Jesus Just Left Chicago But How The Hell He Got Out Of Here Is Anybody's Guess.

So if you've been paying any attention at all, you may have noticed that DJ Satisfaction Pony has taken a sabbatical and hasn't updated 'PositivelyPonyfied' since August 28th of 2007. You're reading this now, and because you are I feel profoundly grateful and morally obliged to mail you a $15 dollar gift card from Borders. Email to me your name and address and I'll do just that (offer expires December 31, 2007). This is just my way of tapping the mic 'checkcheckcheck'.

What have I been up to since those endless late summer, lung-searing dancehall days of Brooklyn race-hate and waiting for something to give? Well, I've moved to Chicago and I have to say, it's the best decision I've made thus far in my 42 years. I've never been so relieved to get the fuck out of dodge. You know, I'm all for racial healing but as long as there are blue-black West Indian reggae toasters barking orders to bash gays through bullhorns on the stinking streets of Crown Heights on through the wee hours of the morning, I'm just gonna remove myself from the debate and watch the back and forth go down from a safe distance. I've never heard the word 'faggot' tossed around so carelessly, ever...and I grew up in the fertile crescent of chromosomal impairment for chrissake. Chicago so far has proven itself the perfect place to lick my wounds, gradually get over it and work toward a certain positivity again.

So I've been digging in. Chicago is mostly gray and cold as a well-digger's ass but folks here are nice as pie and there seems to be a prevailing feeling of unlimited possibility. I think Chicago is giving birth to a great renaissance. Young folk are moving in from all corners of the planet and construction in most neighborhoods is off the hook. The apartment I share with my partner in crime here in Lincoln Park is 1500 sq. feet of wonderfulness. It has an airy northwoods cabin feel what with all the rehabbed wood and century-old fixtures. There are 17 huge windows. That's new for me, because I'm so used to living in darkness like an sightless albino mole. I'm thinking we two have scored the deal of the century, no lie. We'll be here awhile.

Chicago's public transport has bungled many an outing for me, however. Today, for example, I journeyed out-of-doors (I'm currently unemployed, thus housebound), intending to take the Belmont bus to the Jewel-Osco mart on Ashland in Hamlin Park to scare up some groceries. This is a trip I've taken once before but today I overshot my destination by a couple miles and wound up on the far side of a river I've never crossed. It took me an hour to backtrack and by the time I reached the store I was windburned, cussing and caked with snow (snow-clearance is scattershot in this town, apparently). And then I spent too much of my budgeted one-hundred bucks and had to forgo a taxicab (not that there were any within hailing's distance) and walk twenty-some blocks burdened with plastic bags full of crap. Poor me.

Chicago is nothing like New York City in that cabs aren't always idling at the curb, ready and waiting for you...shit, even in Brooklyn you can hail a taxihack in locations as far-flung as Canarsie...no you can't...oh well. I'd rather be here then there anyhow.

I've been listening to quite a lot of new music...Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' is simple, romantic and unshakeable like an extended siren-song, Joe Henry's 'Civilians' is 'Time Out Of Mind' Dylanesque and noir-ishly atmospheric, Okkervil River's 'The Stage Names' is all over the map and alternately fun and depressing, Jens Lekman's carnivalesque 'Night Falls Over Kortedala' is an appropriately woozy soundtrack for drinking shots of dirty vodka, Mary J. Blige's headphone-pleasing 80's throwback 'Growing Pains' is nutritiously dancey...but probably the album of the year as far as I'm concerned is Mavis Staples' 'We'll Never Turn Back'. Finally, my favorite voice is blessed with a production that suits her. Mavis testifies way down in a murky 'Exile'-era Stonesy mix that graces her set of civil rights anthems with a haunted gravitas, a razor-sharp sense of prison-break terror that's utterly contemporary, and an inviting bluesy warmth. You gotta check it out if you care about the history and the future of soul music at all. Or especially if you found the 2003 doc "The Weather Underground" as creepy/inspiring as I did: Mavis Staples' 'We'll Never Turn Back' is for you.

I've finally found a link to iTunes' inexplicably buried Celebrity Playlist feature on the iTunes Store page and quite frankly I'm tickled pink. Celebrity Playlists aren't even a secret pleasure for me, mostly because I'm one of those guys who shamelessly scans cd collections when invited to a new person's apartment, just so I can sketch hasty character profiles so as to not be unpleasantly surprised by a left-field personality quirk somewhere down the road apiece...

What are the celebs listening to? Let's check it out:

Dr. Doogie Howzer (of "How I Met Your Mother" fame): A fairly tasteful gay although his faves are a little alt.babydykelite: Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Kelly Clarkson's 'Beautiful Disaster' (live version only)...and he wishes he could karaoke Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin''. You and several thousand other wretchedly drunk softball lesbians, Neil Patrick. POTENTIAL FRIEND? Abso-fucking-lutely. I love this guy. If you can summon the cajones to manage those crowdpleasing Steve Perry high notes, you're a-ok by me.

Christy Turlington: Look no further, for Christy Turlington is America's Most Smartest Model. Her playlist may exist only because she's spokesmodeling for some kind of model-outreach charity which benefits a whole portfolio of needful third-world countries (http://www.joinred.com) but it's a pretty thoughtful set of covers she's thrown together here, which in turn makes me want to click on that damned no-fun http://www.joinred.com link. Rufus Wainwright's cover of The Beatles' "Across The Universe", Smashing Pumpkins' warbly take on Stevie's "Landslide", Cat Power's masterful "Satisfaction (I Can't Get No)", M. Ward's tearjerking rethink of Bowie's "Let's Dance" and...Johnny & June Carter Cash's certain to be soul-stirring "Redemption Song"!!!...Christy Turlington should fuck all this charity nonsense and blog for Pitchfork.com! I kid, of course. POTENTIAL FRIEND? Only in my dreams, for she's simply too angelic and noble for the likes of a ricketty scalawag such as me. She's definitely crush material though.

And that link once again: http://www.joinred.com.

Adrien Brody on behalf of 'The Darjeeling Limited': Adrien Brody is giving us the hi-sign that he enjoys the mary jane reefer: Black Uhuru's "Puff She Puff", Morcheeba, Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here", "White Room" by Cream, Wu Tang. POTENTIAL FRIEND? Uh...sure, why not. Every single other human I've ever met huffs huge baggies full of schwag so what's one more pal who loses his billfold/cell/keys on a twice-daily basis?

Evander Holyfield: Holy crap. This playlist is the sexiest personal I've never had the good fortune to stumble across on eHarmony. I mean I'm pretty sure the former heavyweight champion of the world isn't gay (the word 'girl' functions as punctuation for Evander) but damn! what I wouldn't give to be this man's woman! Holy-slice is most definitely kicking it old school on the quiet storm tip and his annotated notes are...well...I hate to say it, but they're freaking adorable! I mean, if you're gonna drink Remy Red by yourself and craft a mix tape for your one and only, this is the shit. Check this shit out:

1. "Just The Way You Are", Barry White - He just wants to be loved for who he is, even though he's from the projects.

2. "Always And Forever", Heat Wave - He wishes high school lasted forever.

3. "Betcha By Golly Wow", The Stylistics - He used to dream about pretty girls but he felt insecure because he was from the ghetto.

4. "Baby I'm For Real", The Originals - He used to brag a lot and tell the girls that he was older than he was and they believed him. He regrets that.

5. "You Are Everything", The Stylistics - Had a crush on a girl who never knew he had a crush on her.

6. "You Turned My World Around", Barry White - "More of a fantasy" because he "never went with anybody" (!) Credibility is stretched here but a sweet sentiment nevertheless.

7. "Oh, Girl", The Chi-lites - More unrequited classroom love. Is this guy for real? For answer, see #4.

8. "Just To Be Close To You", The Commodores - Too insecure (wtf?) to ask the pretty girls to dance at high school hops, young Evander daydreamed and twiddled his thumbs in the bleachers...

9. "La La Means I Love You", The Del-fonics - Reminds him of the fortunate ones who were able to break free of their insecurities and express their love to pretty girls...

10. "Be My Girl", The Dramatics - Something about a talent show and pining away for that Special Pretty Girl...hey, wait...I'm starting to put this little puzzle together here...

11. "I'll Write A Song For You", Earth, Wind & Fire - ...more talent show Pretty Girl drama and a best friend who writes songs for pretty girls at talent shows...

12. "We Both Deserve Each Other", L.T.D. - Fear of rejection rears its ugly head no longer as Evander learns to be more creative courtesy of Jeffrey Osborne and this no-nonsense ode to lowered expectations.

13. "Yearning For Your Love", Gap Band - No one asked Evander Holyfield to the prom so he sat home alone, finding comfort in the soothing sounds of The Gap Band. Who will play Evander Holyfield in the Lifetime movie? I'm thinking either Forest Whitaker or that fired dude from 'Gray's Anatomy'.

Whew, I'm emotionally drained. More to come...

Madonna Who?

L'amour looks a lot like Leslie Feist:





Feist reminds me of my first love (seriously, I was tore up over that girl even though I was 5 at the time. I was devastated when she moved away and it was then that I turned to booze.). Her name was Leslie also. Leslie Allen: A tiny little slip of a girl but old beyond her years and so mod and funkdafied in her plaid schoolgirl skirts...

We played the 'Hair' Original Cast recording LP on her Close N' Play. We played doctor too behind somebody's couch.

I'm moving to Chicago on Thursday. Bye NYC. Kiss my sweet, sweet ass.

Courtney Love Is A Name-Dropping, Bug-Eyed Gay Donkey.

