osaka, Japan and consisted of:

Hiroshi Zen (aka Left): Vocals and Noise
Akira Kawabata (aka Right): Vocals
Tadahiko Aono (aka Center): Drums
Kaname Ohara (original drummer, plays on 1st 7” only)

World is a fast, totally fucked brutal noisecore band from Osaka that started out circa 1995-96. They are the classic blurrcore threepiece except they have no guitar. So, only a drummer and 2 vocalists, but enough to generate one of the craziest noise ever made. Sort of like Masonna with drums. All their noise is generated via a special microphone created by Hiroshi Zen.

Interesting note about World's titles, each song has 2 titles because the vocalists both named their songs distinctly. For example, "Burned Away by Yourself" is also called "I Hate this World." ???????

This is about as fucked and crazy is it gets. Good luck finding this shit. I was only able to track down the split 7" w/ Crippled Bastards in Osaka a few years ago. Just got the rest of their mp3's ripped from a friend. You may be able to find the CD compilation easier than trying to find their individual 7" records.

Less than 30 minutes of total recorded output in 4 years, and some of the best in their genre. As far as I know, this band now kaput.
However, I heard Akira is now performing as a one-man noise artist.

Discography:
1996: “Why Who What” 7” (S/Sided, Meaningless Sounds, MS #003)
1995-7: "Snarl Out Vol. 1" Compilation 7"(Slightly Fast Records)
1996: “Why Nobody Understand?”: World/Yesmeansyes Split 7” (NAT Records, NAT #004)
1998: "Space - Grind Osaka" 7" (M.C.R. Company)
1999: split with CRIPPLE BASTARDS 7" (Nat Records)
200?: "why deprive the world of World???" Digipack CD collection (Lofiordie Records)

CLASS OF 1984

I have recently had the opportunity to revisit this classic 1982 film by Mark E. Lester about a new music teacher (played by Perry King, star of Slaughterhouse Five) at a very troubled inner city school where things are in a constant state of chaos. Students carry guns, knives and have to pass through a metal detector due to problems with gangs, drugs, and violence. It stars Perry King as teacher Andrew Norris, Merrie Lynn Ross (who also co-executive produced) as his wife Diane Norris, Roddy McDowall as Terry Corrigan and Timothy Van Patten as Peter Stegman, the leader of the gang of thugs who terrorize the school. It was one of Michael J. Fox's early roles, before he was a well-established actor.

The movie portrays the punk look and image that was becoming part of popular culture in the early 1980s. The movie's theme song, "I Am the Future", was performed by Alice Cooper. The film also features a performance by Canadian punk band Teenage Head.

Andrew Norris, the music teacher who's recently relocated to this area with his pregnant wife Diane (Ross) after accepting a position at Lincoln High, a run down inner city school with the worst kind thugs, misfits, lowlifes and junkies.... pretty much like a prison. Soon as he arrives he meets another one of the faculty,who gives him a few pointers on how to survive. Soon, in a music class, he runs into a group of smart-ass punks starts giving him a hard time, led by a sarcastic manipulative creep named Peter Stegman (Van Patten). Stegman and his buddies pretty much control the school. The staff, particularly the principal, are not intervening because they know that the police will just let theses guys go because of lack of evidence. Not worth the effort, in other words. After a kid has a shitty trip from some junk he bought from Stegman and his crew, Andy pushes to get them charged to stand in court. In turn, he gets his car blown up with a Molotov cocktail later that night.

The violence continues to escalate when Stegman recruits a 14-year guy to perform an initiation stunt to get into the group by stabbing one of the students (played by Michael J. Fox), leaving him in the hospital with major injuries. Eventually, Andy snaps after one of the main girls in the gang hands him an envelope (right before he has to conduct a performance at the school) containing pictures of his wife being brutally assaulted and kidnapped. They lure him into the darkened halls of the school for a final, bloody confrontation. At this point, Andy turns into fucking Rambo ready for revenge on these punks.

