..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Saturday, March 19, 2005

"When i was sixty one, i lied about things i'd done..completely full of shit...when i was sixty one."
- Frank Sinatra

"...and Jack just left town."
- Ash from "Army of Darkness"


today i attack Frank Sinatra. he was recently voted the "best singer of all time" and that just boggles the mind. Sinatra is quite possibly the most overrated entertainer in history. what did he ever do? jack and shit. he came up during the only time in history that he could have come up. today he'd be a friggin' golf caddy or smarmy bartender at best. however, that Rat Pack bullshit and fake tough-guy crap was enough back then, and he's ridden along on it ever since. i actually don't know that much about him but i can comfortably base my hatred of Sinatra on three things, because three is a good number:

1.) i was just watching "The Godfather" the other day and they say that the horse's head-in-the-bed scene was based on true events. not that a horse was killed but maybe some director was bullied to put Sinatra in "From Here To Eternity" or something and while i sat there watching the Sinatra-inspired "Johnny Fontane" snivel and whimper while Brando slapped him around, it made me want to believe it bad enough to believe it.

2.) after tough-guy Sinatra died there was this mostly-ignored press release that said he had been on the payroll for the government for a long time, actually squealing on those same mafia "connections" that he always hinted at whenever he wanted to seem like a bad-ass. turns out he was the worst kind of rat and i regret that he died before he was exposed as the bitch he always was. talentless bastard died thinking he was the shit. too bad we can't put some jumper-cables on that hack long enough to show him those headlines, show him how he'll really be remembered. or should be remembered because that news didn't really make the front page. see, people already forgot.

3.) the reason for this post: i watched "The Manchurian Candidate" remake last night so i decided to watch the original this morning. and after the movie there's this interview with Sinatra and the writer and director. it's bad enough that the entire interview consists of the director and writer kissing Sinatra's ass, but we also get to listen to the asshole lie about some incident on the set. he's so fucking stupid and used to believing his own hype that he tells a story that is proven wrong by the movie that just preceded it. there's a goofy Pink Panther-looking fight scene in the middle of the movie between a Korean spy and Sinatra's character. Sinatra karate-chops through a coffee table during this scene. it's obviously part of the fight and the table is obviously made out of styrofoam or balsa wood or whatever. but in the interview they ask him about the fight and he starts yammering about how the other actor didn't speak good English and "didn't know his left from his right" and how Sinatra ended up breaking his hand smashing a table during the fight. let's analyze how fucking stupid this man by thinking about this for a moment. first of all, there a big difference between not knowing the WORDS "left" and "right" and not knowing your left hand from your right hand. like all idiots and casual racists, he confuses not speaking English with ignorance. i'm pretty sure there's a Korean equivalent for "right" and "left." next, you can watch the movie and clearly see that the fight scene is supposed to have the Korean guy move out of the way and Sinatra lurch forward and punch the table. it's so obviously a choreographed part of the scene that only dumbasses in the 60's who weren't used to seeing many kung-fu fight scenes could have mistaken it for someone ACTUALLY missing a punch and smashing a real table. and finally, if Sinatra did actually break his hand, and therefore have to invent this bullshit fairy tale to explain how he hurt himself on a fake coffee table made out of popcicle-sticks, then he's an even bigger pussy than i imagined.

4.) hold up. just remembered one more. i was at a bar like 5 years ago and some frat-boy was playing Sinatra songs all night and singing them with this look on his face like he was so proud of himself for knowing the words to something. he was up in everyone's faces singing and smiling while everyone smiled back uncomfortably and waited for him to stop. it was worse than someone overquoting a movie. imagine someone starts quoting a movie and then continues to spend the next two hours reciting the entire flick with a big stupid grin on their face and you'll have some idea of how dumb this douche-bag looked. and he thought he was the man that night. he thought he was like old-school and hip to be singing that crap and it's just proved (among other things) that you don't need to have any vocal talent to sing those stupid songs. those songs sound just like someone talking in a dull conversational tone. now the guy from Type O Negative? his voice sounds like a nerf-football stuck in a garbage disposal. see kids, THAT'S a voice.

p.s. "The Manchurian Candidate" remake is decent. i like how they have both men practice killing innocent people during their brainwashing.

okay, since an anti-Sinatra rant isn't very timely, here's one just for the kids, i'll attack a more contemporary hero:

50 Cent? you guys think he's tough because he got shot in the face nine times? that's not tough. you know what's tough? getting shot in the face nine times......by a bow and arrow. that's tough. the day that a rapper steps forward with nine arrow wounds, that's the day i buy his album. actually, i'd settle for like three arrow wounds. or even one photo of an arrow still in someone's face. right on the album cover like Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys. picture it, my hero will have on all the gold and platinum rings and chains and a purple fur coat and gold Groucho Marx glasses and he's flashing his East Coast gang sign...all the while the feathered end of an arrow sticking out of his face. now THAT'S a tough guy. and imagine how much more interesting the aftermath of a drive-by shooting would be if everyone was full of arrows instead of bullets? i mean, you can't really SEE the bullets. here's the crime scene:

see the usual police lights flashing, girlfriend crying, mom clutching the victim's unopened SAT scores (that would have revealed he had gotten into "State" College after all, sniff), and there on the porch, a kid with a tiny hole in his head. now, how about, instead of all that, we see a kid in the middle of a chalk outline with arrows sticking out of his back? see what i'm saying? much more dramatic. i tried to explain this to a carload of people last night and all i could get out of one of them was, "you couldn't load a bow and arrow fast enough for a drive-by." well guess what? Dave Chappelle addressed that very same issue at about the 70-minute mark in the 81-minute masterpiece "Half Baked." anyone remember what he said? you come up with the line and i will send you my copy of "Open Water." anyone see that movie? should have been called "Open Ass." you can re-enact the entire flick in your sink with a couple of bobbing cornflakes. it truly IS the Blair Shit Project on the ocean and that's not a good thing.

