Angry John Sellers

Ahem

2009-02-10T16:58:00.004-05:00

Ahem!

This hereby serves as a final reminder that I've moved my blog to my new website, johnsellers.com. Please update your links -- if you even bothered to bookmark this nonsense in the first place, that is.

Also, this hereby serves as yet another excuse for me to publish a video of a monkey riding a bicycle.

Forevermore

2009-01-04T19:48:00.004-05:00

After five years and 454 posts, I am hereby and forevermore moving this blog over to the much-simpler-for-me johnsellers.com.

Please update your links.

This is your new RSS feed.

Enjoy the silence.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Hoagie crumbs stuck in my sweater!

Frontin'

2008-12-17T18:12:00.006-05:00

Here's the interview I did with John Cleese.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Why is Chase Bank messing with me? They be frontin'!

Teleportation

2008-12-16T11:49:00.003-05:00

I am interviewing Lost's Jorge Garcia today, who it turns out has a pretty sweet blog called Dispatches from the Island. Here's my favorite post.

In the next few days, I'm going to post a list of the top ten little things that annoyed me this year. And in the next few weeks, I'm going to be moving this blog over to johnsellers.com -- but only after I figure out how to do that. But this is what it's going to look like.

Finally, I'm going to stop titling each of my posts after random favorite songs. Instead, I shall name each post after my favorite word in said post.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Why hasn't teleportation been invented yet? That way I could get to the post office without a hassle.

Wolf Like Me

2008-12-10T13:46:00.003-05:00

And here is my interview with Benicio Del Toro.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Goddamn cold.

Pac-Man Fever

2008-12-01T14:15:00.012-05:00

I have three Q+As out right now. In order of how well I think I did with them, they are:

1) Michael Ian Black, which appears in this week's issue of Time Out New York.

2) Scott Weiland, which appears in the December issue of Spin magazine (which also contains an excellent article about Echo and the Bunnymen):

3) Emile Hirsch, which I banished to the Time Out New York website because he didn't give me enough stuff to work with.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, Chasing Ghosts, the documentary in which I am used for comic effect, is airing on Showtime all month.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
It's colder than 1,000 Antarcticas outside!

Jenny (867-5309)

2008-11-11T09:14:00.003-05:00

Until ten minutes ago, I had completely forgotten that this existed. And when I did remember, I thought it had aired on Fridays, ABC's late-night comedy sketch show (costarring Larry David and Michael Richards). Instead, it was the Lorne Michaels-produced The New Show, which only lasted six episodes in 1984. When it aired, I thought this sketch was the funniest thing in the world. Wow.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Where my muffin at!?

Frogs

2008-11-05T13:05:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Wayne Coyne, the interview was for an upcoming issue of Spin magazine to promote Christmas on Mars, his insanely wacky -- and just plain insane -- debut as a movie director. If you've ever wanted to see Fred Armisen plaintively singing "Silent Night" just minutes after a marching band whose members all have vaginas for heads walk over a baby and crush it to death, then by all means go see this movie.

And speaking of Spin, its editors have graciously allowed me to conduct some full-page interviews with people I never thought I'd talk to. For the September issue, I yakked on the horn with the still very much bad-ass Ice Cube. Out this month, my interview with stripper-obsessed impresario T-Pain. And in December, they'll print my conversation with Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland.

And to cap this very good day off -- Obama even won Indiana! -- this week's newly published Time Out New York features my interview with Paul Rudd, who is more awesome than Joe Biden's mother.

To celebrate all this good news -- although after staying out until 3am last night, I probably don't need any more of that -- I am listening to my new favorite song by the Flaming Lips, which isn't at all new, as you'll no doubt see by this straight-outta-the-early-1990s video:

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I've tried, but I am finding that it is impossible to be angry today!

She Don't Use Jelly

2008-11-04T09:17:00.002-05:00

In honor of this soon-to-be-historic election -- and because I'm busy as hell and off to interview Wayne Coyne in a few minutes -- I hereby re-post something I wrote two days after the presidential election in 2004.

WELCOME TO DECISION 2004: THE HANGOVER

The cure: a rather large sandwich

The candidates: a meatball parmagiana hero and a turkey hero with melted provolone

Excerpts from their stump speeches:

MEATBALL: My fellow Americans, I come before you with two simple words: Eat me. I am asking you to put your faith in me, in the simple fact that when you take a bite of me, you'll understand the strength of my conviction. Also, you will understand the taste of a kick-ass marinara sauce. I get this from my father, god rest his soul, who told me that I need to remind myself who I am every single day. And, my friends, I'm going to tell you exactly who I am. I'm a meatball!

TURKEY: The other candidate tries to pass himself off as being "what you crave." He claims to be a "hearty meal." He claims to "cause babies and serial killers to cower in fear of his rich, tangy meatiness." And, let's be clear, this is probably true. But what he's conveniently leaving out is his record. Remember the last time you ate a meatball hero and it sat like a lump inside you for five hours? He'd like you to forget about that. Remember that time when you stayed up all night dealing with heartburn? Remember when you cleared an entire room with the aftereffects of a meatball hero? Of course you do, but he's pretending that you do not. What he's offering you is simple: Immediate tastebud joy followed by many, many hours of pain and shame. I am offering you a ticket out. Choose turkey.

The action: The meatball hero jumps out to a big, early lead in the dumb, hungry electorate in Sellers' stomach. It's a fine strategy, as the stomach commands a whopping 150 electoral votes. But the signs we're seeing from the turkey hero should give its supporters hope. Its campaign is attacking the area around the stomach -- the spleen, the liver, the kidneys. These are the real battlegrounds of this election. So it's close. Right now -- with the skin, the body's largest organ, leading the pro-turkey charge -- it's looking like a virtual dead heat. In fact, things are shaping up exactly as we predicted. If things stay the way they are in the lesser organs, it's going to come down to -- surprise, surprise -- Sellers' brain. And from the looks of it, we could be waiting on this decision all afternoon. Sellers is clearly of two minds here: He knows the turkey is the best thing for him, but goddamit, it's a motherfucking meatball! This could take a while.

The result: Meatball parmagiana hero. Like the brain ever listens to reason.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I'm not going to jinx anything.

Why Can't I Touch It?

2008-10-28T14:40:00.004-04:00

Two things happened this afternoon. The first is that I realized that I'm addicted to Googling the names of contestants on Family Feud. The second is that I discovered Trivial Pursuit: America Plays, hosted by Christopher Knight, aka Peter Brady.

Is it me, or are a lot of trivia shows these days lowering the bar on the intelligence level of their contestants? Which only makes them more awesome to watch. Case in point from one of today's episodes:

Question: What movie introduced the character Indiana Jones?

Contestant 1 (probably late-20-something woman): Temple of Doom.
Contestant 2 (probably early-30-something woman): Uh, The Temple of Doom?
Contestant 3 (proabably early-30-something guy): Actually, I believe it's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Wow.

Anyway, here's my interview with Mystery, the fuzzy-hatted host of VH1's The Pick-Up Artist.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Sandwich coma.

Soggy Beavers

2008-10-27T10:49:00.005-04:00

For some god-awful reason I have begun to receive fashion- and beauty-related e-mails at my Time Out New York address. Here's the latest, for a product called Nippies:

I have died a thousand deaths. Meanwhile, the preferred definition for pokey is "correctional institution," as in the hoosegow or the clink. And I guess it would suck to have jail nips. But that's obviously not what the press release is referring to. Maybe it's the second usage -- "puttering; slow; dull," as in The Poky Little Puppy? Probably not. But I'm confused because nowhere in the dictionary does pokey or its chief variant poky mean "pointy," or refer to "nipples that cause tell-tale indentations in the top layer of a woman's clothing." So, wow -- Zoe's assistant seems to have coined a new expression!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Today it's momentum vs. inertia in the mother of all productivity battles.

No New Tale to Tell

2008-10-22T17:13:00.009-04:00

My mom, whose house in Grand Rapids I just dominated for three weeks while she was traveling Europe, just told me about the "tipsy Jewish lady" she met at a cooking class in Italy who would unleash off-colored jokes at her classmates. This one's pretty funny:

Jewish person: Oh, it's the holiday season. We always start by blowing the shofur.
Gentile: You people really know how to treat your help.

And now for something completely different:

I'm finally back in Brooklyn, six pounds heavier and not a bit wiser and quite happy to be reunited with my cat, George, the most awesome feline in the world. (Yes, I'm part of the now infamous trend, which continues here as well.). I only just now realized that I have neglected to post my landmark interview with John Hodgman, who is a genius. (I am not: I initially spelled that word genious.)

If you somehow haven't heard, Hodgman has added a new arrow to his quiver of smarty-pants projectiles with his just-published book More Information Than You Require, which he swears is not a sequel to, but a continuation of, his 2005 book The Areas of My Expertise a la The Two Towers vis a vis The Lord of the Rings -- which, it must be noted, is a bona fide sequel to The Hobbit, although that is inconsequential. I just wanted to mention The Hobbit because it currently feels underrated in the wake of Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (which is actually a film trilogy) and that ain't right. Anyway, enjoy -- and check out Hodgman's book, because where else are you going to read the words "SHE WAS NOT HIGH ON PEYOTE AT THE TIME" in reference to Queen Isabel? Besides right here, I mean?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I still haven't gotten around to writing about the My Bloody Valentine reunion, or the ATP Festival in upstate New York, or the Boston Spaceships show (great album, by the way), or my trip to Michigan. But I can reveal that I ate but one pizza sub from JT's while in Grand Rapids. However, I gorged on Chili's three times.

Winston's Atomic Bird

2008-10-15T14:07:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the famous Lori from GR, I have been clued in to what the "shoe game" is. And I wish I hadn't been.

Lori writes: "The shoe game involves clogging the nearest toilet with the groom's and groomsman's shoes- whoever clogs it the best wins. You didn't know that?"

Luckily, that's not true -- but due to my extreme cynicism about these things I initially thought it was. But while fact-checking Lori's clever misdirection I came across links explaining what the shoe game really entails. And I wish I hadn't. Here's a link that explained it for me. And here's a video from a different wedding.

Is this a common event at weddings? I've been to about thirty in my life now and yet to come across it. But maybe I just roll with a different crowd?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Cold as hell. What happened?

Go for the Exit

2008-10-14T18:07:00.006-04:00

I am currently in Grand Rapids, land of Chili's and crisp apples. But that's not what I want to talk to you about today. I have been typing for over 20 years now and it amazes me how bad I still am at it. And by "bad" I mean that, while my typing is competent and probably quicker than most people's, I make the lamest mistakes. Here are my top three typos:

3. teh (instead of the)
Even though I rigorously proofread all my emails, this one occasionally slinks past me in the same way that I could never pick out the extra, redundant "the" hidden in some word puzzle that used to drive me nuts in school but which I currently can't find a link to online.