I already mentioned Perry King, but all the main characters are very impressive actors. I like Timothy Van Patten, he was excellent in his role as Stegmen, not just a punk but very intelligent and talented. Just also happens to be a real manipulative psychotic, and whose only goal is to rule the school and make sure sure no one gets in his way of staying on top. McDowall also gives a good performance as the tired biology teacher who really wants to make a difference in shaping young people's minds, but has pretty much given up, having been beaten down by the lack of caring on the students' part resorting to the bottle for comfort.

The last twenty minutes or so are the best part of the movie and Andy kicks some serious ass! The methods that he uses to kill his victims are pretty creative. The scene in the shop and auto classrooms are my faves, the girl pretty much kills herself trying to kill Andy by crashing a car into the wall. The final confrontation between Stegman and Andy resulting in Stegmen's demise are pretty cool too and I'm gonna leave it at that because if I tell you everything, it'll just spoil it. The violence is scattered throughout the film, and it's done pretty well with most of it being in the last fifteen minutes or so. It's really satisfying to watch these pricks get the pain dished back out to them.

I'm so glad this is finally in a proper DVD version. Anchor Bay Entertainment released it and the picture, presented in widescreen (1.77:1) anamorphic, looks very sharp and clean. As far as the audio, it's available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Surround 2.0, and comes through wonderfully. There are lots of juicy extras including a commentary track with director Mark L. Lester and DVD producer Perry Martin, a newly created featurette titled `Blood and Blackboards' (35:32), an original theatrical trailer, two television spots, a poster and still gallery, a Mark L. Lester biography, a six page insert booklet. The only thing I don't really like too much is the previews at the first of the disc. Seems to be more and more of that these days and I just don't like it. Reminds me too much of the VHS days when you annoyingly had to FF through 15 minutes of previews to get to the film. But that's my only complaint.

Highly recommended and if you like this film, you'll also like THE PRINCIPAL starring JAMES BELUSHI, which is the same concept spun in a different way.

Budweiser WAZZUP spoof ad

BUDWANKERS - Loser. Anyone remember this spoof ad of the popular WAZZUP ads? This is by far the most funny one out of the whole bunch of spoof ads. And I've seen a lot of them. Some of them are just plain dumb. SUPERFRIENDS is also a good spoof ad.

Vancouver Gay Pride Day Parade! Fabulous!

These are some photos I took at 30th Anniversary Vancouver Pride Society's Pride Parade, which started around noon yesterday at Robson and Thurlow, headed West down the hill to Denman street, following Denman to Pacific where it finished at Sunset Beach, which is where we were.

No, I am not gay, nor was I even interested in going to this thing. My wife really wanted to see it. But I'm glad I went now, it was pretty fun and this year was the biggest one ever. We were there for 3 hours and it still wasn't finished. We finally left because I had to take a piss so bad I couldn't hold it anymore.

You could see pretty much anything this year: sailors, freaks, people painted in rainbow colors, animals dressed up, drag queens, the whole lot. There was even full frontal nudity, tits, cocks, you name it. I really didn't think it was necessary for these fat balding men to parade naked with their ballsacs hanging down, kind of disgusting really. One guy didn't really even have a dick, it was more like a set of balls with an almond stuck on, it was so small. What does parading naked have to do with gay pride?

I can't believe how much time, money and effort went into making this happen. It was quite amazing. This is by far the biggest damn parade I've ever been to. But just way too long. I was exhausted by the end of it. We were planning on attending the Powell Street Festival afterwards but we were just too beat.

If you visit Vancouver Pride Society's Facebook page, there's tons more pictures.

The New Place

This is me in the new apartment. Now that we have some furniture and got our stuff shipped from Japan, it's starting to look like a real lived-in apartment.

The apartment itself is not too shit hot, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed. My wife and I have re-caulked the bathroom around the tub and sink. I don't think this place has been cleaned in about 100 years. There was a ton of shit that I vacuumed out of the heaters. It was truly disgusting.