i am now eating my first eggs in my new slightly-larger apartment. the cats are freaked out and won't leave the closet. well, the black one, Shaft, left the closet, but the gray one, Ash, is curled up on the shoes, all poofed out with his eyes black and dilated. poor little dumb-ass. every time i move it takes him at least 48 hours to understand that the world has not changed.

::: david - 1:59 PM [+] :::
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"got a steak on my face 'cause i got into a fistfight..."
- Beastie Boys

"don't be afraid of the hits..."
- a very wise man


digging in at the radio station again. missed the last session because i was sick and haven't updated because i was lazy so i figured tonight i'd kill two birds and all that by setting up tonight's songs and rambling about it at the same time. tonight i'm being introduced as J's "musical director and elder" so i thought i'd do an hour brick of 80's songs. any suggestions? i'll check for comments for the next four hours, if i see any i'll play the songs. hey, do this, actually call the request line! that's what this shit is for! the station's name is WYEP 91.3 and the request number is 412-381-9900. i'll be answering it all FUCK, sorry, i smashed the remote for my TV and cut the shit out of my hand so now i have these criss-crossing crayola band-aids because the cut was on the tip of my finger and i'm typing like Daniel Day-Lewis in "My Left Nut." anyway, call up, if not here's the cds i've pulled so far, INXS's Greatest Hits, Leonard Cohen (who i swore again tonight that i would start buying his shit next time i got paid), Nick Cave's "The Good Son" (it's the only thing from the 80's of his they got), something from "Paul's Boutique," something from David Bowie's "Let's Dance" probably "Cat People." that reminds me of Jr. High when my friends started this fake band where they did parodies of songs and played on buckets and toy keyboards and i soooooooo wanted to be in it but i didn't have an ounce of musical skill so i tried writing some songs instead. my proudest moment was "Red Ants" instead of "Let's Dance" and the boys actually let me drum on the bucket until they realized that i couldn't stop myself from speeding up as the song progressed. every time i would go faster and faster until everyone was staring at me and my bucket. oh well, no hard feelings. actually, just the opposite tonight because one of my boys recently lost his dog. okay, i'm going to find a dog song as a tribute to Truman. be right back............

okay G, i was going to play something off "Temple of the Dog" but amazingly this studio doesn't have it. so then i was grabbing "Amoreena" off Elton John's "Tumbleweed Connection" because it's the opening song from "Dog Day Afternoon" and it turned out that J already had it in HIS stack and whined about it being from the 70s and not fitting into my theme (even though i introduced him to the song 3 weeks ago, bastard) so instead i'm going to play Tom Waits' "Raindogs" for Truman. it's supposedly about how dogs lose the scents off everything when it rains and you get these mobs of dogs wandering the streets lost after every storm. there's so much symbolism and potential for fiction in the idea for that song that it's almost intimidating to think about. anyway, i'll play that song at about 1:15 am.

anybody see the Donnie Darko Director's Cunt? not sure how i feel about his revisionist editing suggesting that there's aliens or Marty McFly future-boys tamporing with Donnie's head. in the first movie it was obviously godtalk creeping through, but he must have gotten scared and changed it later. ha! and i thought i was irritated enough with the underlying spirituality of the flick. turns out there's IS something that irritates me more...not sticking to your guns.

on the air in three minutes. back later...

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okay, that Elton John song wouldn't even play. spooooky. some drunk woman just called in and requested The Beatles "Coming Together." must be a B-side. you know, this Red Bull tastes like bottled ass yet i return to it like a dog to its own sick. i don't drink coffee so it's the only thing that will keep me up until 4:00 am. hey! there's "Amoreena!" he got it going after all. Truman gets two dog songs tonight afterall. imagine the first minute of "Dog Day Afternoon," that sweaty New York streets montage and the dog rooting through the garbage. such a good song in that movie because it's the only music that is played. the rest of the flick is done almost like documentary. there isn't even any music in the closing credits after all the dramatic shit happens. imagine that, a movie that trusts its story to make the final impact on the viewer instead of a hit song. hold up, J has to take a shit. thank christ because his toxic ass is just about smoking me out of the booth, i told him he should have just thrown the chicken wings he ate into the toilet and cut out the middle man. back again in a minute...

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my songs are stacked up and ready. in honor of how they fucked up the opening feel of Donnie Darko i'm playing "Killing Moon" (the original opening song) and then "Never Tear Us Apart" (the directors cut version) to show that sometimes your first instinct aren't always best. i know he probably wanted to contrast that song with Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" later in the movie but still, the "Killing Moon" sounds more like a creepy post-sleep-walk bike-ride kinda song.

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just had a small crisis. another cd wouldn't play and we had one minute to find a replacement before the dreaded dead air. Prince, "Little Red Corvette" saved the day. a song so good that it's critic proof. try to make fun of it and see.

::: david - 11:32 PM [+] :::
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