the pop culture ramblings of a lunatic.
trailer trash or blast: the karate kid (2010)
Jan 22nd
this is my new movie trailer review show. we review movie trailers so that you don’t have to watch those either. this episode is for the karate kid (2010) starring jackie chan & jadan smith!
The Karate Kid is an upcoming 2010 martial arts film remake of the 1984 film of the same name. Directed by Harald Zwart, the remake stars Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. Principal photography for the film took place in Beijing, China; filming began around July 2009 and ended on October 16, 2009. The Karate Kid will be released theatrically in the United States on June 11, 2010.
The Top 50 Albums of the Decade (Part One)
Dec 23rd
my friends & i had an argument the other night. drunkenly slouched into the cushions of my couch I rambled about how stand up comedy, aside from zach galifinakis, is more or less dead. It was then that I was presented with an interesting question, “well dan, who is your favorite stand up comedian?” i hesitated for a moment, racked my brain, & spat out “Bill Cosby.”
it seemed too easy, pretentious even, to simply say “bill cosby.” after all, the man is a legend. i was stumped by my own psyche for a few moments. what compelled me to say “bill cosby?” it took a few minutes & another beer before I realized: bill cosby has a frame of reference. his material stands the test of time.
i think that’s an important concept when related to these bullshit “best of the 00’s” list. especially the ones that have albums from THIS FUCKING YEAR. but alas, i fuckin’ digress, y’know? because for some reason, when i couldn’t sleep last night, i opened notepad on my computer and began to frantically assemble a top ten albums of the 00’s list. i don’t know why. maybe it was the sleep deprivation. or maybe subconsciously, at the end of this decade, as the loose ends are being pulled together tight, i feel a reason to take the mosaic mish-mash of albums that i love & adore & assemble them into an organized manner that makes sense to me.
nah, fuck that. it wasn’t that at all. in fact, my top 10 list soon expanded into a top 150 list. & i found myself thinkin’ “wow, there was a lot of real good shit this decade.” it seems obvious when i prompt myself to talk about it, but so many cats these days whine and moan about the decline of modern music. those cats are just too dumb & lazy to think or look & therefore, don’t deserve good music to begin with.
this list is a gigantic middle finger to those people.
so, what lies below is a labyrinth of text explaining why these albums are important. maybe you’ll see one that you dig, if you do, leave a comment because i’d love to talk about it. maybe you’ll see something you should check out, if you do, let me know and i’ll burn you a CD. or, maybe you’ll see a mess of narcissistic, self-referential bullshit. maybe you won’t read it at all, & after a little while, after it’s forgotten, it will cease to exist. i dunno. i’m not a fucking mind reader.
so, if you do indulge, enjoy. these are the best albums of the 00’s
dan luke.
Brittany Murphy is Dead.
Dec 20th
Brittany Murphy, at the age of 32, died this morning. According to The New York Daily News:
She went into full cardiac arrest early Sunday and could not be revived.
The Los Angeles City Fire Department got a call from the home of Murphy’s husband Simon Monjack about 8 a.m.
She was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Upon hearing the story my mother exclaimed “Brittany Murphy was cute!” I immediately corrected her: “No Mom, Brittany Murphy is dead.”
On Elvis Presley, Television & Socialized Healthcare.
Dec 19th
Sometimes when I get really stoned I like to think about the universe. You know, the standard stuff: space time continuum’s vacuumed through a black hole, string theory, alternate universes, parallel dimensions. But that stuff is so far away and gigantic that when I get sober (which, I personally believe that sobriety is less a state of normalcy and more a state of bitter apathy) it seems stupid.
So, maybe that’s how I’m wired: I get stoned I think about the universe. When I’m sober, I bitch about people on this planet. A lot of times I feel like my life is just one big arm wrestling match, it seems like regular society is trying to push me out, and I’m trying to push my way in, to dominate. I can’t relate to most people, so I obsess about people. Which leads me to my next point: Sociology, I know this seems like rambling, but just stick with me here. The way I view the world is that it’s just this clusterfucked stew of opinions, phobias, ideologies, impulses, and various other terms that a psychiatrist will spit at you, as you lay on a couch, murmuring “mmhmm’s,” and “yeah’s,” even though you don’t have any particular clue to what the fuck that psychiatrist may or may not be talking about.
In America, the world is split into republicans and democrats. The republicans being these right wing lunatics that get offended when Elvis wiggles his hips on stage, or freak out when Barrack Obama presents a public health care option, and the democrats being these beatnik, over-regulatory assholes. Look at both Elvis and Health care, how television has created this huge snowball of publicity for both: with Elvis there was the birth of a new social standard, a new culture of leather jackets, jive talking, pink cardigan wearing bimbos, and basically every other caricature from grease. Yet people couldn’t handle the future-shock, or the fact that this was something, that whether they liked it or not, would eventually become their culture.