After stumbling around the country for nigh a month pondering love, barking my shins and consuming everything that crossed my path from flirty glances to pop songs to the entire city of Portland, I have come home. Everything's exactly the same only not, like I time traveled three weeks into the future... more

After stumbling around the country for nigh a month pondering love, barking my shins and consuming everything that crossed my path from flirty glances to pop songs to the entire city of Portland, I have come home. Everything's exactly the same only not, like I time traveled three weeks into the future and am now just a little out of step with everyone here in Bizarro-Brooklyn. Each new venue, human, and sandwich shop that's appeared as if by magic adds a little to my sense of vertigo. Even my cat has grown unreasonably fluffy. On the bright side, flowers are blooming, and it's no longer cold as shit. I found lots to like at SXSW and beyond, and am now catching up on what I missed while embracing the mind numbing uniformity of the desert. Here's some of what I've found.

Cutting Le Rug

In all my travels, I have yet to encounter any event with the delicate balance of body heat, violence, awkward booty dancing and pure joy one inevitably finds at any decent Brooklyn house party. Since finding my inner Paula Abdul at a fête called Gay By Gay Gay, I've been dying to see how my moves have traveled. Brooklyn's Le Rug just entered my consciousness via a post on Impose and made me do a little shake right here in the cafe. Fronted by the moderately insane Ray Weiss, they make music that's messy, spazzy, and perfect for all of your house party needs, and with adorably depressing, topical lyrics like “deregulate deregulate the market / with those profit margins right on target.” Dudes have released 3 EPs in the last 6 months, all of which can be downloaded for free at tamurrecords.org

Starfucker/Guidance Counselor

Portland is a good place to get down, too. It's not Brooklyn, but it does score high in the three categories most important to me: vegan food, d.i.y. shows, and cute boys on bicycles. As it holds far more of these things than I could even begin to enjoy in just two days (try as I might), another visit is probably in my future. Contributing to the place's joie de vivre are Starfucker and Guidance Counselor, who share a drummer and both make crazy fun dance music, with the former spinning samples off vinyl and the latter keeping things interesting with some Foals-esque quasi math rock sequences. At the show I attended, kids were jumping around with such vigor I feared the flimsy house would collapse. They're currently touring the U.S. and Canada together, so check them out if you don't mind waking up with a sore wiggle muscle.

Cerebral Ballzy

If your idea of dancing is actually closer to hitting people and jumping off things, this is your steeze. Besides having the most awesomely bad name, this group of New York miscreants wins the prize for most punk rock performance I caught not only at Southby, but for quite some time before or since then. These kids pack an impressive amount of aggression into their skinny frames as they thrash all over the place and gnash out songs about getting wasted, throwing up, and riding the NYC subway. Tour dates are currently sparse but you can order their new EP Autistic Expression and a kick ass t-shirt that shows a skeleton flipping the bird on their MySpace page, which, I boast, quotes yours truly describing them as "Bad Brains on crystal meth."

These Are Powers

Anna Barie is one of my top five favorite frontpeople in rock. She's up there with Tim "no pants" Harrington, King Khan, and Jared and Cole from the Black Lips, if they melded into one chompy-grilled, mustachioed mega-rocker. Former Liar Pat Noecker slices the air with bright, grindy bass lines and Bill Salas makes all sorts of pounding, ass-moving percussion sounds, both electronic and live. Their new album, All Aboard Future, transports listeners to some sort of dystopic tribal robo-scenario in which we're all taking peyote and fucking on piles of shredded iPhones and worthless currency in the bombed out remains of luxury condominiums. Get psyched; it's happening sooner than you think.

They're playing select dates in the U.S. before heading off on a tour of China(!) so go have fun and tell them I sent you. Be prepared to bang on an instrument, because they usually pass a bunch out. It's just like your elementary school music class, only this time no one will stop you from fighting that bitch in front for the triangle.