I think we can all agree that anymore the vag-flashing celebutard phenomenon appeals only to Perez Hilton, the GoFugYourself.com girls and paparazzi. Nicole Ritchie, Paris Hilton...even my fourteen year old twin nieces could give a rat's ass about these haggard convicts. These slags are so obviously without worth that 'washed-up' can't describe what they'll be next year because to be 'washed-up' you have to be treading water to begin with. Remember Paris Hilton's post-incarceration born-again week? That moment was so absurd pop-culture pundits couldn't bring themselves to snark online about it...to comment at all would have been so lame and obvious and just plain redundant that all snark privileges would have been instantly revoked by the Gods of Twat: Gawker.com. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, other assorted Disney bitches and their useless little sisters (e.g. The Duffs), Zac Effron...their fates have all been foretold. If they play their cards right, they're all gonna grow up to be Courtney Love.

Courtney. Love.

The name alone gives me gooseflesh. I feel like the letters COURTNEYLOVE are an anagram for ROMAN CASTEVET. She's the sloppy drunk at the party who staggers by you en route to the bathroom and slurs "There's too many of 'em. I can't kill the world" into your ear. Howler monkeys berserk at the sight of her as do armies of recovering Seattle-area rrrrriot grrrrrrrls.

Fatty Arbuckle bred Paula Fox and hatched Linda Carroll who lay with Tex Watson and then begat the feral scourge that is the Courtney Love Cobain.

If you're in any way pro-Love check out these dismal five minutes up close and personal with this carelessly preserved husk of a woman and then reconsider:



Jesus. Because I've spent much of the last five years of my New York City existence spinning for inebriates in bars, that clip leaves me wracked with spasms of deja vu. How many times have I found myself cornered, bleary-eyed and blinking at some ghastly, fame-whore of a Gay leaning into me and braying names of people I've never heard of, all in the effort of selling to me the idea that s/he has a legitimate
presence in the public eye. Courtney doesn't just introduce her friend as 'Kimberly' but as 'Kimberly Stewart', as if broadcasting the fact that her Coachella companion is Rod Stewart's daughter will somehow give her some infotainment cache'.

Courtney Love took the road better off not traveled. At one time, I bought into her decadent California pop-rock goddess pose. Hole's 'Celebrity Skin' is a glorious update of the whole 70's Eagles/Fleetwood Mac L.A. noir aesthetic.




It demanded a series of sequels but instead she hooked up with the Jim Steinman of chick-rock (Linda Perry) and has opted to shill a wretched, screechy radio-friendly caricature of herself. I hated 'America's Sweetheart' (CL has confessed that she's not a fan either...probably because its chart performance was underwhelming)and I'll no doubt hate her long-delayed follow-up 'Nobody's Daughter'.

She's the Joe Pesci of rock n' roll which is sad because she could've been a contender instead of a mook, which is what she is.

Brooklyn Tornadoes, Rats & Zombies!

One would think that the fact that Parker Posey is starring in her very own Fox sitcom this fall (laugh track and all) would suffice as unimpeachable evidence that the GOP and their desperate intelligent design rationale have won the culture war...one would think so...but 'The Return of Jezebel James' is scripted and it's videotaped...so cute!...is it also filmed before a live studio audience and brought to us by 'Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific'? Leave it to the queen of indie-snark to infiltrate the Murdoch fortress with a lame 'Odd Couple' retread featuring a Reverand Jim wild-card little sister/roommate (Parker Posey lookalike/beloved 'Six Feet Under' wild-card: Lauren Ambrose, replete w/ army surplus jacket and yucky matted hair). Here's a clip:



Funny, yes?

In other news of pending apocalypse:

Twisters touched down in Brooklyn early yesterday morning. Now, for those of you who live in fly-over country...this is totally unheard of. Tornadoes fucking up the morning commute? That's just crazy talk! Precipitation however...now that's a whole other animal. It dumped rain for a half an hour and that was enough to short circuit all the major subterranean arteries that drag our resentful, sweaty asses into hated Manhattan. Does MTA have a system in place to handle subway train hydroplaning? No, sir. And fuck you for asking.

A TWISTER TOUCHED DOWN IN BROOKLYN!!! FIRST ON RECORD EVER!!! UNDERSTAND???

I watched 'Rataouille' this evening. 'Ratatouille' is a French peasant dish as well as a Pixar creation about rats in the kitchen. The latter caused me to gape in wonder at it like a wee child. It was gorgeous to look at, it referenced one of my favorite directors, Jacques Tati, it was fast and funny and it had something meaningful to say. So I logged on to IMDB.COM to read what the hoi polloi had to say about this contemporary masterpiece...five-year old crumb-snatchers became bored 30 minutes into it so naturally the film sucked. Okay. Fair enough. But why would you ship your screamy, snot-caked progeny off to a 'cartoon' that didn't feature fart jokes, cell phone hijinks and Jackass-inspired pratfalls in the first place? Hunh? Don't get me wrong, I don't hate kids at all, it's just that I can't stand to be around feral, unhappy vanity projects for any more time than it takes to hold my breath. That's all I'm saying.

Music. Where would I be without iTunes? So I'm surfing the net, earbuds jammed into my waxy, indifferent earholes, and then all at once XTC segueways into The Zombies' 'Odessey And Oracle' and it's Kismet. Wow! Now you may know The Zombies for their three hits: "Tell Her No", "She's Not There", and of course "Time Of The Season". But The Zombies were so much more than a sub-Beatles British Invasion also-ran. They were the Radiohead of their time. They experimented with minor/major chord changes, choirs, keyboard driven melodies (as opposed to the default chart-friendly rhythm guitar antics as exemplified by The Kinks' "You Really Got Me"). Their magnum opus 'Odessey And Oracle' is the British Invasion 'Pet Sounds'...moreso than the cold, clinical Beatles bore: 'Sgt. Pepper'...who makes out to 'Sgt. Pepper'? Does anybody actually listen to 'Sgt. Pepper' for pure listening pleasure anymore? But The Zombies, they have it all: Warm, skinny-Britboy-R&B flavored vocals courtesy of mop-topped, Jagger-lipped studwaif Colin Blunstone, lush baroque strings, AMAZING Rod Argent keyboards (Argent branched off and recorded the epic "Hold Your Head Up" which was a Stateside hit and an AOR radio staple).

The Zombies. The Beatles wish they were The Zombies.

NYC Is A Godawful Shithole.

Thanks, Fear, for expressing my sentiments exactly.

Chick On Chick Violence Is No Joke.

She's French and she'll keeel her.

The Bloody Morning After: A YouTube Mix For The Terminally Disappointed.

Most people who know The Real DJ Satisfaction Pony understand that underneath that bittersweet, cynical shell is a happy-clappy youth center veteran/recovering altar boy who has absorbed more than his fair share of Jesus Freak Original Cast Recordings...The Cramps may have corrupted me in more ways than I'll ever know but I can still appreciate Stepford Wife harmonies and Up With People! platitudes. Here's a mix that maps my purple brain...and yes it's all queer as fuck but July was a beast so it stands to reason that I've earned all of August's candy-ass indulgences.

Coven, "One Tin Soldier"



Cokeheads, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing"



The Free Design, "Kites Are Fun"



Room 222, "Theme From"



I'm From Barcelona, "We're From Barcelona"



Jesus Christ Superstar, "Jesus Christ Superstar"



The Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize?"



Patti Smith, "You Light Up My Life" (on 'Kids Are People Too!')

This is actually incredibly beautiful. She skips the high notes.



Rent, "Seasons Of Love"



Polyphonic Spree, "Lithium"



The Carpenters, "Bless The Beasts And The Children"

Scared Straight:: Inmate Abuse In The Philippines.

Okay, so you're chilling in The Philippines for some reason and somehow you fuck up...you accidentally sold some black tar heroin to a ten-year-old or you had one too many margaritas and you sexually propositioned an officer of the law in the bathroom @ Chi-Chi's...next thing you know your ass is coverall-ed and you're doing time in some god-foresaken detention center. THIS is just a taste of the horror that awaits you:

Reason To Live Number Whatever: Los Campesinos!

There's just something about glockenspiels and a chorus you can holler along to...

!

These Blondes, They Don't Dick Around.

"I feel like C.C. Baxter in Wilder's 'Apartment',
That particular arrangement just came out of the blue
And who was it who sang 'I know that you love one
So why can't you love two?'
I was in full-time education when I got scared of the future
And I've only got a job so I don't disappoint my mother
It's like I've painted myself into a social corner
Well, that's what happens when you listen to
Saint Scott Walker
On headphones
On the bus."

Those words as mewled by The Long Blondes in the coda of "You Could Have Both" cut straight to my quick today much in the way that Pulp's "Common People" did back in the heady days of 1998 when I was in grad school and wrestling with class issues or much in the way that the mopey, autumnal stanzas of "These Days" stroked my malaise back in 1991, back when I imagined myself to be some sort of doomed love-struck Romeo. Yeah, I fancied myself the sweaty, spastic Henry Miller of my particular set of friends (barflies all of them) and yet I got laid rarely (imagine that).

I had a fairly agitated imagination.

What I like most about The Long Blondes is that they have this whole Faye Dunaway noir femme fatale aesthetic so figured out both visually and aurally which makes for some of the most seductive pop/rock to have diddled my ear-holes since Blondie's 'Plastic Letters'. Check out "Weekend Without Makeup". How classic is this song and how lethal is lead Long Blonde Kate Jackson?



Concrete Blonde has been weirdly dismissed by many as being an early 90's one-hit wonder, faux-goth fluke ("Joey" and to a lesser degree: "Still In Hollywood") but check out lead singer Johnette Napolitano's chest-tightening video/ single which dropped just a year ago last month: "Scarred".



I wake up just like that every morning, btw (apnea).

And here's a pair of footloose blondes bonding on the set over knives and plastic spatulas:

I Was Gonna Write About How Kate Nash Is The Next Lily Allen-Style Brit Kvetcher Or How Bryan Ferry And Bob Dylan Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin...