2. you (instead of your)
As in "Thanks for you consideration." Why would anyone consider me?

1. "thanks you" (instead of "thank you")
That this has happened even once is amazing. But a dozen? Shiver me damn timbers!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
A couple in their early twenties just sat down at the four-top table in front of mine here at Biggby's Coffee. But instead of sitting opposite each other so as not to invade my personal space or even sitting on the same side of the table with their backs toward me, they've elected to sit on the same side of the table looking straight at me. I hate them. [UPDATE: Ten minutes later, they have been joined by someone else, so I've got some privacy back. But it turns out that the couple is engaged and the guy who joined them is their wedding DJ. They are now discussing their wedding playlist earnestly. Topics covered? Must-plays such as Christian music and the Black Eyed Peas. Potential cake-cutting songs, like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (which the bride says she's never heard) and "Build Me Up Buttercup," that annoying oldies song from the end credits of There's Something About Mary. Games, including something called "the shoe game" and another one involving a race to determine who can unfurl a roll of toilet paper the fastest -- at a wedding. Wow.]

Planet's Own Brand

2008-09-30T02:26:00.005-04:00

Not sure if this is viral or what, but it's the funniest thing I've seen in a while, so I'll post it. (Courtesy of Holy Taco.) I can't believe this aired on national television.

I'm about to embark on a three-week trip to the midwest to hunker down with some work (and to see the Wedding Present in Chicago tonight and the Boston Spaceships in Ann Arbor on Friday). Not exactly sure how regular my internet access will be (is regularity why fiber is in fiber optics?), but I'll try to post from time to time -- at the very least to tell you how many pizza subs I've ordered from J.T.'s Pizza Depot.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The top three most annoying little things that I have to deal with on a regular basis:

3. Deciding when to take a shower. Now, I love taking showers, and I do so daily. But as a freelancer working from home, the time of day at which I take that shower varies depending on a variety of factors mostly relating to whether or not and when I might be required to venture outside. So determining the right time to shower can be tricky: shower too early and you might ruin the awesomeness of setting your own pace while everyone else is in wearing pleated pants at the office; shower too late and you could find yourself constantly in a rush the rest of the day. ANNOYING.

2. Transcribing interviews. Listening to an awkward interview with Michael Cera once, while you're actually talking to him? Painful. Listening to it twice, with constant rewinding to get it all down right? Stick a pencil RIGHT IN MY EYE!

1. Washing dishes. My apartment, a.k.a. the worst place on earth, does not come equipped with a dishwasher, necessitating the use of manual labor to clean the coffee cups and English muffin plates. Manual labor and I don't really go well together, a fact I learned about 25 years ago on that one day in my childhood when my parents got tough and gave my brothers and me chores. (They even made up a chart to show how the tasks were to be divvied up! I raked a few leaves and then retired to the couch to play Intellivision Baseball.) Oh, to be a prince, waited on by servants! Or even Ricky Stratton, that coddled rapscallion from Silver Spoons! My point: WASHING DISHES IS FOR SUCKERS.

Isla de Encanta

2008-09-26T08:10:00.004-04:00

"Sent from my iPhone" -- why do you people insist on affixing this tag to the messages you send that way? Like, do I attach a note saying, "Sent from my shitty laptop?" when I work at a cafe? No, I don't. And anyone who did would be stupid (and in need of a more savory laptop). I'm pretty sure you just want others to know that you own an iPhone—something that isn't as unique as you think it is.

Then again, I just got an e-mail from someone using a BlackBerry, and a similar message was attached. This makes even less sense to me, as BlackBerrys suck rhino. Why publicize the fact that you own the modern-day equivalent of a Speak & Spell?

UPDATE AT 1:52PM: Okay, some smart-ass just pointed out that the "SENT FROM MY IPHONE" message is the gadget's factory setting. But by not disabling that function, people must be lazy or stupid or braggards, or all three. Or I suppose indifferent. There is nothing wrong with being indifferent, except where iPhones (and this election) are concerned.

All of which leads me to wonder if there was a sight gag in the recent stinker Get Smart in which someone receives an e-mail from Maxwell Smart that ends with "Sent from my shoe phone." Anyone see that movie?

ANYWAY, I watched the Chupacabra episode of The X Files last night and I am now convinced that my cat is its distant relative, the dreaded Poopacabra.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Rush still wasn't nominated by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Rock Me Amadeus

2008-09-17T14:14:00.003-04:00

On November 4, McCain will suffer the same twisted fate as Stingray (the guy licking the knife at the beginning). Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Mayonaise

2008-09-17T10:23:00.005-04:00

Here's the interview I did with fellow Park Slopian (and Key Food shopper) Peter Sarsgaard.

Is anyone else excited about this movie, which will be the best thing ever?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Dentist appointment. Bah.

Bring the Noise

2008-09-15T16:05:00.001-04:00

This just in: McCain has been pwned by Angry John Sellers.

From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thank you for your donation
Date: September 15, 2008 3:58:50 PM EDT

Dear John,

Thank you for your generous donation of $500.00.

From the beginning, this campaign has been built and funded by supporters like you giving only what they can afford.

By making a donation today, you have joined more than 2.5 million people who own a piece of this campaign.

But we need to keep building our movement for change, and there are folks right around the corner from you who are potential supporters. We’ve launched a new tool to help you reach out to them, by making phone calls or knocking on doors.

Learn more and get started today: http://my.barackobama.com/n2n

Thank you again for your generosity,

Obama for America

P.S. -- Want to show your support with some Obama-Biden gear? There are plenty of great items at the Obama Store:

http://store.barackobama.com

Hunter's Complex

2008-09-15T12:57:00.003-04:00

Moving quickly right along...

I am about to talk to Michael Cera. This makes me as happy as a little girl in short pants.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
McCain is actually leading in the lastest CNN "poll of polls." What the hell is wrong with 46 percent of you people? Have you not lived in America for the last eight years? You know what would be awesome? If people had some damn brains. Even more awesome? If the president had some damn brains.

Come In Alone

2008-09-14T09:13:00.005-04:00

I lied again.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
But for god don don -- Gregory McDonald also died! In tribute:

I Know It's Over

2008-09-14T01:45:00.005-04:00

I really appreciate all the support and comraderie over these past five years -- since November 2003, if you can believe it. But this will be my last post here.

David Foster Wallace killed himself Friday night.

Feel free to contact me via email and be sure to check out updates to my website, and I'm going to leave this page intact for the time being.

[UPDATE WHILE SOBER: Cry me a river. I mean, seriously. Sometimes I can be a touch melodramatic. But, man, is this shit depressing.]

I'll leave you with this:

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY

New Dawn Fades

2008-09-12T12:02:00.003-04:00

Thanks to the watchful eyes of Michigan-based hombre Matt Z., I have been alerted to a humorous albeit pointless study that definitively proves that indie-rock fans have low self-esteem.

Oh well. At least I don't have to listen to reggae.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I began my freshman year at Michigan State University twenty years ago.

Metal Mickey

2008-09-10T12:15:00.008-04:00

I lied.

Yesterday I was forced to go out, after all, and in the most stressful way possible. Just after I made that post, I realized with horror that my car needed to be moved due to street-cleaning regulations. Like, ten minutes ago. So I yanked on jeans and shoes and my Detroit Tigers cap and braved the light and exposed myself as a fraud. Will you ever trust me again?

The lazy day yesterday gave me ample opportunity to enjoy the best freebie I've received since accidentally rubbing up against Jennifer Love Hewitt's left breast at a crowded Fox press event in Hollywood in 1998: The X-Files: The Complete Collector's Edition, given to me by the nicest publicist in the world for my interest in interviewing David Duchovny back in July. (Sadly, just before the sex-addict story came out.) What I've been reminded? There is no better sci-fi show in the history of television than The X-Files.

[On a side note, I'm beginning to lean more toward writing that without the hyphen: The X Files. It just seems more punctuationally precise. It seems to me that the title refers to the files in Mulder's cabinet, all marked with an "x," not the (fictional) branch of the bureau named the X-Files, and the former wouldn't necessitate the hyphen. But I can go either way. (That's what she said.)]

Not surprisingly, then, I was curious about Fringe, the new J.J. Abrams show that he has described as being The X Files (no hyphen! whee!) without the mythology. A lot of people are Abrams fanatics (hi, GG!), but I've always thought that Alias was vastly overrated and in fact bordering on being unwatchable. (Don't get me started on Felicity, definitely among the top ten most annoying shows of the past decade.) Sure, I love Lost and think it's one of the best shows currently on the air, but that's like saying my favorite meal at Stuckey's is the waffles. (This makes no sense, but my goal going into this post was to make a Stuckey's reference.) Based on last night's premiere, Fringe isn't worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as The X Files, its fatal flaw being that it presupposed that we cared about the characters before we got to know them. And sadly, once I did get to know the characters, I cared even less about them; they simply aren't interesting enough to lead to anything but detached disinterest. Anyway, we'll see where it goes from here, but so far it's more Felicity than Lost.

Anyway, here's my Q+A with Chuck Klosterman for Time Out New York. Maybe this will get me a free box set of Cocoa Puffs?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
This article in today's Guardian is probably the most depressing thing I've ever read -- because it's so perfectly true.

Death at One's Elbow

2008-09-09T13:26:00.004-04:00

Blame it on the rain.

I have decided that, contrary to the opinion I held when I first opened my eyes this morning, I will not venture outside today. Not once. Instead, I will stay ensconced in T-shirt and pajama bottoms.

The whole day. Without interruption.

If I had a stamp lying around that said "CERTIFIED SHUT-IN" I'd stamp that sucker right on my forehead. God knows, I deserve it.

And god knows I earned it. Breathing easy today after dispatching a mound of work. But I'm only breathing easy because I've also put one of those Breathe Right strips over the bridge of my nose.

This just in: I will be living in the great state of Michigan from October 2 to 20. If anyone has any suggestions of what to do while I'm in Grand Rapids besides take care of my mom's two kittens and eat pizza subs from J.T.'s PIzza Depot, I'd be much obliged. Then again, I'm heading there to finish up my book, so you'd actually be doing me a great disservice informing me of area happenings. But nothing ever stops you people.

One thing I will almost certainly doing? Sleeping. Another? Not watching the Detroit Tigers in the playoffs. And? Going to see Bob Pollard's new band, Boston Spaceships, play at my old haunt The Blind Pig in Ann Arbor. (I initially typed that out as The Bling Pig, which would also be a great name for a concert hall, albeit for hip-hop acts only.) But other than that, I got nothing.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I chipped a tooth while flossing! I thought flossing was supposed to be good for you?

The Queen Is Dead

2008-09-08T15:34:00.003-04:00

I just did something hilarious. And very adult.

