…hell no, I’m not giving that secret away.  It takes a lot of work and 37 years of dedicated effort to smell and sound this distinctive first thing in the week.

But read more and you might pick up a hint or two.

If you’re not watching 30 Rock just because you’ve got better things to do on Thursday nights (like come see me at the Barking Kudu, hint, hint), then you’re missing out. Because you can do like me and watch it on Hulu every week.

This week’s episode is one of the finest examples of the show I can imagine. You don’t even need to know who all the characters are or the situations to suffer a comedy-related aneurysm. There’re more laughs in the pre-opening credits moments than in any episode of 24. Guaranteed.

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Plus, Salma Hayak.  Le sigh…

Hey, it’s no weirder than Garp.  Or Zork.  Though the latter was more fun.

Interesting article – if deeply flawed – in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal about blogging. The numbers are dubious at best, and although the article is aimed at “professional” bloggers (those who monetize, or attempt to monetize, their blogging to make a living off of it), writer Mark Penn raises some provocative notions regarding blogs in general:

For now, bloggers say they are overwhelmingly happy in their work, reporting high job satisfaction. But what happens if they, too, lose work; are they covered by unemployment insurance if tastes change and their sites go under? Are they considered journalists under shield laws? Are they subject to libel suits? Are there any limits to the opinions they churn out, or any standards to rein them in? Is there someone to complain to about false blogs or hidden conflicts? At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Panasonic outfitted bloggers with free Panasonic equipment; did that affect their opinions about the companies they wrote about? There are more questions than answers about America’s Newest Profession.

Ignore the profession comment, as that term nowhere near applies (according to the OED, professions involve the application of specialised knowledge of a subject, field, or science to fee-paying clientele).  In fact, ignore the idea that you’re doing anything more than I am and spewing your thoughts onto a screen.  Those questions certainly still remain.

We’ve stepped into an age where anyone can call themselves a reporter, and it’s up to the reader to determine how much trust they will give to a source.  On a blog like this or Jason Mulgrew’s or Dooce, it’s not a big question, but then you’ve got all of the political blogs passing off opinion as fact (or worse, fiction or fantasy as fact).  You’ve got people presenting legal or economic advice with what may or may not be real-world experience and credentials.  Even my oldest friend Wade, who mostly writes haikus and and entertainment-related reviews, runs occasional newsworthy pieces.

(Quick note: Wade is a very experienced journalist with incredibly high-standards and a strong understanding of journalistic ethics.  These concerns aren’t inspired by him — in fact, if you want to make sure that you don’t have to worry about them, hire him as a consultant or take one of his classes.)

But here’s an example of my concerns, and a surprising one, at that:

It is hard to think of another job category that has grown so quickly and become such a force in society without having any tests, degrees, or regulation of virtually any kind. Courses on blogging are now cropping up, and we can’t be far away from the Columbia School of Bloggerism. There is a lot of interest now in Twittering and Facebooking — but those venues don’t offer the career opportunities of blogging. Not since eBay opened its doors have so many been able to sit at their computer screens and make some money, or even make a whole living.

This is from that same article, by the way, and it’s based on what (in my very untrained opinion) terrible research methodology.  But it’s presented as fact, and if it’s in the WSJ, then it’s gotta be true, right?  I mean, that’s THE source for financial information.

And yet….

Just because you read it doesn’t mean it’s true, folks.  And just because you write it on a blog instead of in a published paper doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily exempt from consequences, positive and negative.

In other news, Jason Mulgrew is actually a married man living in France. All that stuff about NYC and LA is made up.  You heard it here first.

Unlike the review mentioned here, the New York Times gives Crank 2 a short but solid thrashing, calling it (among other things) “near-pornographic.”  Which, I suppose, is their prerogative.  I understand that the movie is not for everyone — it’s a comic book on film, a self-aware parody of itself in which suspension of disbelief is suspended right along with the rules of nature.

The problem, though, is that either the reviewer is completely unaware of the nature of the movie (it’s really not meant to be taken seriously on any level), or has no sense of humor, or is just not a very good writer.  The movie seems to have been watched completely devoid of context, which makes it out to be the really bad film it is out of context.

Which gets me thinking, though.  I hated The Shining — Kubrick’s version — because it deviates from King’s book on so many levels (including the main thrust of the story, that it’s the hotel that ruins a good man, not that a bad man uses a hotel as an excuse), because to me, that movie will always be an adaptation of the book.  However, when I manage to force myself out of that perspective and watch the movie as a stand-alone entity, it’s a pretty damn fine horror movie that still creeps me out almost 30 years later. The twin girls, the elevator of blood… Kubrick’s sterile, clinical films usually leave me cold (no pun intended), but that detachment works here, exceptionally well. If only Nicholson hadn’t given one of the most over-the-top performances in history…

So context is important, but sometimes so is removing context, at least for enjoyment (I think I just made the lists of four Kubrick fans by thinking that).

Any thoughts?

I find the “tea-bagging” (thanks, Fox News and CNN!) going on today to be particularly amusing. Not because people are protesting the bailouts — I’m glad they can and are.  It’s excellent that people in this country have right to make their opinions known, and that we have leadership in position that doesn”t place dissenters in bizarre segregated areas far from anyone who matters. Ahem.