...but then I came across this Kathy Griffin/Dame Judi Dench sex-tape on the WorldWideNets and I thought to myself 'well fuckit...give the people what they want' so here it is:

It's Official: I Live In A Dump But Go! Team's New Shit Kisses My Boo-Boo And Makes It All Seem Worthwhile.

That's it, I'm moving to Chicago. I've had it. NYC has kicked my ass for the very last time. For those of you who don't know, I live in a haunted frat house in the historic district of Brooklyn (Clinton Hill) and as I write this, there's a cute little rainshower happening right here in my very own apartment. It's like a water park up in here. But you know what? My glass is half-full these days because I refuse to give in to negativity and those pesky little panic attacks that tend to happen in backseats of taxicabs driven by contentious fuckwits who wouldn't know their way around Brooklyn if you strapped a fucking homing device to their muddled, Manhattan-centric heads.

Positivity, y'all. Yep. It's The New Me.

So, having said all that...

We're pretty much at the halfway point of 2007 and so I would say that thus far the contenders for 2007 Single Of The Year would have to be:

Joss Stone, "Tell Me 'Bout It"
Queens Of The Stone Age, "Make It Wit Chu"
Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"
Baby Boy Da Prince, "The Way I Live"
Timbaland ft. M.I.A., "Come Around"
Amy Winehouse, "Rehab/You Know I'm No Good"
Ne-Yo, "Because Of You"
Editors, "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors"

(NOTE: No, this summer's biggest hit, Rihanna's "Umbrella", doesn't rate because it's just too grating and shrill. Her voice is like a ban-saw slicing chalkboard. I wouldn't want to stand under her um-ber-ella ("aye-aye-aye") no how, no way...she's a test-marketed, vat-grown derivitive of Pink but without all the trash and flash and with all the right producers. She's Pink-aye (Stink-aye?). Pass the Purell, please.)

...but what will trump them all is Go! Team's new single "Grip Like A Vice" off their forthcoming release 'Proof Of Youth'. True, I shamelessly adore Go! Team: Their website alone is worth shitloads of shameless adoration:

http://www.thegoteam.co.uk/flash/GoKids.html

They feed my 70's fetish, their Sly Stone-esque stageshows are legendary and their shepherd's pie of musical comfort food inspire me to almost want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony...but their new single is less Charlie Brown and more Jackie Brown, which is a cool twist...2 years after the release of their sunkist sampladelic 'Thunder, Lightning, Strike' The Go! Team seems a little angrier but even a pissy Go! Team sporting an Angela Davis 'fro sounds uplifting.

Check this out:

Maya Rudolph As Pamela Bell (Patti LaBelle) Singing The Unsingable.

It's the 4th of July so let's all exercise our church-nurtured runs as we join together to raise our voices in song.

Does The Fact That G.W. Is A Flamboyantly Corrupt Despot Have You In A Funk? Watch This Go! Team Documentary...

...and hold yr terror close.

Enjoy.

Ya Don't Stop: Hip-Hop Is Dead, Long Live Hip-Hop.

Here's a YouTube Mix of HipHop that doesn't make my ears bleed:

The Go! Team ("Ladyflash")



Colossus ("The Tribute")



Baby Boy Da Prince ("The Way I Live")



Spank Rock ("Rick Rubin")



Brother Ali ("Uncle Sam Goddamn")



M.I.A. ("Bird Flu")

AFI's 10th Anniversary List Of The 100 Best Movies Ever Is Asstarded.

I'm sorry but 'Sixth Sense' is not the 89th greatest film ever made. It doesn't even merit rank on the list of the Top 89 Thousand Greatest Films Ever Made. 'Blazing Stewardesses' (1975) is a better movie than that manipulative piece of cineplex-friendly guilty parent-pablum. I hated every second of it and I wanted to blacken both of future DUI-perp Haley Joel Osment's squinty eyes throughout its 107 minutes of condescending predictability. 'Sixth Sense' is corporate Hollywood's idea of the 89th greatest film ever made but it's my idea of a really coke-fueled pitch given the green light because "I See Dead People" was said and all the George Lucas associates in the room freaked..."I See Dead People"...wait, that is a good pitch...fuck. It's still a trashy piece of shit and former New Kid On The Block Donnie Wahlberg gives the best performance in the thing. No. Wait. Hold on. Toni Collette was good. Alright...it's an alright movie but definitely not the 89th best one ever.

Go here to see what folks who know better than you or I judge to be the 100 greatest films ever made:

http://afi.com

Number One is still 'Citizen Kane' and who can argue with that? No one loves it but it's been referenced so many thousands of times that everyone blindly accepts it as The Best Movie Ever. Mostly it's the best photographed/ballsiest movie ever. Gregg Toland's genius is biblical and Orson Welles had cojones of steel to even get the thing made. 'The Godfather' ranks number two but 'The Godfather II' is better and it comes in at 32. Who votes for these lists anyway? Nobody asked me.

'Casablanca' is number 3 but it should be number 1 forever and for all time because it's not only a classic but it's contemporary mythology: the line "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" has become my mantra...seriously...that line alone effortlessly sums up centuries of Zen teachings...

'Raging Bull' is number 4 and I suppose that's all mod and shit but Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver' is the better, less film-studenty movie. I guess DeNiro's monologue in the mirror earns its elevated slot. 'On The Waterfront' (#19) is far superior however.

'Singin' In The Rain' is number 5. That's fine by me. Gene Kelly is effortlessly hot and charming as fuck, and Debbie Reynolds ("Leg Up!") is a lil' firecracker. Jean Hagen's nasal performance is a hoot as well...I still think 'West Side Story' is the better movie if you want to talk 'film art', however.

'Gone With The Wind' comes in at number 6. I just watched this again and this movie is amazing: The logistics of filming the burning of Atlanta, the tricky politics, Vivien Leigh...wow. 'Gone With The Wind' transcends pulp. Passionate, prototypical American movie-making: The studio system at its very best.

'Lawrence Of Arabia' rates number 7. Pretty much any David Lean film could occupy this slot.Watching this on a plasma, flat-screen tv on New Year's Day after 8 Bloody Marys and a bunch of beers is seriously life-altering.

'Schindler's List': Number 8. I don't get it. I don't get it at all. This movie presents Oskar Schindler as an extra-terrestrial sent from the heavens to save a bunch of wide-eyed Elliots (Jews). No further comment. Spielberg's best effort was 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind' and it doesn't even rank on AFI's Top 100.

'Vertigo' (No. 9) Word. I prefer 'Rear Window' but 'Vertigo' is deep, dark Hitchcock .

'Wizard Of Oz' (10) It's an American fairy tale (literally) so I feel like it should rank higher but whatever.

As for the rest of the list:

'Nashville' (best movie ever) debuts at #59 and 'American Graffiti' shoots up 15 points but where's 'The Conversation'? 'Fargo' falls off the chart, and I'm very unclear as to why 'Forrest Gump' or 'Titanic' could even possibly be considered to be better movies than 'Fargo' but then what do I know?

Shangri-La Revisited.

For me, Mary Weiss is the true voice of real-live, honest-to-god street level chick rock. Forty years ago she more or less fronted the The Shangri-Las, the girl-group who scored a number one hit with "Leader Of The Pack", a song so entangled in camp and so tattooed on our collective American consciousness that many of us can't remember if it began life as a Coke commercial, a showtune, a Bette Midler bathhouse anthem or what the fuck. If it was written as a jokey mini-opera, Mary Weiss didn't get the memo. She's the real deal from Queens. She hasn't recorded in something like forty years (although rumor has it that she sang back-up for Aerosmith in the 70's) but her new cd 'Dangerous Game' picks up right where The Shangri-La's left off. The intervening years haven't done much damage...but then again she always had one of those preternatural old-soul voices anyway. Her phrasing is truly uncanny: Queensborough streetcorner blue-eyed bad-babysitter soul. No one can touch the way she pines like a girl who could either cut you or fuck you, she hasn't decided yet. 'Dangerous Game''s production feels neither gimmicky nor condescending. Her back-up band, Reigning Sound, is a raw-boned garage band who sound like The Ramones if The Ramones knew how to play instruments and could afford a Farfisa organ.

'Dangerous Game' is party music for pie-eyed grownups who know their way around a jukebox. Check her out:

Not Sick Of Amy Winehouse Quite Yet.

Many of us are suffering Winehouse fatigue because a) "Rehab", the worst track off of 'Back To Black', is the first single to be released Stateside. WHY? Why not "Tears Dry On Their Own" or "Me And Mr. Jones"?

"Rehab" is essentially a Dr. Demento variety novelty song that wore out its welcome three months ago and is only now scaling the Billboard charts!

b) It's cool to bitch about how over Amy Winehouse we all are because misunderstood 17 year old MySpace lonelyhearts are just now adopting her as their avatar.

c) Misunderstood 17 year old MySpace lonelyhearts are just now adopting her as their avatar because Rolling Stone put her on the cover of their most recent issue, and, even though nobody at all reads Rolling Stone anymore, Rolling Stone is reliably four or five months behind any given trend, thus the publication is strangely in synch with the learning curve of misunderstood 17 year old MySpace lonelyhearts hailing from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin or thereabouts.

But...I just got a hold of Amy Winehouse's 2003 release 'Frank' and it's pretty great. A couple straightforward jazz standard covers ("(There Is) No Greater Love" & "Moody's Mood") and a barnstorming track rocking a nifty prohibition-era swing-band hook ("Help Yourself") are standouts on this brassy, gin-soaked, sailor-mouthed confessional that is Winehouse's debut. 'Frank' knocks it out of the park and it's worth seeking out.

Let the little girls n' gays have their 'Back To Black'. 'Frank' is The Shit.

Queens Of The Stone Age: Not Your Big Brother's Cock Rock.