I typed "5318008" into my calculator and turned it upside down.

That shit cheers me up every time I do it, which happens approximately once every 18 months.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Why has e-mail become the preferred method of communication for basically everyone regarding everything? Answer: To taunt me. Life was so much simpler in 1990. And I saw my friends more then, too. (So screams he to the Internet on a blog accessed via a GMail account!)

Dogtag

2008-09-04T12:39:00.006-04:00

From the archives, which are being scanned by the most helpful person of all time, comes this little nugget. What you're seeing here is the first thing I ever got paid to write. Joel Stein assigned it to me back in 1995, in those good old days of Time Out New York when he proudly wore pleated pants and regularly assigned articles like this one to me. I believe I received $35 for it, which, come on, totally isn't enough. (Yes, I was surprised that Joel had a Wikipedia page, too.)

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The incredible smugness of Sarah Palin, a woman no one cared about a week ago.

Might

2008-09-02T20:08:00.004-04:00

Where'd I go? Even I have no idea.

I'll try to kick it into gear by the end of the week. But starting next Monday I'm back to full-time blogging. You will call me Joh-Joh the Blogfaced Boy, though I'd prefer it if you didn't.

In the meantime, buy the Cringe book, edited and compiled by Sarah Brown, an awesome lady with the good sense to have included three of my most embarrassing grade-school essays. If you're in NYC and want to laugh at genuinely funny things, the book's official launch reading takes place tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7 p.m. at the Housing Works Cafe.

Finally, self-promotion: Look for my interview with Ice Cube in the September issue of Spin, and here's the Time Out interview I did with Anna Faris a few weeks back.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
My trapezius is killing me!

On a Plain

2008-08-15T01:42:00.007-04:00

Two more Time Out New York interviews for your reading pleasure, or at least your tepid interest.

1. Ashley Jensen, the sweet lass from Extras (and Ugly Betty, a show I will never watch)

2. Billy Bob Thornton

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I need an intern. (Seriously, if you know anyone who wants to help me out on a few long-overdue projects that mostly involve organization and scanning, e-mail me.)

Motor Away

2008-08-13T17:15:00.003-04:00

One of the many unexpected outcomes of writing a book about your musical preferences is that anyone bored enough can recommend new songs and bands to you based on what you've told them you've liked all your life. Often these recommendations lead to nothing: You click on a link, listen to a song that invariably involves fiddles or harps, and decide that, no, this band is not for me -- and why would it be, because I fucking hate fiddles and harps and I made that pretty damn clear in my book. But very, very occasionally these unsolicited tips pay off and you've found another band about which a Natalie Portman character would probably say something anger-making but also spot-on.

I came across the Prids this way, and it shames me that I didn't find them earlier, like in 2004, when they played at the venue a block away from my apartment. A dutiful reader wrote me in early '08 to say that Mistina, the Portland-based band's bassist, had been talking my book up after one of their gigs; being an egomaniac, the Prids immediately became my favorite new group. But I hadn't heard their music yet and was secretly worried that they sucked and I'd have to pretend to like a crappy band just because its bassist liked something I wrote.

Thankfully, the Prids do not suck and in fact are pretty amazing and I have been hoping to lure them out to New York in the near future because they haven't played here since '06 (that's just wrong!). I still think it'll happen in the near future, but maybe now not as soon as I'd like because of something kind of nuts that happened to them last month. This photo pretty much explains it all.

Luckily everyone is alive and expected to make a fully recovery. But a few band members don't have health insurance and the injuries piled up (an airlift was involved!) and their van was totalled and lots of musical equipment shredded or lost. Their friends have set up a PayPal account, which you can find on the Prids homepage here. While totally depressing, this tragedy is also so incredibly rock n' roll that you kind of owe them a few bones to repay them for having gone through all this for your amazement. And for casting the Asian dude in the video for "Let It Go" (see below; he debuts 1 minute 32 seconds in). Pay up, suckers.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Still no call from Jeopardy!

The Wonton Song

2008-08-04T13:51:00.007-04:00

This is pretty much my favorite product now. Not that I'll ever use it. Squirrels are evil -- why willfully contribute to their well-being? Yes, I said it. Squirrels. Are. Evil.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire this afternoon and, man, it never ceases to amaze me what jackasses most of these contestants are. Specifically, I have three pet peeves that nearly every damn fool who makes it on the show seems to violate. Here's how not to piss me off:

1. Never refer to the contestant's chair as "the hot seat." Meredith Viera can use that expression, but you need to just call it a chair, or nothing at all.

2. Never wave to the audience as a means of thanking them for successfully guiding you toward the correct answer when employing the "ask the audience" lifeline. Even more important: Don't wave multiple times in various directions in a pathetic attempt to acknowledge the entire crowd. And don't do that thing where you just raise your hand and mouth "thanks! thanks!" either. Fuckers in the audience are there to serve you; no gratitude is required.

3. When using "phone-a-friend," don't call your wife or your husband unless your spouse is an expert in the field indicated by the question. You married a total loser and you know it. No need to prove it on national television.

Take a look at the video below. I mean, where the hell do they find these people? Gah!

Do You Believe in Love?

2008-07-31T10:46:00.004-04:00

I'm sort of taking the summer off, aren't I? It's been a rough stretch with travel and work but I should ABB anyhow (Always Be Blogging).

Here's the interview I did with Rainn Wilson from The Office. His first big movie The Rocker, which opens in a few weeks, has a few laughs in it and features Will Arnett as a headbanger. 'Nuff said.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Tigers traded Ivan Rodriguez to the Yankees. Why help the Yankees?

Allen's Wrench

2008-07-23T16:11:00.005-04:00

I officially became a snob today. How do I know? I dropped a penny and didn't pick it up.

I mean, it was just four years ago that I wrote the following question in my magical ideas journal: "Why did we do that to pennies?" I fully intended to write an essay expressing my sorrow that the penny was no longer useful; it would have been part of a "suite" that would also have included the laments "Why did we do that to hand-written letters?" and "Why did we do that to video stores?" As the penny lay there on the ground begging me to pick it up -- "don't leave me! I'm worth 1/449ths of a gallon of gas!" -- I thought about all of this. And then I walked away.

Penny snobbery!

Anyway, here's my interview with Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew fame.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I received a notice telling me that one of those traffic cameras caught me running a red light. In Staten Island. When was I in Staten Island?

The Swish

2008-07-22T09:58:00.006-04:00

My old friend -- really old, as in I met him in the sixth grade in 1981 -- sent me a link to this funky YouTube curio from Boney M, a disco-era band that failed to make an impact in the U.S. despite wild success in Europe and Asia. So, my gift to you today is Boney M. You can thank me later.

In other news, the excellent podcast Most People Are DJs -- which, as I learned after the fact, takes its name from a Hold Steady song title -- interviewed me recently (another, more visually pleasing link here). As a frequent interviewer, I always feel very uncomfortable being the interviewee. It's almost as if my brain shuts down and it's all likes and ums. But the host covered up some of the holes (that's what she said) by playing music underneath our conversation. Topics discussed: Jonathan Coulton, growing up in Michigan, the problem with cover songs, Falco, my increasing interest in the Hold Steady, and -- duh -- Guided By Voices.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I still haven't gotten the call from Jeopardy!

Walking on a Thin Line

2008-07-18T09:03:00.004-04:00

If you're like me, there are some mornings you can't help but think about Peter Cetera. The falsetto-voiced former Chicago frontman, who contributed to The Karate Kid, Part II the saccharine ballad "The Glory of Love" (never to be confused with the far superior "The Power of Love" by the far superior Huey Lewis and the News), wrote some of catchiest terrible songs of all time. The one that got me going today was "Next Time I Fall," his mushy 1986 duet with disturbingly hot crossover Jesus freak Amy Grant.

The chorus is disturbing if you think about it. The lyrics exclaim "The next time I fall in love/It will be with you." What a charmer old Petey is! What woman wouldn't kill to hear that from a guy they're getting it on with for the first time? It's as if he's saying, "You know, you're great and all, but I'm just not ready to fall in love. But when I do, it will be with you. Promise, m'kay?" And what if this chick he's gushing to doesn't really even like him that much (not hard to believe considering this is the dude she'd be looking at)? Isn't that statement tantamount to stalking? Either way, it's a bit ballsy for a bowser like Cetera to be so aloof.

Well, here's the video. I love how the person who posted this on YouTube calls it an "awesome video," which is pretty much the opposite of the truth. Make sure to read the comments.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I stepped on my glasses. They broke.

Don't Pay the Ferryman

2008-07-17T09:28:00.003-04:00

Sorry that I've been so absent from your lives. I blame it on travel and, strangely, Ice Cube. Anyway, here's another one of my interviews for Time Out New York, this time with David Duchovny. Is anyone as geeked as I am to see the new X-Files movie? Or am I living in the past, man?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Inertia. And the destruction of Tigers Stadium.

Let's Dance

2008-07-08T10:34:00.002-04:00

Question of the day: Would you rather be a crazy old coot or a crazy old codger? As in, "Quit babblin' at me, ya crazy old coot!" and "Why, he ain't nothin' but a crazy old codger!" Coot's the funnier word, so I guess I'll go with that.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Shaving is so darn boring.

Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft

2008-07-03T15:30:00.004-04:00

Curse you, Rob Walker, for sending me this Go West video for their minor 1985 hit "We Close Our Eyes," which really should be paired with "We Close Our Ears" for a complete audio/visual blackout of all things Go West.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Wedding Present just announced a U.S. tour but I don't think I'm going to be able to see them due to travel plans! But where there's a will, there's a way. (And of course, where there's a whip... See below.)

Dead Souls

2008-07-03T11:30:00.003-04:00

My impending interview with David Duchovny has me thinking about The X-Files again. Best show ever. Is anyone else excited about the upcoming movie?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Unbelievable.

Dirty Boots

2008-07-02T18:34:00.006-04:00

Here's my interview with Kim Gordon in the latest issue of Time Out New York, also reprinted here in its entirety because I love her.

Unlike many of its alt-rock peers, Sonic Youth has never once broken up in its 27 years on the planet. “We’re boring,” laughs Kim Gordon, the band’s 55-year-old bassist and singer. “There’s not a lot of high drama.” While the lack of turmoil has prevented Gordon and her bandmates (including husband Thurston Moore) from cashing in on a reunion tour à la the Pixies or My Bloody Valentine, the legacy Sonic Youth has created over the course of countless albums might just be more valuable than money. Gordon and family now reside in Northampton, Massachusetts, but she called us while in New York recently to promote Sonic Youth’s free Fourth of July show in Battery Park, as well as her side project Free Kitten, whose new album, Inherit, is that band’s first in 11 years.

Time Out New York: Welcome to TONY issue 666, Kim. Are you the devil?