And also, our landlord is a total crackerhead who I have to constantly bug to do minor repairs. He's a wasted of air. A typical Vancouver slumlord. Let's the building go to hell and keeps jacking up the rent, expects everyone to do their own repairs at their own expense. This building definitely violates several building codes. The doorknob on the side door is missing, so anyone could cut themselves on it. The side door doen't even have real glass, its just that cheap Plexiglass. A loud fart could break it. There is broken glass outside, there used to be a skylight on the top floor where we are, but there is just an empty hole covered with a fucking wooden pallet. That cannot be legal can it?

There's numerous other little things: shower knob is not screwed in, the drywall around the sink is all damp and needs to be repaired, doors won't shut properly. etc etc. All this for the low low price of 1,100 dollars!!! Yes, this is pretty much what you get now for 1,100 bucks. If you want a 1-bedroom where everything actually works and things are kept up, you're probably looking at more. It's ridiculously expensive now.

It's not all negative though. Getting used to the place and the people living here, who all seem to be very nice. And the location is very good. We're just 2 doors down from the famous NAAM, a very tasty vegetarian eatery that's always packed. There's also a good Indian restaurant just a block away, lots of grocery stores within 10 minutes walk.

There are some annoying things though. We're in the back of the building, so we get a lot of noise from the trucks coming to unload shit. Most of them are food trucks, delivering stuff to the NAAM. We also get the odd time where this guy in the building next to us gives us a sampling of his favorite classic rock tunes from about 4 in the afternoon, sometimes lasting 5 hours or more. At top volume. We were coming home from the Safeway on Broadway, once we hit around 6th, we could hear the music pumping out of his apartment.

Yesterday, we also had the privilege of some fine entertainment from some of the local homeless drunks. Just 4 guys and 1 woman sitting in a vacant parking lot just a few doors down getting completely shitfaced. Started out pretty harmless, drinking, laughing, having a good 'ol time. 3 or 4 hours later, they were all pretty erased, and I guess the woman had hit the dude's brother or something, so the dude freaked out and started hitting her, calling her a stupid bitch and just trailing off in to some drunken fuckjhhgffkdkikskfcokkgaaaaaaaa talk before 2 residents nearby told them to leave or theyd call the cops. Funny shit.

Vancouver. Doesn't matter where you live, there's always entertainment.

Julia Allison

How do American white trash fuckin' bitches like Julia Allison get famous? Just by posting stupid crap on her blogs everyday and rubbing shoulders with famous people to make her LOOK like SHE's famous. Ha. Ha.

Pick up the new WIRED magazine and read all about her. The front page article says "GET INTERNET FAMOUS (Even If You're a Nobody)" - Julia Allison and The Secrets of Self-Promotion.

The sad thing is not so much her, but the sad sacks who eat this shit up and visit her sites all the time. She has quite a fan base, and what does she do? Absolutely nothing. She's famous for being famous, another Andy Warhol type schmoozer with a big greasy ego. But at least Andy Warhol did something, he was a pretty cool designer sometimes. Julia just exists.

If you're a follower of lame-ass lampshades like her, you need help. Start with getting outside once a day and get some sun instead of masturbating to pictures of Julia sitting in her posh NY apartment.

Fuck a star!!! Fuck a star!!! Fuck a star!!!

The Greyhound Bus Killer

Everyone must know about this story by now, so I don't need to give you a history lesson. All I can say is that this will be an interesting case indeed. Is it even going to go to trial? Just finish this fucker off, that's what I say.

Vince Li stabbed Tim McLean 50 or 60 times and there were 37 other passengers on the bus. To stab someone 50 or 60 times and then behead them must take quite some time. And it just recently leaked that he was cutting a few pieces off of Tim for a little snack as well.

The 'eyewitnesses' as I've seen them described elsewhere did absolutely nothing. How much more did they plan to witness before they actually stopped witnessing and start intervening? Watch him play cards with the remains? Would any number have actually moved them to intervene?