But then there’s this:

Plan to dump million tea bags foiled
In Washington, D.C., protesters had planned to dump a million tea bags in Lafayette Square and even promised to put the bags on the tarps and clean up afterward. But their plans were thwarted after National Park Service officials said protesters didn’t have the proper permit to dump the bags, NBC affiliate WRC TV reported.

“We have a million tea bags here, and we don’t have a place to put them because it’s not on our permit,” said Rebecca Wales, lead organizer of D.C. Tea Party.

And part of me thinks that its cool that they’re treating the protests respectfully, behaving within the boundaries of the laws.

But part of me thinks that it’s a damned good thing that those folks in Boston, some 230+ years ago, remembered to include “plans to dump large amounts of tea into the harbor” on their permit application. Without such forethought, the Revolution may never have been fought, and then where would we be?

And oh, for the love of whatever you hold dear, don’t go read the comments on their website (Google will find he link for you).  What sounds like a reasonable protest quickly turns south into the usual us vs them red/blue doldrums. If you find that you’re really bored, watch this from last night’s Daily Show, with Muppets and more:

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(This review originally appeared on Spin.com, Monday, 4/13/09)

(UPDATE: apparently, this review inspired the one that appears on Spin.  I’m not sure where mine fell apart, using their old reviews as guidelines, but apparently they didn’t dig my style. C’est la vie, eh? At least I got my name on a national mag’s website.)

(I also want to note, because I’m clever: I really, really wanted to work the nicknames “Black Floyd” and – as suggested by my friend Eric Macomb – “Widespread Sabbath” into the review, but I couldn’t work them in without some level of awkward. But Mastodon really have created a new niche in heavy music, and they are cementing it with this tour.  If Roger Waters joined Metallica, and then they all took lessons from Dream Theater, and hired Ozzy Osbourne to sing for them, you’d have Mastodon.  Put that into the bodies of guys in their thirties that play with the energy and brutality of hungry eighteen year olds and you’ve got Mastodon live.  I can’t recommend this tour highly enough — GO SEE MASTODON.)

Maybe Mastodon is taking a chance or breaking boundaries by performing their latest album, Crack The Skye, in order from start to finish; maybe not.  It certainly works, though, delivering less of an ordinary concert and more a theatrical experience, well worth the hype that their fans are giving the idea.

The two openers of the night, Intronaut and Kylesa, both delivered fine performances that deserve note, but frankly, Mastodon’s two hours of brutal, manic delivery of both the new and an excellent selection of older material erased any impression of what came before. The entire band (especially hometown guitarist Brent Hinds) attacked the songs with a ferocity one might attribute to a hungry bar band getting it’s first shot at opening a major arena show, never once giving the impression that it’s “just a job” – if heavier music is your choice of expression, then there’s a thing or two you can learn from Mastodon in the delivery.

It might have been that the Birmingham show was the opener of the tour; perhaps it was that the audience crammed into the 450-person capacity WorkPlay theater consisted in no small part of Hinds’ friends from high school and later (a bartender suggested that Hinds’ guest list brought the crowd 100 people into the Fire Marshal’s nightmares).  Whatever the case, the energy levels in the building were absolutely off-the-charts. If Mastodon can manage to keep this sort of adrenaline-fueled intensity for the entire tour, it will be impressive, to say the least.

The band opened with the first notes of OBLIVION, the opening track of Crack the Skye, and as they’ve promised in pre-tour interviews, didn’t stop until they had played through the epic THE LAST BARON.  A video screen behind the band played video images that managed to enhance the performance without ever distracting.  While there were a few moments where it appeared that the band members were still adjusting to the live nuances of the new material, the playing (both individually and as a unit) was jaw-dropping. Mastodon’s music is technical and precise, impressive enough in a controlled studio environment but simply astounding to see over the course of an evening without second takes. Especially of note was the seemless interplay between guitarists Hinds and Bill Kelliher, and the metronome-precise rhythm of drummer Brann Dailor and bassist Troy Sanders – any musicians in the crowd that fail to be impressed with the abilities of are too elitist to listen to.

A short but necessary break followed the Crack the Skye performance, and the band returned to the stage for an encore that would more precisely be called a second act, over an hour of songs culled from their earlier albums.  This set drew most heavily from Blood Mountain, but included enough from Leviathan (and one track from Remission) that it could fairly be called a Mastodon sampler.  It was in this hour that the contrast between random songs and a front-to-back album performance revealed itself.  There’s a comfort level in hearing a full album, one that allows you to fully immerse yourself in the music, no matter how loud or intense.  The more chaotic nature of the heavy metal fan, the shirtless mosher and the screaming, goat-throwing observer at the back of the room, is so much more noticeable (and louder) when you don’t know what song is next.

Mastodon and their fans deserve a hearty commendation for putting on a spectacular show with such high energy.  If the rest of the tour is even comparable to the opening night, Mastodon will cement their place at the top of the list of important metal bands, hopefully challenging others in the genre to meet their standards.

SETLIST:
1st set
Oblivion
Divinations
Quintessence
The Czar
Ghost of Karelia
Crack The Skye
The Last Baron

2nd set
Bladecatcher
Colony of Birchmen
The Wolf Is Loose
Crystal Skull
Capillarian Crest
Seabeast
Iron Tusk
March of the Fire Ants
Hearts Alive