Fucked Up

Following through on their promise to release something for each year of the Chinese astrological calendar, everyone's favorite Toronto experimental hardcore group has released the single "Year of the Rat," the third in the series. Unlike Cerebral Ballzy, who distill the elements of punk into a concentrated sock in the nuts, Fucked Up play around with them, adding elements of prog and noise to aid the song's rise and fall like a tidal wave that takes its sweet time breaking and engulfing you. At the song's end, the feedback shrouded voice of John McCain intones "the Secretary of State told me once that you had better be ready to pull the trigger," a chilling reminder of the dark course this past year might have taken. The b-side, "First Born," pulls from blues-based metal while retaining Pink Eyes' (a.k.a. Daniel Abraham's) superior hardcore vocals. An excellent next move for a band that built up momentum with an epic 12-hour marathon show in New York last year which included the WTF moment of that dude from Vampire Weekend singing on covers of Blitz and the Descendants.



I can has punk rock and Chinos?

OMG metal!

I know Clio just discussed them, so I'll be brief, but holy fucking shit. Mastodon's Crack the Skye is the noisiest most intricately brainmelting thing that has penetrated my earholes for quite some time. Get it if you have ever liked metal even a little bit at all, or even if you don't! It will make you a better person. Look how awesome:




Hunter is a Brooklyn-based writer currently contributing to Vice, The New York Press, Impose, and The L Magazine. If you email her at hunter.suicide AT gmail DOT com, chances are she'd love to add your publication to that list. Seriously, she's got some time on her hands.

I discovered today that Neutral Milk Hotel is really good music to listen to on beautiful Saturday mornings when you're hung over working at the head shop. Why isn't there a hammock around? Geeeeeeeez. I am going to detox a bit after the holidays.... No alcohol, pot, and caffeine for a week... more

I discovered today that Neutral Milk Hotel is really good music to listen to on beautiful Saturday mornings when you're hung over working at the head shop. Why isn't there a hammock around? Geeeeeeeez.

I am going to detox a bit after the holidays....
No alcohol, pot, and caffeine for a week and see how that goes. (Not quitting any of those chemicals, I just think my body and mind would benefit from a tiny vacation )
I would like to also eat all raw for a detox week. But probably not next week, I'm visiting my family for 2 days and it's hard enough to get some good vegan food that's not loaded with awkward nonsense that I don't want to put in my body. Not about to munch on celery sticks for 2 days. Chris and I always bring our own foods when we go there anyway....

I want to ride my bike!!!!!

I did some party hoppin yesterday with a guy I work with and his friend that I don't usually hang out with. (I had planned on going to Sweatin at the Circus, but silly me apparently doesn't know what Friday it is ) I like to switch things up, and people watch. First we visited this apartment on Indianola and 5th, the hostess was slightly psychotic and liked me more once she found out I was a pothead. She should probably smoke more, man she was loud. Interesting though, she liked Mortal Kombat a lot, so every now and then while speaking she would say words as if she was growling. Maybe she just seemed psychotic because things were just stolen from her? I know when my shit was stolen on New Years, I hated people for a minute.

That place wasn't super mega fun, so we left and went to a pretty sweet apartment that was right across from the street from Whole World. (Oh em gee, if I lived right across from Whole World.....mmmmmm) Definitely an artist's place, original art all over the walls, the place just exuded creativity, I love being in places like that! mmmmm good vibrationssssss. I was given cheap white wine but a pretty girl named Vanessa and watched beer pong be played. I'm ok with beer pong every now and then....I haven't been around it for months, so I wasn't super annoyed with it. If I see it all the time though, I make snide comments in the corner about how retarded it is and try to get people to do something else.

Somehow I got sucked into a game with my coworker as my team member, and somehow we kicked ass.
And somehow I misplaced my red lighter......did I give it away?

Then everyone decided the munchies kicked in, and we went to Gumby's, and the boys ordered a meatlover's pizza, brought it back to my house, and felt guilty eating it in front of me. hahaha I didn't care too much, as much fun as it is spending energy preaching at people about what they put in their body, I've realized that they need to figure out the way they want to live. Me spouting off about factory farms and rBGH really just makes everyone feel awkward and doesn't make them change. And why should I be trying to make them change anyway? If they asked questions and cared more, seemed interested, I would list a plethora of reasons, and give more sources and websites and movies that they should see. But if they're content where they are, sweet.

I don't recall the names of folks I met last night, one was nice he shared a cig with me. (Shared a fag conmigo )

And then everyone left, my abode was quiet, so I went upstairs to spend some quiet drunk time with the water pipe and Suicide Girls.....only to discover that I should probably just pass out to Sigur Ros.