I've been a fan of Queens Of The Stone Age since 1998 when my prematurely geriatric Irish-Italian tattooiste', Sparky, put their classic self-titled first cd on repeat as he sleeved me @ Steve's Tattoo in Madison, Wisconsin. Four hours is a long time to be exposed to 11 songs that on the average clock in at four and a half minutes, and what I noticed about the band as I lay prone in Sparky's chair, oozing ozone and endorphines, is that for all the crunchy chords & swagger, here is a metal band that pretty much caters to a sensibility that falls somewhere around 5 or 6 on the Kinsey Scale. I wasn't exactly sure why, maybe it's the final track ('I Was A Teenage Hand Model') or maybe it's all the keening dude-falsetto that frontman/frat-stud Josh Homme manages so effortlessly...Homme (built like a surfer and sporting a tufty $50+ haircut) must get lots and lots of Trimme...but I definitely don't hate myself for loving them. Also I think their variety of horny glambastic stomp fills a hole, now more than ever. Modest Mouse is all John Prine-y, warbly, swaddled in flannel (yet they still manage to chart high), Interpol is plucked and shaved, aloof and vaguely gothish, privately educated and not afraid to remind us that they're fundamentally pricks, but The Queens are accessible fuck-happy, reasonably intelligent dipshits: Douchebag Lite for Burning Men and Womyn.

Here's a live version of my favorite track off of 'Era Vulgaris': "Turnin' On The Screw".

No One Will Ever Describe Me As "Mathy" or "Deadsy" Or Even "High"...But I'm Definitely 420 - Friendly.

Bands (and people) I loathe and despise most upon first exposure usually work on my heart and mind to such a degree that within a year or so I come around and wonder why I was such a twat regarding this person or that band in the first place. Sometimes it takes longer...King Crimson only recently wore me down to a resigned acceptance/anemic love (sort of) and that was after twenty-odd years of nodding politely at the inevitable funkless, REI-clad, rock-climbing fuckwit who, stoned to the beejesus, would thoughtlessly snuff my buzz by extracting 'In The Court Of The Crimson King' from his Hampshire College approved collection of freedom-rock to treat all of us lucky, lucky party people to 'Moonchild' as if none of us had ever heard it before. Alright, so 'Moonchild' is just fine now but that's only because my testicles have dropped and I've mellowed some. Ah well, It's my karmic burden to have embraced whole-heartedly all that I've slandered throughout my undergrad years (prog rock, lesbians, ostentatious bongs...I've lived with and slept with manymanymanymany maintenance stoners, one was a lesbian). Sometimes I never come around at all. For example, I will always loathe Emerson, Lake & Palmer, (even though I know Greg Lake's son...rock-star spawnage are a whole other blogtopic altogether...).

So, there's these two bands currently hyped by Pitchforkmedia.com as being "mathy" (Battles) and as sounding "claustrophobic, almost sickly" (Black Moth Super Rainbow). And, being the kind of person who is helplessly drawn to foul smells, briney foods, and totally unavailable people, I decided to spend a half an hour floating in my nervous-suffering free space, listening to freshly downloaded Battles & Black Moth Super Rainbow. Having done all of that (not an easy task) I have but one question:

What kind of asshole pays for (not to mention sits around and listens to) mathy, claustrophobic, almost sickly music?

I really just don't get it.

Maybe there's some fun to be had watching this video but I didn't have any. Try, just try, to get loose to Battles' 'Atlas':



And then there's this mewling nonsense:



...starts off promising with that sun-dappled guitar line/funky drummer intro but then it goes straight to hell.

I predict Battles and Black Moth Super Rainbow will be two of my bigbig faves of '08...after all the kids have moved on to bigger and better things because that's just the kind of jive-ass, mutable, integrity-free suckerchump I am.

Just One Reason Why Stevie Nicks Will Forever Rock The Entire World.

Oh, And This Is That Other Rush Whom I Won't Comment On Because I Refuse To Address Frauds Or Chaucerian Charlatans...

I Don't Have Faith In Faith, I Will Quietly Resist: Rush's 'Snakes & Arrows'

My Rush journey has been a rocky one; Those ponderous, ten-minute tracks, Geddy Lee's caterwaul, the Spinal Tap presentation, the dick-shrinking mullets, those weird trenchcoat wearing fans....


...but then I saw them live ('Signals' tour, 1983, LaCrosse, Wisconsin) and ferocious, drumkit-stud/lyricist Neal Peart claimed my heart and soul for all time. And because prog-rock is coming back in a big way (Grizzly Bear, The Klaxons) Rush sounds as fresh as anything you'll read about on Pitchforkmedia.com. Listen to 'Red Barchetta' and you'll find your funk pointing to points North Of The Border.

Rush's new release, 'Snakes & Arrows', is same ol' Rush we all know but with a barely detectable edge. Geddy's screech has mellowed with age so the world-weary lyrics pop in stark relief, kind of like a fact drooling from the slack-jawed mouth of Elisabeth Hasselbeck or, say, a Democrat in Congress who has the balls to own the courage of his/her convictions...

'Faithless' is the track that truly stands out for me. It's as epic and lush as Led Zep's 'Kashmir' and just as introspective as 'Kashmir' wasn't. "I don't have faith in faith/I don't believe in belief..."

Good stuff.

...sadly, poking around YouTube for a Rush visual that backs me up, all I could come up with were a few embarrassing fan-made videos for tracks off of their new release 'Snakes & Arrows'. Word of advice: Don't brag about how much you dig Rush if you're single and posting profiles on Match.com, Jewdate.com, Bigfatcock.com, or wherever your peddling your wares...Rush fandom isn't exactly sexay.

But Neal Peart is sexay and here's proof:

Oink! party starts Wednesday (and you know what that means...)

...OPEN BAR!!!! Yes, that's right...all the Svedka, Jim Beam & Miller Lite you can toss down your gullet (from 9-10)...AND, you'll have the additional thrill of experiencing me, DJ Satisfaction Pony, in the flesh, spinning for YOU! Dry your tears, mate! All your dreams are coming true!

What's on the Ponyman's set list?

new Nine Inch Nails
Out Hud (of course)
New York Dolls
Parliament/Funkadelic
Gary Numan
Emotional Rescue-vintage Stones
T. Rex
Slade
Louis XVI
some hyphy
Mika
The Troggs (their re-do of The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" is evil)
A shitload of Brooklyn Bands (yeahyeahyeahs, brazilian girls et. al)
The Knife
AM nuggets like David Dundas' "Jeans On", Andrea True, George McRae
James Brown & The J.B.'s
a liberal sprinkling of Hair Metal (Poison, Quiet Riot, White Lion)
Lily Allen/Amy Winehouse/Just Jack/The Noisettes
Bowie remixes
The Cars
The Presets
LO-FI FNK
sick mashups (e.g. "Smells Like Booty" which is Destiny's Child's "Bootyliscious" meets Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit")
Iggy & The Stooges
Old Skool Hip Hop (Slick Rick, Run DMC, The Beasties)

Lotsa good times on the dance floor for sure...

Come early (Grab the M Train if you must), stay late, call in sick on Thursday!

Sublime.

Sigh.

Cruel Irony: Least Favorite Band Ever Opens Douchehole Mere Blocks Away From My Main Hang.

A Friday or two ago, ClearChannel annointed teenage-fatgirl magnets/guyliner heroes, "Fall-Out Boi", launched a "dive bar" just a few blocks up the street from my own favorite watering hole 'Big Lug'. The name of this "neo-dump" is "Angels And Kings". What's on tap? A menufull of $10 Ashlee Simpson-approved umbrella drinks and a few shitty d.j.'s spinning crap.

Wanna go?



Mmm...I'd love to belly up to the bar with all the budding Dylan Thomases and Brendan Behans at THIS public house!

"It's For You" (breathebreathebreathe)!: Out Hud's doityourself Dancefloor Masterpiece.

I don't know who Out Hud is exactly (except that they either birthed !!! or they produced !!!...who the hell is !!! anyway?) but if we lived in reasonable times and if radio wasn't under Timbaland ft. Akon lockdown, Out Hud would find themselves with a multi-platinum mega-smash on their hands.

...funny, possibly cross-gender fatal attraction narrative set against the fattest beats ever and a keyboard break that is so Studio 54 dirty/pretty that pubic lice do the bump and blow rails on your pleasure trail whenever Out Hud picks up the phone:

"H'lo?"

Classic track.



Thanks, Jane *you know who you are*.

Visit Bjork Between The Holidays!

Quick! Absorb Alex Borstein's comic genius before Viacom yanks it!

Bjork Gets Skinned By Whitney & Bob-bay!

I'm drunk off my ass on cheap domestic brew and I have to prove to you folks once and for all why it is that Bjork makes me laugh until Blatz squirts out my nostrils. It's because this sketch ruined it for me for all time:

Bjork's 'Declare Independence'.

Unbelievable. Sex Pistol-esque intensity sustained for four minutes and forty seconds.

"declare independence/don't let them do that to you"

The 2 duets w/ Antony of Antony & The Johnsons are, um, unfortunate.

BJORK: Unspeakably Hilarious. SAD KERMIT: Not So Much.

The moment that Bjork hangs by the neck just as she opens her feral yap to sing at the end of 'Dancer In The Dark', is, for me, sheer comic genius (albeit unintentional...maybe). I LOL-ed and LOL-ed and then coughed up popcorn mash as hipsters sniffled all around me at The Anjelika.

It's not that I dislike Bjork and wish for her execution, it's just that every single thing about the woman strikes me as choke-on-your-own-tongue hysterical. MadTV's Alex Borstein does Bjork better than Bjork does Bjork. For the most part, her music is shrieky, faux-art nonsense (except for 'Earth Intruders' off of her new release 'Volta'...pretty catchy...thanks again, Timbaland!) and her acting/dancing/whatever skills are negligable but when I spied her marching down Rivington Street on The Lower East Side years ago in militia-friendly stilettos clutching a great big hairy purse I about shat myself! Genius! If she didn't exist, 'South Park' would have to make the bitch up! I so love/hate her!