Kim Gordon: No, I’m a slayer wanna-be. I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my daughter. We’re very into Buffy and Buffy’s friends.

TONY: You’re a superhero fighting the devil, then?

Kim Gordon: Actually, I’d rather be the sidekick. Like, the good witch who helps.

TONY: Seems appropriate. Burning question: Is it Free Kitten as in you’re giving away a kitten, or is it to release, as in Free Mumia?

Kim Gordon: You know, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

TONY: Fair enough. So, in an all-female alt-rock bass-off, who would win: you, Kim Deal or D’arcy?

Kim Gordon: D’arcy? D’arcy who? [Laughs] I don’t know. Probably Kim [Deal]. But I don’t think of myself as a musician. I’m more of a visual artist who happens to play the bass. I picked up the bass kind of postpunk-style. There’s a real art to not learning how to play an instrument and being able to still play it.

TONY: Almost three decades in, how are the ears holding up?

Kim Gordon: Since we moved out of New York, I think they’re a lot better.

TONY: How does the quintessential New York band get away with living in Western Massachusetts, anyway?

Kim Gordon: Well, only half of us live there.

TONY: True. Were you and Thurston done with New York?

Kim Gordon: New York is really just a different state of mind now. I think we were ready for something else. And it’s kind of interesting living on the edge instead of being in the middle and being somewhere that’s not “cool” necessarily—although I have to say Northampton is pretty hip.

TONY: And a lot quieter.

Kim Gordon: I couldn’t believe it. I went into Bloomingdale’s today just to look for some necessities. And they were playing some music that was so noisy! I don’t know who it was, but when it went into this really sort of noisy part at the end, I was looking around to see if anyone was even listening. It was almost shocking.

TONY: A member of Sonic Youth complaining about loud music?!?

Kim Gordon: It’s more the kind of music it was. I’ll leave a store if I hate the music. If it’s just, like, techno, I feel like my brain is going to explode.

TONY: Speaking of bad music, has a crappy band like Live or Creed ever opened for you?

Kim Gordon: Not that I can think of. I probably wiped it out of my mind. Oh, wait—that band Nirvana? They were embarrassing.

TONY: You switched to a major label in 1990—any regrets about how it affected your legacy?

Kim Gordon: If they were to have taken a poll of our favorability or cred, it probably dropped a couple of notches. But you know, I don’t think we sold as many records on Geffen as we would have if we’d stayed on an indie. After they realized we weren’t going to be another Nirvana, then it was like, “Meh.”

TONY: But there must have been some perks to being on a major label.

Kim Gordon: It did give us a high profile, maybe. And it did open up opportunities that may not have happened. And we got health benefits.

TONY: Really?

Kim Gordon: Yeah. For every record sold, they paid a penny toward health insurance. See, no one knows things like that because [ornery record producer] Steve Albini doesn’t ever talk about it.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Too much liquid anger last night.

White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)

2008-06-27T09:35:00.005-04:00

It's no secret that one of my favorite movies ever is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I like it so much that I once switched the "s" of his first name with the "Bu" of his last to create "Ferribu Sellers' Day Off" -- and seriously, Broderick's most memorable character is basically my bro. Anyway, here's the interview I did with him recently. If someone "diggs" it, I will be surprised -- mostly because I have no idea what "digg" does.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Too much damn e-mail.

B-Boy Bouillabaisse

2008-06-24T08:19:00.008-04:00

After last week's screed against Rolling Stone, I should probably refrain from engaging Entertainment Weekly's lame -- really lame -- special double issue "The New Classics," in which they anoint the 1,000 best movies, TV shows, albums, and other junk of the last 25 years using some sort of bizarre algorithm that somehow results in Moulin Rouge occupying the #10 slot on the movie list, ahead of GoodFellas, Schindler's List and Fargo (and Ferris Bueller's Day Off doesn't even appear on the list!). In the magazine's favor, I can't dis the sensible television selections, other than to question the nonsensical decision to deem Cheers ineligible simply because it debuted 26 years ago, in 1982 (we're talking about a sitcom that ranked in Nielsen's top ten each season from 1985 to 1993). And the top 50 video-games list, with Tetris correctly at No. 1, is a'ight despite the glaring absences of Star Wars (Atari's 1983 arcade classic), Myst (massively successful and imitated computer adventure game) and Golden Tee (ubiquitous bar upright).

But the music list -- wow. Remember that they're naming the most important, influential, culturally relevant, popular and flat-out great albums released from 1983 to 2008. With that in mind, take a look at number six: Green Day, American Idiot. That ranking puts it way ahead of Nirvana's Nevermind, because Nevermind doesn't appear on the list. (Why? Because these people selected MTV Unplugged in New York instead and they're limiting artists to one or two albums each, an infuriating list-devising practice that I rant about in Perfect From Now On.) I won't even comment on Prince and the Revolution's Purple Rain getting the top spot or Kanye West landing at number four or Amy Winehouse sitting at number nine other than to say, "Hurt me." The Strokes are on there, of course. (What is it with New York music critics and the Strokes? 60 Minutes -- not on the TV list! -- needs to look into that.) They picked the wrong R.E.M. album -- Life's Rich Pageant over, say, Reckoning. No Sonic Youth. No Hüsker Dü. No Shins. No fun.

But as usual, they got me. Lists are designed to make readers disagree, so they've done their job. Bravo, EW people, some of whom I know personally!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I have "Sister Christian" stuck in my head.

Alsatian Cousin

2008-06-18T14:13:00.000-04:00

My man Cory over at Holy Taco published this funny list of songs you should never play at a bar. It's based on an idea that, strangely, we devised not long ago while we were at a bar bitching about the many crappy songs people seem to always play at bars. So many other songs could have made this list -- "Brown Eyed Girl," "Gold Digger," anything by Death Cab for Cutie (seriously, DCFC is not acceptable bar music!) -- but it's hard to dispute any of the entries, especially "I Will Survive." Please, please, please never select that song on a jukebox again. Thank you.

Grasshopper

2008-06-18T11:16:00.003-04:00

Here's my Time Out New York interview with Common, a rapper who tried to sell me one of his hats. He said that I would look "fresh" in one of them. Sadly, I am not a hat guy. Freshness does not become me.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Again with the transcribing.

Outshined

2008-06-17T10:28:00.006-04:00

I finally got around to flipping through Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time." Oh, man -- where to begin?

How about #71: "Take It or Leave It" by the Strokes. Excuse me? I think my ears must have been affected by all the bitchin' guitar heard during this song, but did Rolling Stone really just say that the 71st greatest guitar song of all time is one written by the Strokes? Seriously?

This is the millionth example of why Rolling Stone's music coverage needs to be euthanized. I mean, "Take It or Leave It" is a decent song and all and I still like that first Strokes record, but there are an estimated 7 billion songs that should rank above "Take It or Leave It" on a list bearing the words Greatest Guitar Songs. (Estimated by whom? Me, and anyone who has ever actually listened to that song.)

It's so sad. You can just picture the magazine's aging editors sitting around a table in the Wenner Sweat Lodge going, "Uh, do you guys think we need a few songs released in the past twenty years to go with the 79 songs written pre-1988?" (Seriously -- there are only 21 songs on the list released after 1987. And three of those are by '60s/'70s-obsessed musicians Phish, Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer. And another is by Sublime. Yes, Sublime. So, the list contains just 18 acceptable modern-sounding songs from the past 20 years. By way of comparison, 36 are taken from the seven-year period between 1967 -- the year old man Wenner founded Rolling Stone -- and 1973 alone. Pass the Geritol. And the prunes. And sign me up for Life Alert.)

The list's many, many, many omissions are unbearable:

There is nothing by Soundgarden on the list.
There is nothing by the Replacements on the list.
There is nothing by Dinosaur Jr. on the list.
There is nothing by Rush on the list.
Van Halen's "Unchained," possibly the greatest guitar song ever written, is not on the list.
There is only one Nirvana song on the list, and it is not "Milk It."
There is only one Black Sabbath song on the list.
There is only one Guns n' Roses song on the list.

As incensed as I became upon discovering the many artists and songs that didn't make the cut, I was actually cursing whenever a band I liked appeared on the list. Like, I love the Pixies as much as anyone, but is "Debaser" really their best "guitar song"? No -- that would be "Bone Machine" or "Where Is My Mind?" or even "Here Comes Your Man." I love the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?" but how can they include that just a few years after snubbing Johnny Marr on their equally infuriating 100 Best Guitarists of All Time list? And here's the Smashing Pumpkins song they selected: "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." Not bad, but it's no "Siva." Or "Zero." Or even "Mayonnaise."

I could go on and on about how lame this list is. And I will. Strangely, I don't have much issue with the top 10. Hard to complain about "Johnny B. Goode" being number one or "Purple Haze" being number two. And I can live with Cream, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones and "Stairway to Heaven" placing high. But the Allman Brothers Band? Jesus.

My mouth is foaming now so I'm going to have to publish this prematurely. Somewhere Bob Stinson is rolling over in his grave. Luckily, he's probably too drunk to care.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I hate transcribing interviews.

Son of a Mustang Ford

2008-06-12T12:47:00.002-04:00

I interviewed Steve Carell, the nicest guy in the world.

Tonight I'm going to the Swervedriver show in Williamsburg. Last time I saw them, in 1998, they brought it, hard-style. If they bring it this time, I may crowd-surf! Or at least pretend to.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY

The Superbowl Shuffle

2008-06-11T12:39:00.004-04:00

I appear as a talking head in the Biography about Jack Black, premiering tonight at 10pm on the Biography Channel, which of course I don't get on my cable system. A&E long ago dumped their trademark Biography series on their spin-off network and that decision is only now affecting my general enjoyment of life. Oh well. I assume I look and sound like a monkey anyway.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Breeders show, while wonderful in a lot of ways, made me feel old.

Divine Hammer

2008-06-09T11:21:00.003-04:00

So sorry to have completely missed last week. I blame the Germans.

Remember arcades? Boy, I sure do, having spent what I'll conservatively estimate to be a buttload of time in them from 1980 to '85. This article in last Thursday's Chicago Tribune exacerbates my sadness about the demise of the classic-style video-game arcade (which I also wrote about in the epilogue to Arcade Fever). I'd pretty much kill for a good game of Tutankham right now.

June is a busy month -- for other writers, I mean. I have three friends with books coming out. They are:

1) David Browne, whose informative Sonic Youth biography Goodbye 20th Century is out now. The book's back cover features my very first PFNO-related blurb. See how I can turn everything into something about me?

2) Rob Walker, whose long-awaited book Buying In (a by-product of his excellent NY Times Magazine column Consumed) is also out now. I'm buying in -- to the surely scintillating text found within the pages of his book. Rob is also doing a big reading this Friday in Manhattan, and you'd find me there, possibly drunk off my tree, if you could even get in. The event is sold out, suckers!