Woke up at the time I was supposed to be at work this morning.....
mmmmm Saturdays.

So can someone educate me about Hell City? I've been hearing about it, and I'm curious. What exactly is it and how much is it? It seems like a pretty fun event.

That's all for now, peace !

"But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That's the only thing hollywood ever taught us." - The Pirate Bay

Pirate Bay founders found guilty, ordered to pay millions in damages and serve one year in jail.

Asshole Fuckface Roundup log. Friday, April 17th, 2009. Have been searching for days. Losing sleep, energy and sexual stamina. Located several candidates. List narrowed. Asshole Fuckfaces selected. Feel dirty. Begged for death to take me. Bore down. Got through it. Will now present AFR. Feels... more

Asshole Fuckface Roundup log.

Friday, April 17th, 2009. Have been searching for days. Losing sleep, energy and sexual stamina. Located several candidates. List narrowed. Asshole Fuckfaces selected. Feel dirty. Begged for death to take me. Bore down. Got through it. Will now present AFR. Feels like giving birth.

First up, some amazing Texas style Asshole Fuckfacery.

Texas, I have a quick question: What in the fuck is wrong with you? Do you ever elect governors who are not complete and total idiots? This week, Texas governor Rick Perry decided his state should back out of this whole US of A experiment.

Weird you didn’t do that when Bush was using The Constitution as toilet paper. These people are so transparent and moronic it is amazing. He literally said Texas is “under the threat of tyrants.” Actually, I think it's under the threat of asshats. I believe we should show Rick what it is like to live under a tyrant. Let’s throw Rick in prison, kill his family and burn down his house. Hell, let’s use mustard gas and kill his entire hometown. Also, we should build a 100 foot gold statue of Lord Barack Obama in his anus. Or, we could lower taxes for people making under $250,000 a year, because that's what "tyrant Obama" is doing.

Yesterday, he took it even further and hinted at secession.

While he made that statement, the crowd chanted, "Secede, secede, secede." Yeah, so, that’s illegal. But, I would have no problem with Texas going its own way.

Grow up, morons. You look really, really fucking stupid using this kind of language and making these kind of bills. On the other hand, congrats on being so wrapped up in your own party and ideology that you don’t see the vast majority of Americans will think you are bat shit crazy. Consider your national career hopes over.

Next up, can Asshole Fuckfaces become worse? Yes, they can.

You may recall two weeks ago, in Asshole Fuckface Roundup #91, when I wrote of the Afghanistan government’s new law that legalized the rape of women and girls. This week, those horrible humans took it up a notch. One hundred brave women gathered in Kabul to protest the new rape law this week. Naturally, that didn’t go over well with the pro-rape group. (Pro-rape groups tend to be sort of rigid.)

So, that’s working out well. Obviously, Afghanistan has a super bright future. That’s all I can take away from this incident in which women against being raped were stoned and threatened with death by the pro-rape folks.

Next up, some Congressional Asshole Fuckfacery.

It’s really great when a Democrat and a Republican come together to propose something horrible. This week it was revealed perennial Asshole Fuckface Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller and Republican Olympia Snowe have authored the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. It’s a really great bill that will allow the federal government to shut down the Internet during times of “declared emergency.” Taking away people’s best source of information and a main communication tool is always the best way to not cause a panic during an emergency.

Sounds great. I feel safer already. Also, could you turn off my phones, shut down my television and stop my radio from babbling?

Hmmm. I guess I was overreacting. Up until you said, “traffic lights” I thought you were out of your mind. I was actually hoping you guys had some sort of security system set up for the water and electricity stuff, but I guess the idea is to just flip a switch and freak America out, causing riots and madness in the streets. Good call.

Finally, some trees are Asshole Fuckfaces. You read that right.

Not many men have the balls to take on trees for their Asshole Fuckface behavior. I’m probably going to get into trouble with the Tree Guild, but I don’t give a shit. This is a story people need to know about.

Artyom Sidorkin, a 28-year-old Russian, went to the hospital this week because he was having horrible chest pain and spitting up blood. (Why do I think that’s how long most Russians wait to go to the hospital?) Doctors gave Artyom an x-ray and found a tumor in his lungs. Bummer. They quickly scheduled a biopsy. That’s when it turned into an episode of the X-Files.