I just plain hate the YouTube phenomenon that is Sad Kermit's version of NIN's 'Hurt'. Maybe I'm a soft-touch but I don't consider fallen muppets very funny. Big Bird hawking up a lung after puffing on a Marlboro on a Sesame Street corner is just cheap, not funny. Oscar The Grouch is the nihilist, not Big Bird. The Muppets do self-satire better than any jaded pretender to the throne ever could. But because I' m a fan of free speech and also because I'm an opportunist...here. Judge for yourself.




Much funnier is The Rebel L ("po-la-la-lice!"):

I Can Has Morphine And Die Now Plz: The Rise And Rise Of Kittah-Speak.

The beauty of 'Kittah', an internet-born-and-bred pidgin language so fuct that no one can actually speak it, or if they tried, they'd be clobbered fast and hard and then quite probably find themselves ass-raped over a sawhorse behind the nearest Shell station...is that it makes perfect sense. Why? Because our monkey-brains think in 'Kittah' (think Cartman saying the word 'kitty') when we want something immediately. Example:

"I Can Has Tax Refund Now, Plz, Thx."

But 'Kittah' is best expressed starkly outlined over cute kitty/doggy pics or photoshopped fuct-upedness cadged from the internets. Example:



Anyone who has ever engaged in a flame-war on The Webs has probably had a LOLGay or a LOLKitty fired back at them, and if your virtual-nemesis was twelve or under you've more than likely been 'pwnd!' as a photoshopped sniper-kitty picks off victims from a bell-tower or Dallas Book Depository. Bill O'Reilly's 'No Spin Zone' should be transcriped in Kittah for his mentally-challenged fanbase, because nothing shuts down a thoughtful discussion quicker than Kittah-speak("douche plzkthx.") and/or a sniper-kitty wipe.

If you find yourself craving more exposure to LOLCats and LOLGays, go here:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

If you would like to participate in a LOLCat or LOLGay "discussion", go here:

http://www.kscakes.com/LolCats/

Hating Kittah is like hating Dada, Warhol or Nancy Grace because, in the end, you know what? You can't unring a bell: It's out there, it's happened. Deal with it.

I blame Paul McCartney for all of this. Note his declension of "Mademoiselle Kitty" in his long-forgotten stab at glam rock: "Venus And Mars Rock Show".

"Madmwahzell Kitty...Kittay...Kittah...A-Ha!"

I has never liked Paul McCartney anywayz.



P.S. - Kittah 101: Translate Alec Baldwin's loving paternal voicemail to German (via Babel Fish Translator...Google it) and then translate it back to English and you get what looks like Kittah Basics:

Once again, I have larva ate OF on myself trying tons of GET tons of A phone. You have larva ate out ME OF on for the read time. Three letters: ABA. A, Always, B, A, Answering. Always answering. Always answering. AIDA. Attention. Interest. Decision. Action. Attention. DO I have your attention? Interest. Acres you interested? I know you acres ' cause it's pick UP the phone or GET your ate straightened out. You to who or you GET hit with A brick. Decision. Have you larva your decision tons pick UP the phone? And action. AIDA. Pick UP the goddamn phone. You got A call coming in, you think I larva it because I've got emergency-hung better tons of DO? I could shouting shit RK random people on the street, but I'm calling you. I don't care that you're twelve or eleven or more whatever, acres you pig enough tons pick it UP? I'm A good more father, and you're A pig. I don't give A shit. Good more father. You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you thoughtless pain into the ate? AIDA. GET WAD you daughter OF A bitch. GET WAD. You know what it takes ton to who my call? It of takes brass ball ton to who my call. Go and DO likewise. The phone is ringing, you pick it UP, it's yours, you don't, I got NO sympathy for you. I'd wish you good luck, but you wouldn't know what tons of DO with it if you got it. You more better ready Friday the 20th ton meet with ME. Pig. Oh, thus, tell your mother I said "Go fuck yourself." This is Dad, ring ME bake when you GET A chance.

From DJ Satisfaction Pony's Stack Of Stuff: U2 Jumps Shark, A Squid, Some Skates And An Archipalago Off The Coast Of F*cktardatia.

Spring is most definitely here...I can tell because everything's just the tiniest bit off. First and foremost, there's a mouse corpse a-moulderin' away in my wall. Its sickeningly sweet ass n' roses, gramma-fart tang has usurped my appetite (Shit!) and as a result, I've lost a pinch of belly-fat (Right on!). Secondly, I'm addicted to both The Mets and action movies which I can't explain at all because at heart I'm a great big 210 lb., frilly-knickered, Nelly Olson, sausage-curled girl...The strangeness goes on and on but as I'm re-reading what I've written I'm finding it all very dull so I'll just move on...

Nine Inch Nails' new release 'Year Zero' will forever remind me of the Virginia Tech massacre because that's what was dialed up on my iTunes when I read the news on CNN.com ("The Warning" specifically, I'm not making this up). I have a rich history of musical co-association: I can't hear Bryan Ferry's 'Taxi' without experiencing 9/11 all over again; the languid melancholy encapsulates the entire lost month of September, 2001. And The Thompson Twins takes me right back to the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion of January, 1986, because that's what was playing on the student union jukebox as UW-Eau Claire undergrads piled into the TV room to watch as the realtime horror show interrupted 'Guilding Light'. I could piece together a totally unlistenable sick n' twisted TragedyTime Playlist for myself but that would only serve to recontextualize and thus neutralize the baggage these evil little soundtracks have earned. But here goes:

"Groove Line" - Heatwave (I read traumatizing 'Helter Skelter' for the first time, Summer, 1975)
"Watching The Wheels" - John Lennon (Lennon's murder, 1980)
"Doctor! Doctor!" - The Thompson Twins (Space Shuttle Challenger explodes, Jan., 1986)
"Sweet Thing" - The Waterboys (I learn that girlfriend was brutally raped in India, 1989)
"NaNaNa" - Royal Crescent Mob (Tiananmen Square, 1989)
"Whirlpool" - Seal (Rodney King Riots, Jack-In-The-Box around the corner from my apt. trashed and pillaged, Seattle, WA, 1992)
"Mayonnaise" - Smashing Pumpkins (I read my mother's response to my coming out letter, 1993)
"Like A Motorway" - Saint Etienne (Heard news of very young local prostitute's murder, sickening, very Jack The Ripperesque, Madison, WI. - April 11, 1997)
"The Night I Heard Caruso Sing" - Everything But The Girl (The day I learned I had Congestive Heart Failure, cried for hours, 1997)
"Taxi" - Bryan Ferry (The Eve of 9/11)
"The Warning" - Nine Inch Nails (Virginia Tech massacre, April, 2007)

...ech...

But back to Nine Inch Nails' 'Year Zero'...I'm feeling like "In This Twilight" will be gracing car commercials any time now, if it isn't already. It's beautiful and highly exploitable. 'The Warning' is the stand-out track. I love the 'Pictures Of Matchstick Men' call-to-arms, slash-and-burn guitar line and of course the message couldn't be more prescient. The rest of the cd is standard-issue Reznor-whispered "Fuck-Me-I'm-Angsty" high drama set against a soundscape of blips and bleeps framed by a thundering drum machine, which is not a bad thing by any means. Some sci-fi thematical claptrap apparently unites the piece but I could care less about any of it. Faith No More's masterwork, "Angel Dust", tackled Reznor territory (Compromised White Male Rage) way back in '92 but with much more poopy-pants humor, some sampled cheerleaders and an orchestra's worth of pretty strings and piano: Sometimes 'Year Zero' sounds like a more earnest version of Mike Patton's vision...but then along comes 'God Given', which is sheer dancefloor savagery. Can't wait to play it at 'Oink!', the stoopid pig party I spin for on Wednesdays @ Cattyshack.

Welp, looks like U2 is officially out of its fucking mind. I used to stand behind U2 through thick and through thin (although 'Rattle & Hum' was a great big red flag) but now I totally agree with Amy Winehouse that Bono should "shut up" once and for all. By now, he's so beknighted and ethereal he's finally fully qualified to breed beatified Saint Angelina Jolie and co-parent a home-brewed army of righteous, priveleged little blobs alongside Holy Father Brad Pitt. These three are so self-important, so high on their own ass-vapors that they're virtual parodies of themselves.

And now U2 is writing the score for a Broadway musical version of Spiderman 3. I am in no way opposed to U2 writing a Broadway musical, in fact, I think they absolutely should. But a jazz-hands version of 'Spiderman Three?'

That just reeks of ego-fuelled greed. Obvs. Bono is a corporate shill, but THE EDGE??

I guess no one is invulnerable.

'Grindhouse' Is Making Me Sick!

I'm blogging this as I'm watching 'Grindhouse' because I need a break...after all the film itself is, like, as long Quentin Tarantino's melting, snot-runner of a zombie-cock in the 'Planet Terror' installment of 'Grindhouse' and that's pretty fucking LONG...but I just have to share the fact that as I'm watching this box-office disappointment I'm giggling myself SICK!

I almost passed out during inter-feature Prevues Of Upcoming Attractions they were so deliriously hilarious.

Anyway...go see the movie. Rose McGowan alone is worth the price of admission.

Ohforchrissake, This YouTube Nonsense Isn't So Damned Hard After All...

By now, you've seen this at least five or eight times courtesy of our viral-friendly blogospherical interwebs, but I have such newfound respect for ol' cryface Alanis Flathair that I'm going to go on record as endorsing this superbly rendered work of glibliciousness. Maybe Alanis should consider a career as Will Ferrell femme-fatale foil/Frat Pack Little Sister because this shit is simply laugh out loud hilarious. Why? a) 'My Humps' is Number 2 on my list of Top 3 All-Time Musical Atrocities, I mean the lyrics alone...gee, what to say about those lyrics...basically it all comes to: "Hey ! Get Over Here And Fuck My Hump!" and b) Drama. It's about time that that all-purpose hip-hop warhouse was clarified, once and for all.