3) Darin Strauss, whose third novel, More Than It Hurts You, will be published on June 19. Preorder that bad boy!

Anyway, it's hot as Haiti here today, so I'm going to go cool by the AC for a while. Shut up all you people in LA with pools. I hate your pool.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I hate your pool.

Autosuggestion

2008-05-30T15:37:00.003-04:00

Here's what I learned last night while hanging out with my pal Adam Sachs:

1. Gin is the devil. I got blotto to the bejeezus on liquid Satan -- why?

2. Sachs not only writes with his hands, as John Hodgman memorably claimed in a classic Saturday Night Special zine manifesto, he also cooks pasta with them.

3. Ground pepper, on its own, tastes bad, very, very bad. For reasons unknown to me today (see #1), I ended the night by putting a pinch of ground pepper into my mouth and swallowing. It makes no sense.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I'm incapacitated on a lovely day.

Clampdown

2008-05-27T17:53:00.006-04:00

So my article about "female Shreks" for the June issue of Details is out. I learned that not by flipping through a copy of the magazine, but by reading this hilarious post on Jezebel.com -- and boy, do they let me have it! Ouch!

What a load of useless noise -- my lame article included, said article obviously being a work-for-hire and concerning a subject that I could personally give a rat's ass about and written "zombie-style" using the time-honored royal "we" of men's magazines.

Anyway, here's something that I wrote that I'm actually proud of and which I doubt will offend any feminists, although seriously, what doesn't? It's my interview with Marisa Tomei for Time Out New York. Enjoy.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Toilet overflowed!

Cemetry Gates

2008-05-23T12:59:00.006-04:00

I'm sure everyone's already all over this, but this Gawker post of message left by an angry Craigslister playa is hilarious.

But these photos are way funnier. Way, way funnier.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
A dreaded sunny day so let's go where we're happy and... Oh, right. I have to work.

Never Had No One Ever

2008-05-22T15:43:00.008-04:00

As fast as I can I'm going to try and rattle off all the publications in which I've been published, as an exercise in both ego and memory. (But mostly ego.) And I'll even try to do it in chronological order starting with the oldest. Go!

Travel Holiday
Blockbuster
TV Guide
Time Out New York
Entertainment Weekly
React
Marie Claire
ARTnews
Details
Maxim
GQ
FHM
Us
Slate
*Sports Illustrated
Nerve
New York
Premiere
Elle Girl
Elle
Esquire
*Black Book
Spin
The New York Times
*The Atlantic Monthly
The Believer
*Men's Journal

[* denotes an after-the-fact update]

I feel like I'm missing a couple, and a lot of these are likely out of order. And what does any of this have to do with Morrissey's 49th birthday? Nothing. But this does:

The Wagon

2008-05-22T11:55:00.008-04:00

I am a contributor to Crispy Gamer, a site for video-game reviews and news that launched earlier this year and keeps growing and growing like that hair on your mole. Sadly, "contributor" in my case means "one contribution," and in fact I hold the dubious distinction of being tied for the fewest number of contributed articles, reviews and blog posts among the site's many writers. My sole contribution? This review of Project Gotham Racing 4 for the Xbox 360.

I'm trying to change the world with my words, one slowly written review of a meaningless game at a time.

My industrious homeslice Scott Jones is at the top of the contribution heap, of course, and many of his reviews and features will knock you back on your butt-tocks from all the laughter they induce (at least in laboratory mice--studies show!). For example, here's his funny review of the new Wii Fit add-on, which he tests by placing a 12-pack of beer on its sensor pad, and over the course of a few days, witnessing how the system reacts when a few bottles magically disappear.

I wish I was that prolific. But a guy's got to worry about his fantasy baseball teams sometime.

Prince-S

2008-05-22T09:33:00.007-04:00

Here's the latest Time Out interview -- this time with Uwe Boll, director of a lot of purportedly horrible movies I've never seen. Make sure to check out the comments section. It appears that I have been busted by the P.C. police. Why do these people persist?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
More rain.

What Did You Expect?

2008-05-20T09:37:00.008-04:00

Back in the day--which means "twenty-two years ago, when I couldn't drive, hadn't ever consumed an alcoholic beverage and believed in the healing power of Falco"--I was a nerd for comic books. Well, Marvel Comics. I didn't have a lot of money to spend every week, so I combatted the lack of funds by focusing only on the universe populated by my man Spider-Man. Incredulous friend-geeks would ask, "You don't read The New Teen Titans?" And I've felt inferior to more well-rounded comic dorks ever since. Like my pal Rob Kemp, who behind all of our backs has been working on Komik Kounterparts, a blog that diligently compares Marvel characters to those in the DC universe--sort of like trying to find the Roman equivalents of various Greek gods.

A list in honor of the excellent discovery. Top Seven Comic Characters I Liked When I Was 15 (Circa 1985):

1. Spider-Man: the grand poobah for every shy, misunderstood jokester.
2. Iron Man: and yet I have still not seen the movie.
3. Daredevil: no, not the Ben Affeck version.
4. Moon Knight: I was really into ninjas, and he's close enough.
5. Nightcrawler: I used to only be able to move from room to room in my house if I said "BAMPF!", the sound Nightcrawler makes when he teleports.
6. Thor: his magic hammer is named Mjolnir.
7. The Vision: dude was married to the Scarlet Witch!

And now, some Archers of Loaf to kick your ass on this inaugural and possibly final installment of Two for Tuesday. The first is "What Did You Expect?", the best song ever to use the word goiter:

The second is "Harnessed in Slums," which needs no introduction, as it is the best song ever written:

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I got up at 6:30am to ensure that I wouldn't miss my 9am Jeopardy! audition. Well ahead of schedule, I bounded off the subway all the way up in midtown around 8:30 and glided into the hotel where the auditions were being held. It was there that I was told by a startled desk clerk that the auditions weren't being held until next Tuesday. Sure enough, the date May 27 appears in bold font on the information sheet that the Jeopardy! coordinator had sent me, and which I held in my very hand the entire 40-minute subway ride to midtown.

Where Have All the Good Times Gone!

2008-05-19T07:39:00.003-04:00

I've been remiss in posting my latest Time Out New York interview, which was published -- gasp! -- last week. This one's with disgraced author James Frey, who has redeemed himself in my eyes by playing along with my stupid questions.

Almost Ready

2008-05-19T07:35:00.002-04:00

I love this story about Seattle Mariners' phenom Ichiro Suzuki:

Ichiro ran his way around the bases in the first inning with an infield hit and two stolen bases, which put him in position to score on Jose Lopez's ground ball. The pair of stolen bases broke the Mariners' franchise record for steals. Ichiro has 292 stolen bases for Seattle. The previous record of 290 was held by Julio Cruz.

Ichiro said Cruz sent him a bottle of cologne at some point in the past, and the odor spelled out the age difference between the two.

"It smelled like old men," Ichiro said through an interpreter. "I felt the generation gap between us."

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Laundry place not open at 7 a.m. so I got up and went out early for nothing.

I've Changed My Plea to Guilty

2008-05-15T21:22:00.003-04:00

Okay. I want to go home. Last night at the bar here in Grand Rapids I was sitting next to two girls in their early twenties who didn't know the singer of a particular tune that was playing. The song was "New York, New York."

Man.

Here are three Morrissey videos that pretty much make me want to cry.

The first: "I've Changed My Plea to Guilty," circa December 1990. Best version ever. (A kind thank you to Mistina from the Prids for this one.)

And one of my favorite Morrissey songs, "Late Night, Maudlin Street," performed live in 2002 in front of a bunch of lucky people in Japan:

And finally, the inaugural and possibly final installment of "three for Thursday" concludes with the classic "Sister I'm a Poet" performance at Wolverhampton in 1987 (his first solo show, backed by Gannon, Joyce and Rourke). I love the part where a fan clocks him in the head with a gladioli.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Tigers are 16-25. Wow.

She's Crafty

2008-05-11T23:34:00.003-04:00

Last week: Seattle. This week: Michigan. For book-research purposes. Which means I'll be out of pocket for the next few days. I'll try to post on Thursday and Friday.

I will leave you with a song that I just can't get out of my head, and it's driving me loony. You must all share my pain!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Too much work, not enough time to do it, not enough sleep.

Plumb Line

2008-05-08T15:13:00.007-04:00

The Chicago White Sox, which may be the only team in baseball right now with a lineup more pathetic than the Detroit Tigers', boast two members of the weard club: outfielder Nick Swisher and closer Bobby Jenks. Yesterday the two dorks dyed their weards pink to support the fight against breast cancer, which only makes their weards wearder.

In this week's Seattle Weekly, there is a sad and hilarious article about a Gary Busey lookalike. The guy's resemblance to the bonkers celeb is uncanny (although I still contend that my pal Larson is the only true dead ringer for Busey). Reading the article brought back wonderful memories of that afternoon spent, circa 2003, in Busey's company at a Malibu seafood shack, where he spat crab at me and repeatedly touched my leg in a way that made me glad that I've never gone to prison.

Also, there's this article about being a non-manly man by Paul Constant in the alt-weekly The Stranger, aka "Seattle's Only Newspaper." While I have never been able to understand any heterosexual guy's lack of interest in sports, I have befriended many of these types of creatures over the years, some of whom I've considered to be among my closest friends. Maybe this article will finally bring to the fore the "Straight Dudes Without Masculine 'Tudes" (SDWMT) movement that I've heard rumblings about for so long.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
It's 55 degrees where I am; 75 degrees back home.

My Head

2008-05-06T11:11:00.003-04:00

Here's a trend that's gotta stop: male full-frontal nudity in comedies. In the past week, I've seen two of my favorite actors' wangs. In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was amusing in the same way that Can't Buy Me Love was amusing twenty years ago, Jason Segel exposes his one true self for more than thirty seconds. In Postal, which was amusing in the way that Leonard Part 6 was amusing twenty years ago, Dave Foley shows off his junk as well. I was not amused.

I'd get into this more, but I'm at the airport and have to board now. Feel free to discuss!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
None of my fantasy baseball teams are doing well.

Waterloo Sunset

2008-05-05T11:36:00.003-04:00

Insolence! My cat is hereby accused and found guilty of unbridled feline insolence! At exactly 3:37pm I got up from my desk to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen, a mission lasting approximately thirty seconds. A certain grinning purr-ball was occupying my desk chair upon my return. Insolence!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Tigers cut Jacques Jones. I liked Jacque Jones. They better not sign Bonds.