This is the last fucking thing we need. With all the shit going on in the world, we don’t need trees to start growing inside of us -- especially in our lungs.

We are all going to die. Or end up as Ents.

Fuck.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper

Ben Affleck has been hiding out of the spotlight lately. Who could blame him? After the press gave not one, but two of his relationships, the contracted, and by implication derogative, Bennifer moniker, the spotlight hasn't been very kind to him. So he stepped behind the camera to direct the critically... more

Ben Affleck has been hiding out of the spotlight lately. Who could blame him? After the press gave not one, but two of his relationships, the contracted, and by implication derogative, Bennifer moniker, the spotlight hasn't been very kind to him. So he stepped behind the camera to direct the critically acclaimed Gone Baby Gone and came back to acting in smaller roles in ensemble films like He's Just Not That Into You and this week's State of Play.

Based on the British television series, which was first broadcast in 2003, the American State of Play film is a political thriller that kicks into gear after a congressman's mistress winds up dead. The politician (played by Affleck) turns to his veteran reporter friend (Russell Crowe) to get the story right. However, at the insistence of his newspaper editor (Helen Mirren), the old school journalist is paired with a blogger (Rachel McAdams). As their investigation uncovers more twists and turns in the murder scandal it also raises questions about the merits and drawbacks of their respective mediums.

In recent years Affleck has been reluctant to talk to the press, but the actor is happy to talk politics and journalism in support of this film, the issues of where a personal life ends and a pubic one begins obviously being close to his heart. Though the original State of Play hit screens long before John Edward’s pre-election sex scandal, Affleck draws comparisons between the situation his character finds himself in and that of those in Washington who have been caught with their proverbial pants down, both before and after the dawn of the blogging age.

Question: After making your very auspicious directorial debut what was the process of getting back into acting?

Ben Affleck: I think for one thing it was a relief to not have to worry about everything all the time. Something can go wrong, things can take a long time, and there can be confusion about the scene. I was just able to remind myself that it wasn't my responsibility. I could just go to the trailer and listen to music, or call people, and I didn't have to have that full time anxiety or feeling of responsibility for the movie. Directing a movie was really instructive for me. I think I learned a lot about writing, and a lot about acting, and I learned how all the pieces fit together from the inside. That was really valuable. It was a good thing.

Q: Did you take anything from the John Edwards scandal, or any other current ones in the news?

BA: We internalize these scandals. They are almost rote. They become like clichés. The story breaks, they stand next to the spouse, they say God has forgiven them, or are asking God to forgive them, and they want their constituents to forgive them. Then they go out and spear trash in the park or something trying to reconstitute their political career. Eventually people do forget. It's this cycle that it's lost its meaning of begging for forgiveness and hopefully receiving it.

We are so familiar with those things, but what was more interesting to me was to think about the real experience. What's the real experience that you wouldn't think of from the outside? Once of the things that I think is probably true, as I thought about it from Gary Condit, Elliot Spitzer, to John Edwards is the notion of us all thinking, "How could she forgive him? How could she stand there with him?" Thinking about it from the point of view of the politician, when that media glare gets put on you and your family, and it's blasting on them, it seemed to me that their instinct would probably be to protect themselves and come together.

That way forgiving someone publicly to me seemed obvious. If you were in that situation, for that wife it's probably not even a thought. "I may give you a hard time about this privately, and rail against you, but when we go out there we are going to be a team. I'm going to forgive you." To me I was less surprised by it when I did the movie and really thought about it.

Q: Do we hold politicians up to too high of standards? Should we expect more from them?

BA: I don't think that we hold politicians to too high of a standard. I don't think that we hold anyone to a particularly high standard anymore. I think we've become accustomed to the frailty of all public figures. We start to traffic in scandal so much, people with shortcomings, and the train wreck has become such a popular exhibit. We like the underbelly. We chase these stories and oftentimes find them. I think that politicians should be held to a certain standard. They are elected officials, for God's sake. If they aren't going to keep it together then who is?

Q: We know that you are very interested in politics from your support of John Kerry's 2004 campaign. How happy are you with what Obama has accomplished so far?