And also the dudes in this video are freakin' retarded-sexy.

Enjoy.

Jagged Guitar Lines And Lovely Ladies...

I've been listening to Maximo Park's 'Girls Who Play Guitars' every 20 minutes or so because I can't seem to get enough of it...of all the bands out there who are aping early-80's Gang Of Four, Maximo Park comes closest to getting it absolutely right. They get it so right that I get all nostalgic for 1982, when me and my best high school buddy, Scott, would hole up in my jungle-themed room and listen to the latest, most exotic British chart-toppers...Duran Duran (before 'Rio'), Au Pairs, 'Movement'-era New Order...and we'd talk about girls. Yes, I'm gay, but I miss objectifying girls. They were all so mystical, so un-haveable (because I was sort of a loser), yet so fun to talk about.

So now I'm gonna put in my iPod buds, dial up 'Girls Who Play Guitars' and I'm gonna write about girls I'll never, ever have. I'll never, ever look into Jennifer Connelly's unearthly green eyes, I'll never smell her Watermelon-Twist Trident Gum scented breath, I'll never make her laugh, I'll never get to kiss her neck...nor will I ever look into Bryce Dallas Howard's unearthly green eyes, I'll never smell her Watermelon-Twist Trident Gum scented breath, I'll never make her laugh, I'll never get to kiss her neck...but I'll always get to listen to Maximo Park's 'Girls Who Play Guitars' and that's just about enough.

The Ponyster Is Feelin' The Doolittle.

I will not front. I don't think American Idol has 'ruined' American pop music at all. In fact, I think the show has raised the live performance bar of sheer showmanship; folks like Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) may have taken the cue from 'Idol' (I strongly doubt it, but I'm just trying to make a point here) and may have actually amped up their presentation thanks to Randy Jackson's dawgdafied helpful hints and Paula Abdul's alcohol-fueled Tuesday night affirmations.

Yes, I regret that Carrie Underwood bested Bo Bice a couple of seasons ago, because she has no discernable personality, but her hits are sweet little cornpone throwbacks to the days of blow-dried ingenues like Connie Smith and Barbara Mandrell, so I don't mind that she's charting, touring and presumably enjoying her transitional Clive Davis enslavement. I just wish she wouldn't shill for Skechers is all (maybe she needs the money?). Kelly Clarkson has yet to prove herself as anything more than a tool but 'Since U Been Gone' is #1 on the Satisfaction Pony request line so maybe there's something there that I'm not yet seeing. She's collaborating w/ proto-grunge, indie-rock god Mike Watt so maybe she's about to pull a rabbit out of her hat. Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken...drawing a blank here...Fantasia has loads of potential but she's got to take complete control of her ghetto-fab, babymama gestalt and write her own material or she's gonna find herself domesticated and frumpdafied a la Patti LaBelle way before her time. Collaborating with Andre 3000 and Missy Elliott was a good send-off but now she needs to find her own voice.
Taylor Hicks is a sexless drag niche-marketed for the Michael Buble crowd and Daughtry doesn't have much to say for himself...yet...but then again Jennifer Hudson broke free from AI lockdown and won herself an Oscar so who knows? My feeling is that that nasty little Arista Records contract obligation holds a lot of these folks back from realizing their true voice. Or maybe Simon is right and they're just a bunch of arrogant, entitled no-talents.

But Season Six' Melinda Doolittle is The Stuff. Man, do I love to watch her do her thing. She is so in the moment and she's just so Damned Happy To Be There that it takes me back to when I discovered Otis Redding singing live at Monterey on the B- side of my worn-out copy of Jimi Hendrix Plays Monterey. I was an early convert to soul and funk but I got to that place by way of rockfolk like The Stones and Hendrix. Melinda Doolittle has that quality: No bells, no whistles...just living the song as she tells it. Sure, Blake Lewis is a sweet piece of plaid-clad ass but it bugged me to watch him wrap his lipless mouth around 'You Keep Me Hangin' On' and suck the urgency right out of it. He's a nifty gimmick, a superb mimic, but not much more than that. By the by: I pretty much think he's straight but I'm fairly certain he's one of them sexless hets who "haven't found that special someone" quite yet. I know plenty of these guys and they crack me the fuck up. I, Satisfaction Pony, have eaten more pussy than these ego-whipped fops AND I'M A GAY!!! And Blake, dawg, please leave the white-trash comedy to Jim Carrey.

As far as the whole VoteForTheWorst/Sanjaya PonyHawk phenomenon is concerned: I think America loves a good train wreck and Lord have mercy but Sanjaya is right up there with...wait...as far as I can tell there's no precedent...hold on...I'm thinking he's an original...but not really 'cuz there's plenty of near-misses who are D-list famous for being sex-neutral and utterly without talent (William Hung represented American xenophobia in the flesh and laugh-deprived Hollywood Square Wally Cox pressed a whole lot of homophobic buttons): Kind of like Paris Hilton and a dozen other celebutards! But what grabs me about Sanjaya is that I think he gets it. I suspect he knows he's a freaking fluke and he's got a month or so to spook Middle America and he's gonna do all that without breaking a sweat. He understands: Apparently America has a hard-on for accidental celebrity so So Fucking Be It. He's gonna bring it.

Check out how perfectly Melinda Doolittle embodies every nuance of this thematically complicated Aretha song. She's a natural. Pure and simple. But don't compare Melinda to copper-afroed Aretha as she effortlessly touches zen perfection with her jazzed-up version of 'Oh Me, Oh My (I'm A Fool For You Baby)' on Soul Train...because that's just not fair. Aretha positively radiates in this clip and her cool, earthbound confidence signals that she must have been in love at the time of the taping because I've felt like that for one hot second (once, a long time ago)and I recognize that centeredness.

Also Melinda Doolittle would resemble my neice if she were a 14-year old white girl with braces.

Spring Is In The Air, Robbed By A Locksmith.

Merry April Fool's Day, DJ Satisfaction Pony! Watch in horror as Mr. Locksmith breaks your door and charges you $300 for his services! Swallow your tongue as Mister Freakshow Locksmith follows you to an ATM whereat he breathes through his mouth over your shoulder and demands even more money than the original figure claiming 'travelling fee'!

Consider having 'Hi, I'm a great big putz' tattooed to your forehead, save everyone else the 30 seconds of figuring it out for themselves!

Hip-Hop Nation Takes It On The Chin: Modest Mouse Debuts On The Charts At Number One

...not that I think that Modest Mouse is rock n' roll's ace in the hole but isn't it amazing that their new release 'We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank' (the title is indicative of how ponderous a lot of their songs are) debuts on this week's Billboard Top 100 @ #1? Who'da thunk? I mean if any single rock-friendly artist were to give The All-Powerful Hip-Hop Machine the heave-ho this week I would think it would be this year's suburban breakout band The Kaiser Chiefs. I'm listening to their 'Yours Truly, Angry Mob' right now as I write this and it's pretty fucking fun: The jagged guitar lines are sleek, the harmonies are a tad bubblegummy and it's all very retro-British Invasion, which is white hot right now,...they're either The Knack or The Raspberries of 2007. And trust me, that's not a dig...I'm all about The Knack and The Raspberries. All three bands have an unshakable sense of melodic horndog-white boy 'la-la' choruses and who doesn't love 3 minute power pop singalongs? 'The Angry Mob' is so catchy it's like a well-earned case of morning-after crabs. The Kaiser Chiefs have razorburns that The Killers can't muster but they'll never be mistaken for a nihilistic band like The Cockney Rejects. In other words they're easily digested anarchy.

Modest Mouse is a whole other animal however...they're more kissing cousins to Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart then to Chris Daughtry or Nickelback and they have almost nothing at all in common with smarmy, arch teenbait Fall Out Boy (praise god) other than a producer with a sketchy resume (Counting Crows?!). Isaac Brock's obsessions sound immediate and compulsively put right out there on the table in front of mom and god. I want to say that there's a New Sincerity afoot because The Arcade Fire wear their hearts on their sleeves as well but at this point I may merely be seeing what I want to see. In short, I'm encouraged by this spike in diversity on the charts. This week Top 40 hip-hop is just no damn good whatsoever...with the exception of Baby Boy Da Prince's 'This Is The Way I Live' which is so mushmouthed and drawly that you have to wonder if Baby Boy Da Prince can ever get it together enough to wipe his own damn ass. Off the charts is Houston MC Devin The Dude...who is so gacked on weed and malt liquor he pukes, cries and croons like a Christian Wingnut Country Cracker on his new c.d. 'Waitin' To Inhale'. It's all just so. wrong.

Let's see what else broke-ass Satisfaction Pony is listening to:

Macy Gray's 'Big'. Macy's a whole lotta crazy under that frosted wig. Reefer-wracked Macy Gray should chill down south with Devin The Dude, I'm sure they've got a lot to raspy jibber-jabber to yammer at each other, although they should maybe refrain from breeding for the good of the unborn souls in the queue. 'Big' has a lazy, string-laden 70's AM radio vibe going for it but the songs are just so...lazy. Every track but three feels like 'novelty'-ish Dr. Demento fodder. The three tracks worth the effort are 'Finally Made Me Happy', a duet with Natalie Cole that is so uncanny the twosome should consider future collaboration, 'Slowly' which is an actual song instead of MacyCrazy Shocktart shit, and 'Everybody' which is just flat-out Sly Stone anthem greatness. 'Everybody' is a mixtape must.