Cast Iron

2008-05-02T11:59:00.003-04:00

It's been hard for me to post this week because I'm preparing for thirteen straight days on the road starting next Tuesday, at least three of which will be spent pretending I'm an outdoorsman. To tie up some loose ends, the bathroom ants are gone, I spoke to both James Frey and Uwe Boll today, I took a nice 1.5 hour nap in the late afternoon, and the Detroit Tigers are totally dominant now. None of those things have anything to do with each other, of course. Unless they do. In which case I would merely scratch my head and go "hmmmmm."

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
There is a horse named Colonel John in the Kentucky Derby (which takes place tomorrow). There is also an obscure Mark Twain novel entitled The Adventures of Colonel Sellers. Which brings me to my point: why is "colonel" pronounced "kernel"? This is a rhetorical question; I've read the Wikipedia explanation. Either way, it makes no goddamn sense.

Newark Wilder

2008-05-01T15:01:00.005-04:00

In honor of May 1, also known as Coultonmas, I give you a video of my pal Mr. Jonathan Coulton playing his dirty ditty "First of May." Enjoy. And then go boink outdoors. Boink, I say.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I have to see Postal today.

Keeping Track

2008-04-30T23:59:00.000-04:00

Here's the result of my two-part interview with This American Life host Ira Glass. Why two parts? Because my first interview was ruined by my own silly incompetence. Plug the tape recorder doohickey into the phone doohickey correctly, dumb-ass! Duh!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The ants have resurfaced!

Hunter's Complex

2008-04-29T10:58:00.006-04:00

Ah, haters. Who doesn't love 'em? Trolling Goodreads recently, I saw a lot of ego-boosting comments about my book. There were also these corkers (in order from mildly humorous to super awesome):

"He gushes so much he practically soaks the pages."

"Overall, it's a good book, but not amazing."

"This book feels like a blog entry, padded out extensively."

"Go read Love Is a Mix Tape instead."

"The rest sort of slowly winds down and peters out in a mildly interesting way."

"I really only have one comment: 'meh.'"

"At times painful to read because of the footnotes."

"Not so much about music as it is about the author's quest to be cool."

"All he does is annoy half of his readers with opinions that have very little to do with anything."

"Frankly, it is remarkable a publisher agreed to devote 75,000 words to it."

"A perfectly horrible book, in every way."

"Would give it zero stars if that was possible."

"Not quite as funny as it thinks it is."

"Smug, glib, trying so hard to be clever."

"It's mainly just this dipshit talking about growing up."

"Boring, boring, boring Klosterman wanna-be."

"i. hate. footnotes."

"It angries up the blood."

"Wow...this book sucked a million ways to Sunday."

One thing I've come to understand about memoir-writing is that most reviewers aren't so much judging the book as they are its author. (Coincidentally, Jonathan Franzen and Gawker totally agree.) And when you choose to write a polarizing memoir where you toss around emphatic opinions about things your readers care deeply about, you are bound to get attacked in very personal ways by the people who don't get it. So, in order to breathe and eat correctly, you have to tell yourself that you're not going to let comments like the above faze you, in almost the same way that you have to accept those very public beat-downs and pantsings by the playground bully. You'd be best off, in fact, embracing the negative comments in the same way you do the positive ones. Which is why I would consider any one of the following statements for my gravestone:

HERE LIES JOHN SELLERS, SMUG, GLIB, TRIED SO HARD TO BE CLEVER.

R.I.P. JOHN SELLERS, A DIPSHIT WHO TALKED MAINLY ABOUT GROWING UP.

SHED NOT A TEAR FOR JOHN SELLERS, BORING, BORING, BORING KLOSTERMAN WANNA-BE.

WOULD GIVE JOHN SELLERS ZERO STARS IF THAT WAS POSSIBLE.

JOHN SELLERS: HE ANGRIED UP THE BLOOD.

Still, none of these Goodreads commenters have managed to trump the infamous anonymous New York magazine reviewer who called me an asshole or the infamous anonymous Publishers Weekly reviewer who erroneously suggested that I endorsed non-consensual sex. Those truly sucked a million ways to Sunday.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I have that Subway jingle stuck in my head: "Five dollar... Five dollar... Five dollar foot looooongs."

Punch Me Harder

2008-04-28T13:43:00.004-04:00

Now that Rock of Love 2 is over, Sunday nights are a strange vortex of empty. Why is there nothing good on anymore, ever?

The show I seem to be missing more than any other these days is Blind Date. I am well aware how ridiculous that statement is. But in my humble opinion (which I will never abbreviate IMHO), the Roger Lodge-tastic dating show was the perfect nugget of cheese to watch when you get back from the bar and sit on the couch feeding on the kind of crap you feed on when you get back from the bar. And whither ElimiDATE? Shipmates? There is nothing like these shows on the air these days (no, those partially scripted MTV dating shows like Next don't count) and it's weird how sad I am about it.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Rain sucks donkey gonads.

Let's Go

2008-04-25T08:57:00.004-04:00

Writer extraordinaire and all-around cool cat Claire Zulkey posted an interview with me today.

On Sunday, May 18, I will be appearing at Good Reads @ Good World -- a monthly event that I've been assured by host and virtuoso Scrabulous opponent Rosie Schapp is the "booziest reading series in New York." May 18, of course, is the calendar date on which Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980, and as a tribute I will be reading a portion of the infamous Joy Division footnote found in my oft-mentioned book Perfect From Now On, which, seriously, everyone should just buy already so that I can splurge on some waffles.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Can you believe that I forgot that tickets for the big ATP New York festival -- featuring My Bloody Valentine and Built to Spill (performing the album my book is named after) -- went on sale this morning? The gig is already sold out. It's a little ridiculous.

Ana Ng

2008-04-24T11:35:00.007-04:00

Here's my interview with Neil Patrick Harris from this week's Time Out New York magazine. As you'll notice, my term weard is about to hit the big time. Big time!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Hangover. It's a real bangeroo.

Sue Is Fine

2008-04-23T11:04:00.005-04:00

Wow -- I'm all literary and shit. This very generous mention in The New York Observer is a much needed ego boost on the same day that this blog has finally fallen off Blogger.com's Blogs of Note.

Some facts about that wild ride: On Tuesday, April 8, when Angry John Sellers appeared on Blogger's list, unique visits to this website increased from my typical average of 75 per day to over 4,000. As my blog slowly descended the Blogs of Note ladder as new "notables" were added over the subsequent two weeks, unique visits to this site plateaued at around 600 per day -- still a pretty tidy number. Sadly, we're back in the double digits today, which makes me feel like Willie Aames circa Celebrity Fit Club vis a vis Charles in Charge. Where my commenters at?

Randy Describes Eternity

2008-04-23T09:38:00.006-04:00

Oh. My. God.

My Bloody Valentine! And Built to Spill performing Perfect From Now On in its entirety! Doesn't this sound like I made it up? For proof, see my open letter to Kevin Shields or, you know, a little book called Perfect From Now On.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Ants in my apartment!

Bombs Away

2008-04-22T13:18:00.009-04:00

In keeping with yesterday's theme of embarrassing teenage musical interests, I shall now reprint a list that I found in a box of my old belongings at my mom's house this past Thanksgiving. It is titled "Top 25 of 1986" (my 2008 comments are in bold, followed by a video, if necessary):

25. Arcadia, "Goodbye Is Forever"
Ouch. As you will see and hear, this is not a song you want to have in your top twenty-five, no matter how much of a dipshit you were at the time. (Doesn't Simon Le Bon look like William Shatner here?)

24. Tears for Fears, "Mother's Talk"
This is arguably the worst song on Songs from the Big Chair, and certainly the one with the worst title. I was probably trying to be contrary -- to myself, the only person ever to read this (until now). Dumb-ass. (Bonus: Check out Howie Mandel at the very beginning of the video.)

23. Run-DMC, "Walk This Way"
I'm surprised this one didn't rank higher. No defense (or video) necessary.

22. The Beatles, "Twist and Shout"
Two words: Ferris Bueller.

21. Andy Taylor, "Take It Easy"
I was the only guy in the world to buy the Duran Duran guitarist's first solo album, Thunder. I still have it, actually, in my stack of long-neglected LPs, right next to Sammy Hagar's VOA. I also still have a hangover from getting drunk on this song, the aural equivalent of Boone's Farm.

20. Run-DMC, "You Be Illin'"
"Dinner/You ate it/There is none left..." So rapped the dynamic duo in this not-so-tasty nugget from Raising Hell.

19. Falco, "Jeanny"
Holy crap! What the fuck was my problem??? Proof that I used to molest collies (metaphorically speaking) can be found by watching the video to this painfully melodramatic song.

18. Journey, "Girl Can't Help It"
Ugliest band ever? (And, yeah, that includes American Idol hoss Randy Jackson, who debuted as Journey's replacement bassist on this album and tour.)

17. Phil Collins, "Take Me Home"
Is there really anything to say (or show)? No. No, there isn't.

16. Andy Taylor, "When the Rain Comes Down"
Again with the most inferior Taylor! This one was included on the Miami Vice II soundtrack, explaining my interest in it. But oh, oh man -- it is terrible. More terrible is that I have no memory of this song or video, signifying some sort of trauma.

15. Cameo, "Word Up"
Seriously.

14. David Lee Roth, "Yankee Rose"
"My doctor said I need to take a laxative!"

13. Falco, "Rock Me Amadeus"
This video is great and all, but the version of the song that I loved was the "Salieri mix," because it had the long, spoken-word intro summing up Mozart's life and death (and my utter dorkiness).

12. Bon Jovi, "You Give Love a Bad Name"
It's hard to deny the excellence of this song.

11. Eddie Murphy, "Party All the Time"
It's hard to deny the shittiness of this one.

10. Huey Lewis and the News, "Stuck With You"
The first of three Huey Lewis songs in the top ten. Man, I loved Fore!

9. John Taylor, "I Do What I Do"
What the...? How did this trifle, from the 9 1/2 Weeks soundtrack, make my top ten? Answer: 'ludes.

8. Bon Jovi, "Living on a Prayer"
It's weird to be reminded in my own 16-year-old handwriting just how much I liked Bon Jovi in their early days.

7. Huey Lewis and the News, "Jacob's Ladder"
I was just totally groovin' to this song -- not sure I've heard it since the 1980s. Succumb to Huey!

6. Duran Duran, "Notorious"
Worst Duran Duran album of the 1980s. Possibly the worst single -- after "Wild Boys," of course. Man, that one was a turd.

5. Van Halen, "Best of Both Worlds"
I refuse to acknowledge this one.

4. ZZ Top, "Velcro Fly"
Before looking this song up, I had no idea how it went. After watching the video, I'm still not sure. Or at least that's what I'm going to pretend.

3. Huey Lewis and the News, "Hip to Be Square"
And I was so totally square! And hip, apparently.

2. Oran "Juice" Jones, "The Rain"
"You without me is like cornflake without the milk."

1. Arcadia, "Election Day"
Unreservedly: What a stinker.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I feel like drinking a shitload of beer. Can't.

