Yeti Menace

Reuters photo via HuffPost taken after the 3rd debate, 10/15/2008. Really.

UPDATE: It seems I’m not the only one having fun with McCainzilla. via Hank.

The first of only four live performances for the tenth anniversary of SUNN O)))’s creation and the recording of their first album The GrimmRobe Demos was last night. Only Sunn O)))’s core members Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson were on stage. No guests. No vocals. No keyboards. Just them on stage wearing their characteristic ‘grim robes’ (long hooded cloaks). The air was filled with fog and they played at their signature deafening volume.

For the uninitiated, Sunn O))) play extremely slow and heavy, using droning guitars, frequently heavily drop-tuned to extremely low tunings such as drop A and drop B, accompanied by feedback and other sound effects to create dark, ominous soundscapes. Their performances usually last 1 & 1/2 hours.  This is a marathon experience. They did not disappoint last night. Many who began the performance in the front of the stage dismissed themselves after the first thirty minutes, either from exhaustion or boredom (the bored being those who read about them from the New York Times Arts section article but never having listened to any of the discography). Those who held on got to experience mammoth soul shaking set to harmonics that rattled the bowels.

The venue was an interesting choice. Originally, the show was set to be at Safari Sam’s off Hollywood Blvd. At the last moment, the Regent Theater was picked for some reason (either the crowd was too big or too small–the latter being the more probable). The Regent has the dubious honor of being an adult movie theater until 2000. The shell of a building is hard cement with a sloping floor that made standing or sitting an uncomfortable experience yet somehow added to the show.

Nothing more to say. The initiated stand in awe of Sunn O)))…

Stanley Kubrick’s classic film The Shining has a firm place in my Vers-Top 10 Movies of All Time, and the online exhibit “Artwork and No Play,” running through Oct. 31 at the Phone Booth Gallery, is a truly delightful tribute to some of the most memorable moments from the film.

Pictured: Kevin Tong’s “Wave of Mutilation” + David Owen’s “Corrective Action”

My favorite moment in last night’s second presidential debate between Obama and McCain was at the end when McCain bumbled into the middle of the stage directly in front of Brokaw, obscuring his teleprompter and forcing Brokaw to ask him to move.

Arianna Huffington commented on this so eloquently in her morning post:

Brokaw might as well have been speaking on behalf of the future: Senator McCain can you please get out of the way so we can get on with it?

I could not agree more.

Design for Obama

The strangest feeling as one stood in the audience for their final U.S. show: this was not about the band; this was about the audience. How the audience reacted to hearing the music as if it was played underwater or in the next room really loud. How it was not necessary to actually see the musicians playing since the light show obliterated the view. How every smug, self-satisfied person in the audience stood in awe, not of the band, but of how they were able to withstand the barrage of noise when the final song with its 15 minute sonic explosion was performed. Pity…the Holy Grail remained so because few, if any, actually saw the bloody thing. Nostalgia sux.

Yesterday’s interview of Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin by Katie Couric is Palin’s definitive moment in the campaign. When viewed objectively, it can be seen as nothing less than the incoherent ideological ramblings and regurgitations of talking points spat from the lipsticked lips of a mediocre pol who has been cramming for a final exam, but forgot to attend class all semester. This is indeed the stuff of nightmares.

From the moment of her announcement I have been saying insistently that Palin is ignoblely unqualified to be VP, and by necessity, President of the United States. But her popularity soared, bouyed by her grim, mean, cynical and homely speech at the RNC. She’s a woman! She’s a governor! She’s a MILF! She’s a religious consevative from a red state! She’s a hockey-mom! She’s a pitbull! These are metonymical definitions that have no or little bearing on her fitness to serve. They are in any analysis irrational and irresponsible reasons to consider her capable of leading the country. Now we have proof: Palin fails so miserbly in the Couric interview it is painful to watch.

But the most important issue here is not the cult of personality surrounding Palin, it’s the fact that Sarah Palin is the one chosen by John McCain to be VP, and thus by design, second in command and first in line to be President. This was the first and most important decision of McCain’s campaign once nominated, and clearly he failed. In a cynical and erratic move devoid of oversight or depth, McCain foisted a running mate on his supporters that is unequivocally unqualified. This wrongheaded and dangerous decision flat out disqualifies McCain to be President. There is no rational explaination for electing him and risking the county’s leadership to someone so incapable.

As I write this, the debate has started. Tonight the country will know more about who to to elect. Let’s hope what happens in November ends the absurdity of what has become a political nightmare.

In these times of economic despair, I find that a good adult movie is a welcome distraction.

This is a promo vid for Diesel’s Dirty 30 anniversary party.  But who cares about jeans?  This is just cool as sh*t.

Semi-SFW.  Turn the volume WAY UP.  I mean down.  No, up.   Up, down, up, down.  You get it.