Joss Stone's 'Introducing Joss Stone'. Joss Stone can blow, dawg. Her phrasing is preternatural for a white woman her age...she has greatness in her. But right now she's a crashing bore. I can't even guess what's going on with her bogus, strip-mall Janis Joplin aesthetic but more than likely her 'Piece Of My Heart' duet w/ Missy Etheridge has a whole lot to do with it. It's all very unfortunate and I'm sure she'll pass through this phase and move on to better things. Thankfully, this time around she's blessed with a savvy producer, Raphael Saadiq, so her bland, bubblehead lyrics are repotted in some crisp Northern Soul backbeats. It all sounds so delicious but this poor creature has absolutely nothing to say for herself except for martianfart, pre-teen diary-doodle. She needs somebody to step in and give her some substance to back up that great big black-velvet voice of hers. And tired-ass, Bon Jovi bitch Diane Warren should stay the hell away from her. There are two stellar singles here: 'Tell Me 'Bout It' and 'Headturner'. 'Tell Me 'Bout It' would be the 'Crazy' of 2007 if it had a thought in its head but as it stands it's right up there with Amerie's 'One Thing' and that's good enough.

Devin The Dude's 'Waitin' To Inhale': Hysterical, disturbing...example: "This dick is so clean/You can serve it with lima beans"...this guy is something else. If Spank Rock and Devin The Dude are ever on the same Smokin' Grooves Tour I am So, So There.

Kings Of Leon's 'Because Of The Times': 'Fans' is jaw-dropping, arena-thumping, southern boogie greatness, maybe as transcendent as 'Sweet Home Alabama': It's just that raw. You've got to hear this track. You'll be pumping your fist in the air like the shop-class meathead you feared and loathed in high school. The rest of 'Because Of The Times' is just as good. These guys are mythic.

I guess that's all for now. Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend' isn't that bad but I don't want to talk about it. *shame*.

From DJ Satisfaction Pony's Stack Of Stuff: Warlord/Death-Merchant Declares Homosexuality Immoral!

In a discussion with editors of the Chicago Tribune, General Peter Pace said, "I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that [the U.S. military] should not condone immoral acts...I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way...As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy."

Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) chimed in with a resounding 'amen, brother!'. Senator Sam Brownback is a Republican candidate for 2008's Presidential election.

As of March 17th, 2007, more than 3,200 U.S. troops have died as we approach the fifth anniversary of the conflict in Iraq. In January of 2007, President Bush (who appointed General Pace as Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff) put forth a plan to dispatch an additional 21,500 troops for duty in Iraq.

Jesus would do that...right?

***

So now that we're all being held hostage at gunpoint on the last Greyhound to Crazytown, I propose that we all put in our iPod ear-bud-thingys, close our eyes, and summon for ourselves a playlist that transports us to that zen-y zenith of transcendent insanity; that special place where nothing or nobody can hurt us anymore. Here's mine:

"Just A Friend", Biz Markie: "Youuuu/Got What I Need/But You Say He Just A Friend...". Funkless, tuneless, utterly batshit and yet it scaled the charts in 1989. I played it out the other night and the lesbians looked at each other, giggled, kinda smiled their mysterious, sexy little half-smiles and promptly got diiiiirty (NOTE: Doesn't take much these days). Oh, snap!

"Denis", Blondie: A mash note to unshowered Euro-skank replete w/ gratuitous French phrasology and girl-group 'bee-doo's. This track is like an aural Strawberry SlimFast brain-freeze and after the fade, if you're feeling a little more wordly but also just a tad dumber...you're totally forgiven: Me too (bee-doo).

"Faith", The Boy Least Likely To: The world needs a jug-band rethink of George Michael's 'Faith' just as much as it needs Edie McClurg and Crunchberries. Absolutely essential.


"Attitude Dancing", Carly Simon: "It don't really matter if you stretch or shake..." The cowbell-banging Simon & Schuster publishing dynasty heiress advocates doing The Hully Gully in the mirror while trying on different attitudes. 'Haughty entitlement' works for me...PUBLISH MY ATTITUDE DANCING ASS!

"Home Is Where You're Happy", Charles Manson: Manson croons it up like he's Jack Jones (The Theme from 'Love Boat' guy) and you know what? I'm sold! Home is where you're happy! Where do I sign up?

"Sticky Green", Devin The Dude: Devin The Dude loves to blow weed and he's nice enough to teach us how to roll a blunt. I'm too shy to ask at parties and so my man Devin has done me a real service. Thanks, dude.

"So, Do The Zonk", Donna Loren: Yes, there's a comma that prefaces this directive to perform some sort of sinister, jerky, grunty, bottom-heavy routine to a song that name-checks exotic locales such as The Congo and Cucamonga. Does the comma imply that I have the option of doing The Zonk or not? Is Donna merely hinting that perhaps I should maybe consider doing The Zonk but if I opt out, that's perfectly fine? Why so nonchalant? Should I Zonk or not? So many questions...

"Around The World", DuJour: All issues addressed by this boy-band as fronted by Seth Green and featured in the horribly underrated big-screen adaptation of Josie & The Pussycats are ass-centric (download DuJour's "Backdoor Lover") and so I think we can all agree that this Top 40-friendly ode to analingus is about as subtle as a closeted Joint Chief Of Staff attacking that little piece of himself he hates most of all. Analingus should be celebrated, after all. I mean, at the end of the day, isn't that what Dusty Springfield's 'Breakfast In Bed' all about?

"Ballad Of Bitter Honey", Eef Barzelay: The song kicks off with: "That was my ass bouncing/Next to Ludacris" and after a troubling couplet reporting the effects of class disparity, Eef kicks into a twee 'bah-dah, bah-dah-bah-bum'. The whole thing is a miserable listening experience but I have to tip my hat to Eef and his balls-to-the -wall willingness to explore the outer limits of lyrical subject matter: He's a white guy plugging into the mindset of an MTV video rump-shaking hoochie momma. Quite a stretch, but he pulls it off.



More to come...

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror...

I've posted my profile pic (at the behest of absolutely no one) so you who've experienced DJ Satisfaction Pony in the flesh more than once can understand why I always wear hats. Look at that hair. LOOK AT IT! It's like some kinda fucked up comb-over that didn't quite get combed all the way over. The shit is kitty fur and once it makes contact with 'product' all kinds of follicular digressions result. If I had Vicodin at my disposal I'd pop one (to quell The Jimmie Leg) and get it all shaved off.

But Children Of Men put it all in perspective for me. Yeah, my hair refuses to co-operate but things could be much worse for me, for all of us. We could wake up one day only to discover that we're infertile illegal aliens scrounging for Strawberry Cough in a carbon blue dystopia (whatever you do, don't pull Michael Caine's finger!). Children Of Men had me riveted and I'm convinced that it is truly cinematic art on a par w/ Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, only twice as involving. Kubrick alienates me which I'm sure was his intention.

Everything about Children feels simultaneously new and old: Julianne Moore's band of terrorist insurgents are outfitted to resemble Spanish Civil War-era revolutionaries, London is all smoke-belching Dickensian but with hi-tech flourishes, and the soundtrack is flush with psychedelia, from Donovan to Deep Purple to Radiohead. I will never again hear 'Ruby Tuesday' without thinking of Jasper, Michael Caine's wonderful 'Shanti' chanting crank. John Lennon's 'Bring On The Lucie (Freeda People)' is featured over the closing credits and a song I once thought of as representative of Lennon's worst excesses is given an elegaic poignance. I still think a psychedelic set would wash in the right loungey setting which is why Children Of Men gives me hope that my 'Profoundly Incredible Tentacle' party will one day turn-on a whole new generation of drunks. Possibly there's a Human Project for d.j.s with well-intended but unmarketable ideas.

It's 69 degrees here in Brooklyn and I found an extra $20 in my wallet which never happens to me so, as of today, there's hope.

Heart Need Healing? Get A Load Of Jill Cunniff's 'City Beach'.

It troubles me that dead souls like Ann 'The Man' Coulter still have the power to hurt my feelings. As you may or may not know, she more or less called Democratic Presidential Candidate Jonathan Edwards a faggot, much to the delight of a roomful of neo-cons, and the resultant press coverage has clued me into the fact that a simple juvenile epithet such as 'faggot' still merits the subverted approval of the status quo. As a gay man I'm left to stew in my juices and marinate in self-pitying tuneage.

Jill Cunniff is balm in gilead for all that nonsense.

God knows I love Arcade Fire (more about 'Neon Bible' later...I'm still absorbing it, processing it, crying to it, cursing it...) but sometimes the heart just needs to unwind and throb without scrutiny or judgement and thats precisely what Luscious Jackson's Jill Cunniff allows for with her new Italian ice taste-treat, 'City Beach'. Clearly she's a healing creature and god bless her for that. All she wants to do is love us up like she's Mexico with some sweet, summertime lopey beats and gently psychedelic mind-diddling. It's like really good foreplay: Such a breath of fresh air as opposed to all the rampant dance-floor hating (sorry Lily Allen...I dig you but you do need to lighten the fuck up, you're like twelve or something after all).

I recommend 'City Beach' with a full heart. It's a reason to get out of bed and set yourself up with some Lucky Charms and jelly toast during these drowsy-grey, late-winter days of black slush and big city hater-ade.

Enough With The Oskar Krapp, Already! (but first...)

...I feel compelled to drag you through 16 years of disgraceful, atonal Oscar bilge. Close your eyes and imagine lithe, unitarded interpretive dancers striking avant-gardalicious poses on a stage full of fog and pyrotechnics...