BA: Obviously it's quite early in his administration. I think anybody could open the window and know that a lot of folks are having a very hard time out there. They are faced with a steep uphill climb…It's going to be challenging. I think that the Obama administration, I believe, will be defined, ultimately in four years when they are running, by how well they handle this economic crisis. Whether or not our economy is back on its feet in the next couple of years, or whether it's still sputtering. I think it's too hard to know now.

Q: Even to have a plan early on seems like an improvement.

BA: Let me tell you something, you can judge Obama as compared to Obama and be critical. You can judge Obama as compared to the previous administration and it would be almost impossible for him to fail.

Q: Are you nostalgic about the sort of noble media in a film like this, that no longer exists?

BA: I don't know. You guys are the experts on this stuff. Is there a nobility to media and what goes on inside a newsroom? I think that this is the last movie that will be set in a newspaper. I don't know how this movie will be perceived but I do believe that people will look back and say, "Oh, yeah. That was the movie that comes out right around the time that the internet destroyed newspapers." That is happening.

The New York Times laid off 200 people yesterday. They are cutting salaries. The blogging, the news sites, they are all now superseding the traditional news gathering, ink on dead trees organizations. I don't think that the verdict is in on what that means, what's going to happen, or what the integrity is of one institution versus the other. It's really interesting.

Part of what this movie looks at is the tension between Rachel's and Russell's characters, which side of us is going to win out. What does the world look like with just bloggers gathering news? I think there are two mobs right? One is this incredible, global journalism. It's a full democratization of journalism. You have actual correspondents in every home. For example there were people blogging from Mumbai right when those incidents started happening. You get to the truth and you don't have to worry about bias because you have so many bloggers. Ultimately, it's impossible to lie because there is too much evidence that can come out from other people to refute people who report with bias. You have this "everyone is a reporter" model. The other model is that everyone is biased, no one sources anything, it's just ugly noise, and we've destroyed our journalistic standards.

Q: Is the relationship between a celebrity and the media similar or different to the media's relationship with politicians?

BA: I'm not a total expert, but I have some experience, and they are very similar. They are similar in the pressures that exist. The pressures that are brought to bear on the media side to sell magazines, to sell newspapers, get hits on the website. The focus has to be on the thing that sells the most, which tends to be the most sensational, scandalous, headline grabbing…So maybe the temptation is to bend the truth.

In the case of entertainers, they will flat make up stories. They will completely use sources that don't exist, or stuff that is very thinly sourced. On the political side people are a little bit more judicious about completely abandoning journalistic standards. You still have those same impulses to push, find the story, and dig up the most scandalous aspect of it.

I think there is the other side that is at war too, which is the side that wants to do good journalism. They want to do good reporting. They care about the substantial stuff. [They are] saying to the powers that be, "I don't want to do this all the time. I want to do something interesting." The Yin and Yang is at play on both sides of entertainment and politics. The only difference really is that with entertainers people feel more comfortable saying, "It's fine. Just print it and run it." Because they know it's not the President of the United States. It's not going to change the world so they figure they can just print it.

Q: Now one story breaks and all the bloggers comment on it. Is that helping or hurting journalism?

BA: Part of the blogging culture that is good is that it's made the traditional press much more nervous. They become more accountable because they are the ones who are most sensitive to what the bloggers are going to say. Most American's don't spend their days worrying what bloggers are going to say. They just read the blogger that they want to read. They aren't going, "Oh, what's going to come out in the blogs?" But mainstream media sweats it because for the first time they are actually accountable to someone who is going to write about them and their work.

I think that has a very strong impact on mainstream media and how they work. I think it has coarsened the dialogue a little bit. There is a lot of shaming, a lot of finger wagging, and it's a public, gossip high school mill. Every time a story comes out then 50 people start digesting it, a lot of them are very jaded, so you get all these different viewpoints on it.

Ultimately, you have a million blogs and a lot of them are different iterations of the same take on something. There are a few that are really good and smart. A lot of them are just people who want to be ugly about something. One of the things that will be interesting to see is that bloggers are sourcing from the mainstream media, the newspapers. So if the newspapers are gone then bloggers are going to have to do more reporting. I think that will be good actually and I hope that's what happens. Conversely, the newspapers have gotten lazy, gotten nervous, and started sourcing from blogs. That I think is dangerous.