Johnny's Gonna Die

2008-04-21T15:15:00.017-04:00

In the absence of time, I'm only able today to give you a list of the top 10 lamest cassette tapes I listened to regularly in my 1976 Datsun B-210 beater, i.e. my first car (driven 1986-87; died 1988):

10. Journey, Raised on Radio

9. Bon Jovi, self-titled

8. George Thorogood, Live

7. Arcadia, So Red the Rose

6. Whodini, Back in Black

5. Whitesnake, Slide It In

4. ABC, How to Be a... Zillionaire!

3. Dokken, Tooth and Nail

2. Vinnie Vincent Invasion, self-titled

1. Falco, Falco 3

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
There's nothing worse than a hater. Unless that hater is me.

Only Shallow

2008-04-18T15:24:00.003-04:00

Outside in the sky, something called a "sun" has appeared. Not much is known about this phenomenon yet as it is our first prolongued exposure to it since records of that sort have been kept. But we know this: The sun brings warmth with it, and warmth doesn't suck. Still, this smells like a practical joke. Is this a practical joke?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I remembered what I forgot to remember: My car's air-conditioning is kaput. It might be time to ditch the Corsica.

Psychic Pilot Clocks Out

2008-04-17T15:19:00.005-04:00

Amazing news! I have secured an in-person try-out for Jeopardy! Now, this only means that I passed their online test; I still have plenty of work to do before satisfying my number one goal of 2008 of appearing on the program. But, dude, I got a try-out!

Now, of course, begins the arduous process of making myself smarter -- a Herculean task, or maybe a Sisyphean task, or some other kind of task that relates to one of those goddamn Greek gods I so direly need to study up on.

This unexpected news coupled with the Tigers' three-game winning steak -- which curiously began the very evening I posted my theory that they're the baseball equivalent of the Black Stallion -- has made me as happy as a little girl.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Transcribing tapes sucks sweet monkey ass.

Sheetkickers

2008-04-16T16:14:00.007-04:00

Most people I know watch Top Chef religiously. I am not one of those people. I am also not what is referred to as a "foodie," that childish euphemism for gourmet that not only perplexes me but also perplexes my wickedly talented pal Wendy McClure. ("Foodie" sounds way too much like "doggy" or "horsie" to take a person who uses that term to describe him- or herself seriously.) So there was no better writer in the world to interview Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi than yours truly, right? Enjoy my latest Q+A for Time Out New York.

Hey Joni

2008-04-16T11:03:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed -- and it wouldn't surprise me if no one has -- but there has been a significant redesign around these parts in the past 24 hours. Hopefully you people like it. Hopefully it's not the equivalent of Joan Rivers getting an ear-lift and Botox injection -- that is, both scary and ho-hum. But it probably is.

In advance of my Q+A with Neil Patrick Harris, which will run in next week's Time Out New York, allow me to direct your attention to The Personal Journal of Doogie Howser, M.D., which is either a pitch-perfect spoof of those proto-blog entries the Doog-meister would compose at the end of each episode or an actual transcription of Howser's signature hocum. This one's my favorite: "I know that I'm supposed to be the smart one, but when it comes to the art of friendship, Vinnie's a genius."

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
My paperback doesn't come up when you search for "Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life" on Amazon; only the sold-out bargain hardcover and the relatively useless Kindle editions do. Wonderful.

Looks That Kill

2008-04-15T09:21:00.005-04:00

The Pope apparently arrives in the U.S. today. Apparently there is a frenzy surrounding his appearance.

But all I care about is the Popemobile. Man, I wish I owned that sucker. I'd stick a cardboard cut-out of Mr. Spock in the back of it and drive around Brooklyn honking like all holy hell. People would throw confetti and cheer as Spock stoicly stood there and glowered at the hoi polloi. It would be beautiful.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Dirty shoes.

The Brides Have Hit Glass

2008-04-14T10:14:00.006-04:00

I know I said I'd never talk about the Tigers again, ever, but after yet another hideous loss yesterday dropped them to 2-10, an uplifting new way of thinking presented itself: The 2008 Detroit Tigers are the baseball equivalent of the equine protagonist of the 1979 movie The Black Stallion.

If you somehow can't recall the ins and outs of that tear-jerking film -- which, no lie, I have seen probably ten times and which stupidly inspired me to pretend that I was a galloping horse during sprints around the gym during junior-high P.E. -- allow me to recap. A luxury ocean liner sinks and our thirteen-year-old hero washes up on a desert island, where eventually he befriends a fellow shipwreck survivor who just happens to be the wild Arabian stallion of the title. After they are found and transported back to civilization, the boy convinces his patient mother to let him keep the defiant beast, and a former jockey played by Mickey Rooney teaches the kid how to control his giant new pet (and also acts like he's about 250 years old, which of course Rooney was in 1979). The climax arrives as the boy and his horse finagle their way into a totally-made-up, big-stakes race between the nation's top two riders. Just before the start of the race, Black goes apeshit on one of the other horses and hurts his leg; when the gates open, he careens down the track like the town drunk and appears to be out of the race. But not so. The kid gets his horse under control, they make up a difference of some 50 lengths, and everyone is incredibly happy -- at least until the 1983 sequel, which sadly wasn't any good.

Limping out of the gate, behaving erratically, and eating hay: Introducing your 2008 Detroit Tigers.

If you don't believe me, just watch this -- but make sure to imagine that the horse's head is actually Magglio Ordonez's.

= ???

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I can't get "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper out of my head. It's getting painful.

Sludgefeast

2008-04-11T13:01:00.004-04:00

A tip from GE, who runs the fantastic but incredibly long-titled blog What I Listened to on My Way to Work Today: watch The Paper on MTV starting this Monday at 10:30pm. It's about a group of kids running a high-school newspaper, and it looks awesome. (And it looks like another example of why teenagers can be annoying.) Check it out:

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I will not discuss the Tigers anymore, ever. But, cor blimey, I be hungry. As the crotchety grandfather in Christmas Vacation said, I've got to eat so I can take my back pill!

Theresa's Sound World

2008-04-10T09:09:00.007-04:00

My interview with actor Patrick Stewart appears in this week's Time Out New York, so click on the link and say "Engage!" in the sweet bald dude's unmistakable voice. For space reasons (no, not outer space!), one excellent exchange landed on the cutting-room floor. (Although I obviously do not have an actual cutting room in my apartment, and now that I think of it, what the hell is a cutting room?) Here it is:

Me: There’s something that I’ve been dying to hear you say: Meatballs are delicious. Will you say it?

Patrick Stewart: Meatballs are delicious.

And seriously, they are.

By the way, my memoir Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life did not lead to a Pulitzer Prize, but Junot Diaz's far superior first novel did, and rightly so. But is anyone else surprised that winners of a Pulitzer only receive $10,000?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Tigers won, so my anger level is minimal today. But WTF with American Airlines? If they go out of business, what will happen to my free frequent-flier ticket? I better not get bupkes!

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

2008-04-09T08:30:00.010-04:00

Now this is the kind of list I can get behind: Radar's The 10 Most Hated People on the Internet. While I don't agree with some of their choices, I hate most of those people as much as everyone else, especially Lori Drew, that dumb hag whose shenanigans led a 13-year-old girl in Missouri to hang herself. But isn't George W. Bush the most hated person on the Internet? Or does he only qualify as the most hated person on the Internets (plural)?

I'm trying to coin a new word: weard. If you grow a beard and shave it creatively, you no longer have a beard but instead have a weard. So, a weard, then, is both a strange-looking beard as well as a very common internet misspelling of the word weird -- which, come on, is shockingly easy to spell, you stupid dumb-asses. Here are some examples of weards:

Got it? Now go and spread that word around, possibly by pointing and laughing hysterically the next time you see someone who has one, and then yelling, "Bitchin' weard, dude!"

And then you should go to this excellent blog and play some Duck Hunt.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Detroit Tigers, picked by many to win the Central Division, are now 0-7. They can't field. They can't hit. They can't pitch. And this is a $138 million squad! If they don't win today against Boston, I am going to defecate in a very public place.

Schizophrenia

2008-04-08T11:43:00.003-04:00

First of all, a big thank you to Blogger.com for listing me among their "Blogs of Note."

Second of all -- jehosaphat, are my 37-year-old muscles ever sore! When I walk, I resemble any of the many cast members of Cocoon, before they are rejuvenated by aliens. I totally need one of those Rascal scooters that are always advertised on Game Show Network. (For a guffaw, check out the Rascal-cam video on the manufacturer's website). Or maybe, thanks to my dumb-ass decision not to stretch before, during or after a softball doubleheader on Sunday, I just need to hook up with the Young at Heart choir and sing me some "Schizophrenia":

In summation, I'm 37 and I feel like those numbers should be reversed.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Tigers are still 0-6.

Come On And Dance

2008-04-07T12:47:00.002-04:00

Whew! The public-radio host has agreed to a new interview so I'm golden, albeit embarrassed as hell. Double whew!

Is it ever going to get warm out?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I played a double-header of softball yesterday -- our first games of the season -- and am now as sore as I've ever been. I can barely move. But it was worth it because we won both games, which is precisely two games more than the Detroit Tigers have won this year, which is the actual reason why I'm angry today.

The Blood

2008-04-03T21:52:00.010-04:00

This new gig as the back-page editor and interviewer at Time Out New York is more fun than I expected and I feel pretty lucky to have it. I mean, just the other day I managed to get Patrick Stewart to say both "Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra" and "meatballs are delicious" to me over the phone. (I will link to the Q+A when it's up next Tuesday.) But it also comes with the small but real risk that you're totally going to blow an interview when you least want to blow it -- as I did with a certain incredibly influential public-radio host yesterday. For some reason my goddamn phone hookup malfunctioned and not a single word of what would have been the greatest interview ever published is audible. Total disaster.

Now, I've had tapes snap on me before, like when I interviewed David James Elliott over lunch a while back for TV Guide -- and seriously, you haven't lived until you've eaten a meal opposite TV's JAG while he chatters on about training for triathlons. But snapped tapes can be repaired. Malfunctions of the kind that happened to me yesterday, though, can't be fixed; the only thing you can do is hope they'll consent to do a second interview with you. Surprisingly, something on the order of this magnitude of failure has happened to me only one other time in the literally hundreds of interviews that I've done with celebrities since I began doing them back in 1996. (First celebrity interview ever? Lee Majors, for Entertainment Weekly.) That disaster happened about six years ago, when I was assigned by GQ to interview actress and noted Scientologist Juliette Lewis. I met her at a Jewish deli in a strip mall opposite the Scientology headquarters in L.A., where my stupid questions about her "religion" and career totally bewildered her -- which means, of course, that it went perfectly. But I had to fly to Vegas later that day to -- and I'm not making this up -- hang out with an Elvis Presley impersonator (he preferred the term "Elvis entertainer"), and my flight home to New York was stupidly booked for the next morning at around 6am. Because the interview with the Elvis guy lasted until around 2, I decided that it would be better not to go to sleep and instead hit the tables for a few hours before heading to the airport. The lack of sleep or possibly a few drinks caused me to forget that upon arrival I'd dumped the contents of my bag onto the bed of the hotel room (the room I spent a grand total of five minutes in) and also not to pack the Lewis tape upon departure; by the time I noticed it was missing, I was already back in New York and the tape was in a trash bin somewhere behind the Imperial Palace. Even though I was later able to get Ms. Lewis back on the phone, and the Q+A did run in GQ, the published article wasn't nearly as good as the original conversation because Lewis was much more guarded the second time around and seemingly perturbed that she had to spend another half hour doing something she wasn't really getting paid to do.