I'm not calling myself Superman and I can honestly say I wouldn't know how I would react to a situation like this, maybe I'd run like a little girly too, but between 37 people, it seems like they could've come up with some kind of game plan and enough initiative to overpower this dumbfuck.

They should send this sick fuck to Iraq or Syria and let them deal with him. Under Canadian law, this guy will probably get 10 years, or go to the crazy house for awhile, since it was recently confirmed that he HAS had quite a history of mental illness and paranoid schizophrenia.

What WILL most likely happen is that you won't be able to take a Greyhound bus (or any other bus for that matter) without being frisked by security and getting all our stuff checked. One lousy shit goes nuts and everyone has to deal with the consequences. Canada and the U.S are supposed to be "free" countries. I'm not sure i know what that means anymore. Freedom is just a made up word, really.

This is off the topic, but I just heard a disturbing piece of news from my friend. Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can do it to anyone, they can hold for as long as they want and they are not obliged to return it. What the fuck does that mean? I've heard that some people have not had their laptop returned after almost a year. Freedom. Ha.

Another other odd thing about Vince Li's case is that he's been charged with 2nd degree murder. Stabs a guy 50-60 times and decapitates him, cuts some pieces off to chew on. OK, what the fuck would you have to do to get 1st degree murder? Fuck the body, drag it around for a week, piss on it then kill 'em again? Geez. Me thinks there's a big problem with the Canadian legal system.

Hmmmmm. This is a curious case indeed.

Chris Ware: The ACME Novelty Library

Chris Ware. I like his stuff a lot. ACME Novelty Library. I like this comic a lot.

The ACME Novelty Library (red hardcover, pictured) is a great feast of material from Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library comic, collecting just about everything that isn't already collected in Jimmy Corrigan or Quimby the Mouse, along with strips that ran in The New Yorker and other periodicals. This includes the Big Tex, Tales of Tomorrow, Rocket Sam strips, preliminary strips for Rusty Brown, his next graphic novel, and the fat naked Super-Man, which is truly bizarre. Also included is all the impossible to read text pieces, fake ads and a selection of mini papercraft models from the comic. These have all be resized and re-laid-out over 114 oversized (15" x 8.5") pages.

At first glance his detailed geometrical layouts look like they were computer-generated using Adobe Illustrator but Ware works is almost exclusively old school, employing actual drawing tools (remember those?) such as paper and pencil, rulers and T-squares. He does use a computer for coloring however. He's definitely in a class of his own, not just a comic artist, he is an amazing graphic designer w/ a truly eclectic style reflecting his love of early 20th century American aesthetics. And a pretty warped sense of humor to boot.

If you just thumb through this book, you can't really get a sense of his true genius, you have to drink this book intensely. Once you start getting into this book, it's incredibly intense. I'd say you definitely can't read this in one sitting. I know the ads and text are hard to read, but they are well worth the effort. Some of them are pretty hilarious. Chris Ware has hit a new level of depravity with this stuff. You don't just merely read one of his graphic novels, you are inhabiting his unique world as soon as you lay your hands on the book. Some of the fake ad pages will take you almost 10 minutes to read 1 page because the text is so small.

If you're new to Chris Ware, this would be a perfect pace to start. It's a bit of a here-and-there assortment with the general themes being tragedy, pointlessness, hopelessness, despair, quiet horror, nostalgia, self-loathing and obsession with a healthy dose of self-depreciation throughout. If you are suffering from depression, I seriously wouldn't recommend this book. This is probably not bedtime reading either, this one needs to be just nibbled at, a few pages a day is enough.

I also recommend the Quimby the Mouse and Jimmy Corrigan collections. This book is highly recommended for people who are seeking something different in a comic rather than the usual Superman / X-Men fare. You should be able to find in most decent bookshops as it's published by Jonathan Cape with the ISBN 0224077023. Or, of course, discounted at Amazon. The other pictures are just some cover shots from some of the original Acme Library graphic novels.

Enjoy!