1990: 'Sooner Or Later (I Always Get My Man)' (Dick Tracy). Technically a smart, vaguely campy torch song in the classic tradition. I love the brassy arrangement, the lyrics are spot-on...but I do wish someone like Cassandra Wilson, Sade, Tracey Thorne or John Legend would reinterpret it because, coming out of Madonna's superficial yap Stephen Sondheim's depression-era vernacular sounds like hollow pastiche. Monkeys will fly out of my butt the day I concede that Madonna is anything more than a pop song stylist on a par with Ronnie Ronnette or Mary Shangri-la, which is high praise because Ronnie Spector and Mary Weiss are The Real Thing(s). Jazz is simply beyond Madonna's ken. 'Beautiful Stranger' from Austin Powers (not nominated) is an all-time-great pop single but 'Sooner Or Later' is a diamond in the rough, still wallowing in obscurity, just waiting to be discovered by its true chanteuse. Other long-forgotten poop nominated this year: 'Blaze Of Glory' (Young Guns II), music and lyrics by Jon Bon Jovi. P.U.! Um...Dwight Yoakum? Randy Travis? Clint Black? WILLIE NELSON?! 'Cuz Bon Jovi doesn't exactly evoke the wild, wild west, yo. 'I'm Checking Out' (Postcards From The Edge)Songwriter Shel Silverstein should have been plastered all over the cover of Rolling Stone years ago for writing 'A Boy Named Sue' and I'll admit this nomination was a fairly progressive pick for the geriatric music branch of AMPAS but these days it's sounding a little retro/corny...like it should have been a Broadway showstopper circa 1968. The Simpsons goofed on it at some point while hazing rehab staple Liza Minnelli and that's recognition enough for this "I'm Still Here!" fecalheap.

The other two nominations are not worth getting into. Seriously.

1991: 'Beauty And The Beast' (Beauty And The Beast). Just as I ignore anime because I don't quite "get" it and thus I fear it, I don't think I'm qualified to discuss the colonialism-boosting, weirdly sexualized Disney fetish that unfortunately swept the nation last decade so I won't even try. I'm sure it's a pretty song but it gives me diarrhea every time I hear it so I just don't hear it. My apologies to sweat-suited tourists everywhere. Losers this year: Bryan Adams and 'Be My Vest' by Monty Burns.

1992: 'A Whole New World' (Aladdin) Horrid Jesus Camp/American Idol/entitled white-folk fodder. I hate this fake-ass, lazy, deathmarch to Heaven anthem with every fiber of my Christian-weary body. Go away whole new world! Give me Dr. Doolittle and 'Talk To The Animals' any day: At least that was pagan and earthbound. 'Beautiful Maria Of My Soul' (Mambo Kings) was lovely but live action brown people sang it so naturally pre-Ellen AMPAS adjudged it as pornography.

1993: 'Streets Of Philadelphia' (Philadelphia) AMPAS likes its fags dead or sociopathic so the music branch threw a trophy at Bruce Springsteen's Dead Fag Love Theme. The thing is, this is an extraordinary, transcendent olive branch to the afflicted. Obviously I'm conflicted per the music branch of The Academy. Neil Young lost this year but his song (also from Philadelphia) is so one-note and trebly that it's practically unsingable. Celine Dion would shatter the Sears Building attempting to sustain that note at that octave so thank goddess it lost. Also nominated: 'The Day I Fell In Love' (Beethoven's 2nd). Evidently, dog movies inspire Oscar-nominated love themes (see: The Magic Of Lassie (1978)). Why is that?

1994: 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' (The Lion King). Horatio Sanz has forever tainted my appreciation (or lack thereof) of late-phase Sir Elton so I can't take this piece of doody very seriously at all. Besides the fact that it's straight-up, phone-it-in hackwork, what the hell does this song have to do with African wildlife anyway? You could plop this pungent turd in any movie, any movie at all, and it would suit it just as well. Imagine: 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight (Love Theme from Midnight Cowboy), 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' (Love Theme from Orca), 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight (Love Theme from Jesus Camp)...it's the most generic calcified corpse of a song ever! No one could resurrect this stinker from the dead...not Charo, not Peter Allen, not Klaus Nomi, not P-Funk...nobody. If I had energy enough to recall a single verse of 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight', I'd hate it. But as it stands, it's a black hole of anti-music for anti-people. But consider the alternatives: 'Hakuna Matata', 'Circle Of Life'...and people pay $100+ to see the stage play?!

1995: 'Colors Of The Wind' (Pocahontas). You can take comfort in the fact that it doesn't get any worse than this:

Everything else from here on out is cake-walk compared to this ghastly death rattle.
'Kumbaya' is a Disco Inferno compared to this Calvinist hymn to No Fun Whatsoever.
Aphex Twin should remix this room-clearing eggfart a thousand times just to be a bitch.
Rush Limbaugh rogers himself with a cucumber and moos like a beefalo at Limosine Liberal Hypocricy while basking in the whore's bath that is all the ersatz, multi-culti cheerleading as expressed by 'Colors Of The Wind'

So there you have it: My dada word-collage ode to 'Colors Of The Wind'.

But seriously, 'You've Got A Friend In Me' (Toy Story) may have been the more memorable choice but when all is said and done, 1995 was a godawful year for Oscar tuneage.

1996: 'You Must Love Me' (Evita). Pretty terrible in the Celine Dion sense of the word 'terrible' but Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice had to win an Oscar sooner or later and this is less offensive anything from Phantom Of The Opera so I guess we should thank our lucky stars that this reprise of 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' triumphed over the Streisand/Bryan Adams/Hamlisch/Robert 'Mutt' Lange ballad that no one remembers from The Mirror Has Two Faces.

How's that for a run-on sentence?

1997: 'My Heart Will Go On' (Titanic). You might think that I would stump for Elliot Smith's 'Miss Misery' (Good Will Hunting) this year, but...in fact...'My Heart Will Go On' is a terrific song and it most definitely deserved to win. Ham-fisted Celine Dion had no business wringing the life out of it at all but if, say, Alison Krauss, Nanci Griffith or Emmylou Harris would have sung it in the first place you would hear this song, in all its elegant simplicity, pan-flute and all, for what it is: A gorgeous Celtic folk ballad. I hope it finds new life after the taint of Dion is long forgotten. In other 1997 music branch of The Academy news: LeeAnn Rhimes needs to work with Rick Rubin because Diane Warren destroyed her career with another Lite FM staple: 'How Do I Live' from ConAir.

1998: 'When You Believe' (The Prince Of Egypt). To be honest, I can't recall the song or the Disney film it soiled but Broadway's Stephen Schwartz wrote it so I'm sure it sucks as much as I suspect it does.

1999: 'You'll Be In My Heart' (Tarzan). Kenny Loggins, Usher, John Tesh and The Phantom Of The Opera all covered this testament to the artistry of Phil Collins...but Hey! Phil Collins wins an Oscar at long last! So fuck you Aimee Mann (Magnolia) and Randy Newman (Toy Story 2) who wrote far superior songs this year! He's Phil Collins, Bitch!

2000: 'Things Have Changed' (Wonder Boys) Whew, the nineties sure stank up the place didn't they? The music branch of The Academy had a lot to atone for and boy, did they...they turned right the fuck around and blessed gnarly Bobby D. with an Academy Award. The New Millenium. Things are gonna change, I can feel it...never mind that the other nominated songs were unlistenable tripe, including, and most especially, Bjork's bad-trip swan-dress anthem 'I've Seen It All' (Dancer In The Dark).

2001: 'If I Didn't Have You' (Monsters, Inc.). Adult-contemporary Pixar pap but some of that shit is quite comforting, actually. I'd love to have a bunch of Counting Crows rub me down with Lubriderm as they croon 'If I Didn't Have You' from Monsters, Inc. into my ear. Also nominated: Paul McCartney (Vanilla Sky), Sting (Kate & Leopold) and Enya (Lord Of The Rings). Zzzzzzz.

2002: 'Lose Yourself' (8 Mile). WHAT?!! HELLO!!! Holy shit, I'm up, I'm up. It's a new day for music branch of The Academy because they're listening to Hot 100 FM, they're Friendstererd and they'll call you every 10, text you every 5. No more Connie Stevens/Muppet musical extravaganzas for these thugs. No sir. A truly weird choice but does this mean we're gonna be subjected to Celine Dion freestyling it up at The Excalibur in Vegas come 2042? Also nominated: U2 (Gangs Of New York), Paul Simon (The Wild Thornberrys Movie), and the most skipped-through song on the Chicago soundtrack: 'I Move On' (Kander & Ebb).

2003: 'Into The West' (Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King). Annie Lennox certainly is bad-ass, god knows, but this joint is one dreary trudge through ambient poop. It sounds like an Oscarcast fanfare bumper as orchestrated by Howard Shore, which no doubt is the very reason it triumphed over much earthier, more deserving work by Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett (Cold Mountain). It's right up there with all that garbage-y 90's-era Disney Oscarbait, it's just that atrocious. But Annie rebounded with her masterwork 'Bare' a year later so she's pardoned for this embarrassing misstep.

2004: 'Al Otro Lado Del Rio' (The Motorcyle Diaries). Glorious choice. How much do I love this song? It's so catchy, melodious and deceptively simple that I predict it will become a standard along the lines of 'Besame Mucho' or 'Desafinado'. Sublime pick and wholly unexpected.

2005: 'It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp' (Hustle & Flow). Who the fuck can predict which way the music branch of The Academy is gonna swing these days? I thought Dolly Parton was a lock for her not-so-great 'Travelin' Thru' (Transamerica) but here we have it. 'Niggaz', 'shit', and 'fuck' in an Academy Award winning song...chanted like a mantra...first time ever. Is this progress? Hard to say, but it makes for a more interesting contest...

2006: 'I Need To Wake Up' (An Inconvenient Truth) A more interesting choice than any of the nominated 'Dreamgirls' songs but I suspect that this award is more of a political broadside than a blessing upon a truly good song. But then again Melissa Etheridge strikes me as more of a right-minded scold and less of a good-timing, party-pumping betch so I might be a tad prejudiced. I need to warm up to this song before I can make a fair judgement...I have yet to hear it all the way through so I plead ignorance.

Best Oscar Winning Song(s) Ever: 'Theme from 'Shaft' and 'In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening' (tie)

Worst Oscar Winning Song Ever: 'Colors Of The Wind'.

Take all that for what it's worth, y'all.