I've always seen that snafu as one of the low points of my career, which is sad because it involves Juliette Lewis, whom I have no feelings about one way or another. But this new problem is a disappointment of real significance.

Still, I'm sure he'll agree to a follow-up. And my plan this time is to ask better, more hilarious questions, one of which is definitely going to be about burritos. I'm viewing the "lost" interview as one of those pre-interviews you always hear late-night talk show guests alluding to. I'm trying out optimism for a change, although, yeah, it isn't going to last.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Sellers and Corndogs ... at Tanagra. Okay, I'm not angry about that, but I felt you needed to know.

Planet's Own Brand

2008-04-02T10:37:00.004-04:00

This is hilarious. My favorite line comes at the end: "This was a lot longer than I expected." No duh.

Is there any outdoor hobby more lame than adult kickball? Funny I should ask. Here is my list of the top five lamest adult outdoor hobbies:

1. Kite-flying
2. Ultimate Frisbee, especially when referred to as "Ultimate"
3. Kickball
4. Hacky-sack
5. Civil War battle reenactments

I feel like maybe I'm forgetting about something. LARPing (live action role playing), maybe, although nerds do that indoors, too. What else?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
The Tigers bullpen sucks.

No Aloha

2008-04-01T14:30:00.005-04:00

By the way, here's the Kim Deal interview I did for Time Out New York. My favorite part is when she calls me a big nerd.

Voices in My Head

2008-04-01T12:01:00.005-04:00

It's pretty pathetic that this here entry is only my 369th. I started this stillbirth of a blog in late November of 2003, which means we're basically 52 months into this sucker. Do a little math and we're talking an average of 7.1 posts per month. Clearly I should be averaging 20 or more.

Therefore: Time to make the doughnuts. I apologize to anyone who visited yesterday with the expectation that I was going to start up my "every weekday" blogging promise from a while back. Failure on every level!

Speaking of which, my website is currently not behaving properly and my Cro-Magnon brain can't figure out why. Something is preventing the images to load. I'm thinking it's the gremlins. It has to be the gremlins.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Jackhammer outside my apartment.

Meat Is Murder

2008-03-28T14:07:00.001-04:00

It has been a killer week. I leave you with this:

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
It has been a killer week.

The World Has Turned and Left Me Here

2008-03-19T12:36:00.003-04:00

If you've ever wanted to know what Woody Harrelson thinks of nougat, please read my latest back-page Q+A for Time Out New York magazine. (And just so you have them all in one place, here are the other two Hot Seats I've done so far: Michael McDonald and Paul Giamatti. After a week off, my interview with Kim Deal will run in the April 3 issue.)

Next week I will post a recap of the paperback book tour. And starting March 31, I'm going to start posting something every weekday. I rule!

And finally, if you live in the NYC area, you are hereby invited to attend my final reading of the tour -- at BookCourt next Wednesday (March 26) at 7pm. I'll be opening for Dean Wareham!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Duke slipped by Belmont even though they totally shouldn't have.

Post-Paint Boy

2008-03-14T11:03:00.005-04:00

If you're a commuter and you like music, you probably strap on your iPod or other music-listening device and crank out the jams as you weave through traffic or curse at the annoying douchebags who keep invading your personal space on the subway. Chances are, though, that you don't keep a meticulous, ongoing tally of exactly what you listen on your way to work. My friend Greg does, and he is now describing in great detail his excellent OCD-ish habit on his new blog, which he has creatively titled What I Listened To On My Way To Work Today.

Greg, who I met my senior year of college and has been one of the few constants in my life ever since, has gotten me into more bands than any other person I can think of: Pavement (as described in my book), Uncle Tupelo, Big Star, Buffalo Tom, Silversun Pickups, Sonic Youth, to name just a few. And so his blog is everything that I would expect -- part commentary on the (sometimes perplexing) songs that come up on his iPod as it randomly shuffles (jazz? Bright Eyes? WTF, Greg?), and part glimpse at the record collection of someone with far more diverse listening habits than most of us have. But overall it's both funny and insightful -- which is more than I can say for this sadsack blog.

By the way, I'm heading to Los Angeles on Sunday to read at the Vermin on the Mount series. Here's the poster for the event:

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Out of batteries for my microcassette recorder and I'm interviewing Kim Deal imminently!

Frankly, Mr. Shankly

2008-03-13T08:31:00.004-04:00

Oh, to be at South By Southwest. Oh, not to have been a moron for not planning my book tour to go through Austin. Oh, to stop starting sentences with the "Oh," construction.

My Time Out New York Q+A with Paul Giamatti is up. Check it out, suckers! Ditto this interview I did with the excellent Minnesota Public Radio station The Current yesterday.

Finally, I loved this tribute in The New York Times to D&D creator and Monster Manual writer Gary Gygax, who died last week. The accompanying diagram by Sam Potts (who also happens to be the guy who designed my book jacket and that of Mr. John Hodgman) is about the best thing to ever appear in The New York Times.

WHY AM I ANGRY TODAY
Verizon Webmail is the worst goddamn thing in the world.

Sad If I Lost It

2008-03-06T01:17:00.011-05:00

Behold -- the first good photo from last Saturday. This was taken sometime late in the night (1am? 1:30am?), during the Textbook Committee set, with me either manning vocals on "Dayton, Ohio" or sharing vocals on "Smothered in Hugs" (you can see my New Balance shoes at the top of the shot) and the TBC's "Blob Pollard" taking a nap on the stage. It pretty much sums up the night.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Potholes galore in Michigan!

Burning Down the House

2008-03-05T09:53:00.004-05:00

It's such a relief when someone you know comes out with a book and it actually does well right away, because then you don't feel like a schmuck for forgetting to blog about it on its publication date. Larry Smith's Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure is that kind of animal. I totally blew my share of the touting process, but there's no guilt here because it is a New York Times best-seller. Whew! The book is hilarious, by the way, and here's what my six-word memoir would be: I gotta say, monkey hate clean.

I'm interviewing Woody Harrelson for Time Out New York today. My life is pretty awesome sometimes.

I'm also going to put the "zoo" in Kalamazoo today at 7pm. And the "chic" in Chicago tomorrow. Not sure what I'll be putting in Minneapolis on Saturday -- maybe the "neap"?

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Burnt eggs.

Sheila Take a Bow

2008-03-04T20:07:00.004-05:00

Much to report, but it'll have to wait a few days. Needless to say, I kicked Grand Rapids' ass last night and GR kissed mine. Just as Ed Rooney said to Cameron Frye, so say I to Kalamazoo: Pucker up, buttercup!

Also: here's a pretty poster promoting the sure-to-fun show in Chicago on Thursday. Hope to see you there.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
No one has sent me or posted any photos of the big event this past Saturday. WTF?

Little Amps

2008-03-02T23:26:00.004-05:00

To each and every one of the 250+ people who attended the big show at Don Pedro's this past Saturday -- THANK YOU. It was an amazing night that featured all of the following: Matthew Friedberger making up two hilarious songs with "lyrics" taken from my book; Doug Gillard fucking kicking it on guitar for a half hour; Times New Viking blowing the goddamn roof and floor off the place (seriously); my friend Cory blowing his shot at "Gold Star for Robot Boy" stardom while accompanying the Textbook Committee; and a ten-minute GBV sing-along while the PA was fixed. I'll write more about this tomorrow.

If anyone has any photos or videos of the event, please e-mail me.

And oh yeah, if you live in Grand Rapids, please come out tonight to see me read and we'll party at HopCat afterward.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Two-day hangover.

For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

2008-02-29T13:23:00.004-05:00

Thanks to incredibly excellent coverage by Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, The New York Observer, The New York Times (today's Urban Eye Weekend e-mail newsletter, which in all seriousness bills me as Peter Sellers), Oh My Rockness, Time Out New York, The L Magazine, and various other NYC blogs, the big event tomorrow at Don Pedro's is going to be insane. For anyone who cares, here are the estimated set times:

8pm doors
8:30pm -- Matthew Friedberger
9:15pm -- Doug Gillard
10pm -- Times New Viking
11:30pm -- The Textbook Committee

See you there! Hopefully!

Also, a reminder to my Grand Rapids homeys that I'll be doing a reading at Schulers on 28th Street this coming Monday at 7pm, and drinking at HopCat afterwards. Bring it!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
Leap Day never seems to get its due. Why isn't it a national holiday yet?

Seed Toss

2008-02-28T11:15:00.003-05:00

I am now editing and writing The Hot Seat -- a.k.a. the back page Q+A -- at my old stomping ground Time Out New York three issues a month. My first victim: singer Michael McDonald. Enjoy!

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
My landlord keeps the heat turned really low, which is ruinous on 20 degree days like today. I am freezing!

Pictures of You

2008-02-27T09:43:00.004-05:00

I am set to appear on a Fuse TV show called The Sauce this Thursday sometime between 6pm and 7pm to promote my book and discuss indie rock with the hosts in front of a live studio audience. And then I'm going to go boozing. So, for one day only, I will be on both The Sauce and "the sauce."

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I am 100 percent against advertising that tarnishes the images of dead idols. The world is still recovering from that heinous Coors campaign starring John Wayne. Now Converse is launching a new campaign that will depict Sid Vicious, James Dean, and Ian Curtis wearing a brand of sneakers they very well might not have ever worn in their abbreviated lives. Bah!

Auditorium

2008-02-26T18:22:00.012-05:00

There are no advance ticket sales for the big paperback release event this Saturday, and the venue is pretty small. If you're planning to attend and want to guarantee yourself entry, please shoot me an e-mail.

WHY I'M ANGRY TODAY
I need new jeans, but hate shopping for clothes. Why haven't those replicators from Star Trek: The Next Generation been invented yet? I totally want to be like Picard: "Computer! tea, Earl Grey, hot. And a new pair of Levi's while you're at it! And a toupee for my bald head!" Okay, maybe not that last part.