a poem i wrote

i don't really post here ever but now i'm posting a poem i wrote:

There is a new generation

Basking in catharsis

Emotional hypochondriacs

They will rejoice in their genius set down on paper

Hold it up to the moon after writing a poem

And they dream about a meeting between Holden Caulfield

And that phony Willy Loman

Because they so loved the classics they read in high school, they were that kid

And they are such well-rounded individuals

Just trying to be well-rounded individuals

And get into grad school at NYU

And after reading Hemingway and even Berryman, they

Just try to think of the most "alt" way to kill themselves

And they do not realize the irony of their whining

Their whining about how nobody will appreciate the brilliance of their poetry

The Daily Steakfry: 9/20/11

**This should be the central feature of my blog (unless I magically find time to write longer things). It will simply be a rundown of the day's pop culture news, plus maybe a quick review of something or a music recommendation. I'm still looking for a good title, and I'll be trying things out every day (like today's dumb one). Suggestions are universally loved.**

This took me a long time to write (hey, I'm out of the habit), so the news will span like two days.

The Emmys Fallout: I usually find news for this rundown by reading the Entertainment section of Google News. Today, that's dominated by the Emmys. Yeah, it's annoying.

Jon Huntsman Makes Kurt Cobain Reference in GOP Debate: This guy is hip as shit. I like him more all the time.

Michaele Salahi in a relationship with Journey guitarist: This last straw just made me wish I had never heard the name "Salahi". But then her husband, Tareq, weighed in on the issue, calling her a "groupie slut", and revealing some new information on said guitarist Neal Schon: "This was the lewdist, most disgusting thing I had seen. And I didn't understand, why in the world would Neal Schon be sending a picture of his penis to us." TMI? Maybe, but it does remind me how entertaining this family has always been.

REM splits up: Can't say anything snarky about this. It just sucks.

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes are romantically entangled: He's too good for her.

Jane Lynch says she might not want to host Emmys again: Has anyone offered it to her?

Song I'm Into Today:
I recently read Jonathan Safan Foer's Everything Is Illuminated (huge recommend), and it made me realize how bad the movie was (I had already seen it before reading the book). Even when I first saw the movie I was unimpressed with the performance of Eugene Hutz. But I think's it's clear that he's a much better musician than an actor, and I'm really into his band Gogol Bordello lately. This song is cool.

What should my daily rundown be called?

I want to do some kind of daily post where I go through some news stories of the day and then do a quick review (often rant) of something, anything, in pop culture. I need a name for it. If there's someone reading this, send me suggestions! Meanwhile, I guess I'll just try things out, one every day. And I guess this will be my first one. Chill.

Why Not Zoidberg relaunches! Obviously huge news in the obscure pop culture blog world.

Julianna Margulies is trending on Google News: Oh, were the Emmys last night? Whoops.

The Emmys were last night: Yup, I didn't watch. To me, the point of awards shows is nothing more than validate one's own opinion about what is being awarded. Sure, that can be fun sometimes (why do you think I read all those glowing articles about The Big Lebowski?), but I don't need to give up 3 hours of my life while I could be watching my Eagles implode just for that. That kind of validation is why I have you readers!

Patrick Swayze Dies: I think it's finally not "too soon" anymore to talk about it.
Pancreas.
Lolz.

Netflix Breakup: I was thinking about starting to get the DVD service again, but no way am I paying for something called "Qwikster". I would just be embarrassed to have those envelopes in my mailbox. Especially with how classy the Netflix logo is (beautiful). In case you haven't heard about the breakup, because the story does seem to be pretty under-covered, you can read all up here.)

New TV Shows are Premiering: Haven't watched anything yet. May do some new show for my daily review sometime.

Daily Review of the Day - The Lion King (3D re-release)
If you looked at this week's box office charts, you would see a familiar name at the top of the list - from 17 years ago. The Lion King was recently re-released, this time to be better, bolder and 3Der. I am so anti-this. Look, it's a great movie, don't think that that's my complaint. But it's been a great movie for 17 years, and it shouldn't take a money-grubbing 3Difying retrofitting to put it back into the public focus. Didn't everybody get upset when it was announced that they would be doing this for Star Wars? The Lion King is a great movie. But it already was 17 years ago, in good old 2D.

Relaunch, Sweet, Relaunch

Guess who's back! No, you probably can't because of my radically improved writing skills. So I still have the mindset that when there's a platform to write shit, it's ungrateful to not do that. Yeah, I've been pretty self-loathing the last few months. But you have no idea how invigorating it is to finally be writing underneath a banner that has a non-terrible blog title and on a design that doesn't look like it was made by a sixth grade girl on Myspace in 2003. Okay, well I guess it still looks a little bit like a Myspace page. But totally in a good way... right???
Anyhoo, I do hope to start updating the blog more regularly, at least than I've been doing since I stopped updating the blog at all. Hopefully I'll be snarkier now. Who knows...

But, if you're looking for a hip pop culture blog, then... WHY NOT ZOIDBERG???

(PS: That ending was awful and I apologize. Please stick with me.)

5 Biggest Oscar Nomination Snubs

When the Oscar nominations are announced, last Tuesday in this year's case (I started writing this post the day after... thank my laziness) there's always a lot of outcry over who was and wasn't nominated. The media seems to be a little more satisfied this year than in others, but I still saw some glaring omissions from the list of nominees.

5. "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World", Anything

I didn't expect "Scott Pilgrim" to be get Best Picture or anything, but it's ridiculous that it got totally shut out. I was fascinatingly innovative, a visual spectacle and fun that even most critics enjoyed. I would have not only nominated, but given the Best Director award to Edgar Wright, but this movie didn't even get a nod for art direction or anything like that.

4. Daft Punk, Best Original Score, "Tron: Legacy"

This soundtrack was so good it was like a new Daft Punk album. And it complemented the movie so well (I can say this very confidently considering I didn't see it). At least it complemented the spirit I imagine the movie had. And it says something when a film score becomes a hit on the pop charts.

3. Ryan Gosling, Best Actor in a Leading Role, "Blue Valentine"

As good as Michelle Williams' performance was in this movie (and I do really, really love her in general), I think they nominated the wrong actor. Gosling jumped into and fit so snugly into his role, and gave his character so much more depth than he even needed to in order to make the movie adequate. Or, as a layman would say, he acted his ass off.

2. Robert Duvall, Best Actor in a Leading Role, "Get Low"

Duvall was simply astonishing in "Get Low", my favorite movie of the year. He held himself with such incredible, quiet grace and might, and he just made the character himself. It's impressive when an actor as longstanding and recognizable as Duvall can still get lost in a character and keep the viewer entirely engrossed.

1. Christopher Nolan, Best Director, "Inception"

I didn't love "Inception" as much as some, but for Nolan to not get recognized with even a nomination is outrageous. The fact is, "Inception" was one of the most innovative movies to come out in a long time and even those who didn't like it were still blown away by Nolan's vision.

5 Most Overrated/Underrated Movies of 2010

Thanks to Jeff SC from Rotten Tomatoes for the idea :)

I guess the title's pretty self-explanatory. But don't worry, there will be descriptions so I will actually be writing something. I'll start with overrated, because I'm negative like that.

(and it'll be after the jump...)

THE KING IS FINALLY DEAD (for free streaming on the npr website)

I circled January 18th on my calendar a while ago, when I first found out it was the release date of the newest Decemberists album, "The King Is Dead". I've been awaiting the album like crazy -- I even bought this fancy preorder bundle. A couple days ago, 11 days before the official release date, I found out that you can listen to the whole album right now, for free, as it's streaming  on the NPR music site. My mind sufficiently blown, I listened to it right away.

I should start with a little disclaimer: this "review" is going to sound a lot harsher than I mean. There are so many good things about this album, but I do have trouble expressing that because I feel like it's a given with the Decemberists. And also keep in mind that my opinion on the album is compared to my monstrously high expectations based on the practically unequalable level that the band has set to this point. I guess that kind of spoiled what I think of it... but please keep reading...

I could tell right away this album was going to be different. I noticed that there weren't any really long songs, and that was a negative, because Colin Meloy is great at writing grand, dark stories contained in one song, and there weren't going to be any of those like there were on the early albums. This one is a little more in the vein of "The Hazards of Love". It's not one story like that, but it has a lot of lyrical themes that go throughout the album. Although after one listen and not too much online discourse yet I haven't really been able to dissect everything that's going on, it seems to be about the seasons and the natural world. The album has strong country influences, and I'm glad to hear the band trying to do something different sonically.

My favorite song, after listening once, is "Rox in the Box". While the spelling of the title is reminiscent of annoying teenage girls, this is the song on the album that tries hardest to tell a story. It's about miners particularly, but it really talks about the oppression of the working class. It has great arrangement and a fun melody (another Decemberists song with dark lyrics combined with a happy tune), and great Colin Meloy wordplay.

I guess I kept that a little more positive than I expected to. That's good. It's still a great album and you should all get it. This one might even be a good entry point for people not familiar with the Decemberists, as it's not as deep and dark as albums like "Picaresque" and "The Hazards of Love". But, as I try to avoid the dreaded d-word (d*s*p*o*n*m*n*), it really didn't live up to my expectations or capture what I love about the Decemberists.

Note that this is written after listening to the album once, because I really wanted to preserve my first impression. I probably will be writing more about this album, especially after I get the CD and am able to listen to it a lot more.