You could pick any blog. I could start a blog tomorrow. Then I can say, "I heard that so and so is an alien." Then its on a blog, it's out there, and enough of a source to pick it up and start a fire going. Obviously, something as outrageous as that people won't use, but a lot of false stories got started and had false currency because they were placed in blogs.

Q: Do we need to know everything?

BA: I don't think we need to know anything about people's sex lives or personal lives. I think that is totally irrelevant. We don't need to know about that stuff. There were no blogs when Monica Lewinsky happened. Although, I guess Drudge did break that story. If you think it's a story worth breaking. I think that's a story that kind of bogged down the wheels of government for two years. I don't care. Some people do. Maybe some people think that's a fair reflection on the candidate's character, but I don't. I don't care who you want to sleep with, I'm not voting for your sexual predilections. I'm voting for your policy positions.

Q: Is a political career something that is in the back of your head?

BA: I really like my job that I have now. Plus, unlike in Hollywood where you need one director to hire you, in politics you have to have a lot of people to vote for you. I think it's harder work. I really am happy with what I'm doing now. In fact I've never been at a place where I've felt better about going to work everyday. I'm more engaged and very, very happy.

Q: What changed?

BA: I don't know. Life is weird...I learn as I've gone along. It's gotten to a point where I've really gotten comfortable with the things that are important to me. I don't worry as much about making choices that I hope will appeal to certain externalities. Like, "Well, this movie has to work in this way, I make X amount of money in order to keep me at X place in my career." All this other stuff gets in the way. Rather its, "This is an interesting role. It's got a character in it that seems complicated and real. I get to work with talented people." That's my criteria and it's easy.

At the end of this month, I'm going to Detroit for a small ubergeek convention called Penguicon. I'm on eleventy million panels about everything from audiobooks to Star Trek, and I'm also pfacing off against Shawn Powers, the editor of Linux Journal in a very serious, very important battle... more

At the end of this month, I'm going to Detroit for a small ubergeek convention called Penguicon. I'm on eleventy million panels about everything from audiobooks to Star Trek, and I'm also pfacing off against Shawn Powers, the editor of Linux Journal in a very serious, very important battle for the ages featuring Combat on the Atari 2600. To warm up for this epic battle, the convention committee sent us each an Atari Flashback II so that we could enjoy our own training montages. I picked it up from my mailbox earlier this week, gently put it into my trunk, and drove home safely and calmly, respecting all traffic laws and my fellow drivers.

Once in the house, I unleashed my inner 8 year-old and tore the box open with reckless abandon. I grabbed the power supply and jammed it into the wall. I connected it to our television, and dove into Adventure, then Dodge-Em, then Yars' Revenge. I may have thrown some late 70s album rock onto the Sonos, to complete the experience.

"So ... it's great that you're having so much fun," my son said from the other side of the room while I was cheering the successful introduction of my Zorlon Cannon to the Qotile's bitch face, "but I'm working on my senior project here."

I toned down my celebration. "Sorry."

I switched to Asteroids, and after clearing two screens, I swear I could feel the chlorine in my lungs and on my skin from any given day in the summer of 1982.

"Hey, remember when you guys used to play your mom's 2600?" I let one small rock drift across the screen, while I racked up points blasting flying saucers.

He sighed and turned around in his chair. "Sort of. This is a really important project."

"Okay, I'll get out of here, but will you play with me when you're done? I need to, uh, practice."

He cocked one eyebrow. "You need to train? What?"

"For this thing at the end of the month. I'm playing Combat at this convention."

"You are so weird."

"I know. Will you play with me?"

"Yes." Our roles thoroughly reversed, he returned to his work and I went back to my office.

Awhile later, he called out to me. "Okay, I'm done!"

I stood up carefully, and slowly pushed my chair beneath my desk. I walked carefully through the house and did not scare my dog when I nearly tripped over her near the aquarium in the living room. I did not nearly stub my toe on the dining room table, and I was not out of breath and flush with excitement when I met Nolan in the family room.

We turned on the television, and a few minutes later, we faced off in tank pong with maximum walls. It was a furious battle, ending in a 7-7 tie when my last-second shot found its mark.

"Again," he said.

I suppressed a smile, and bumped the reset button. I quickly built an 8-3 lead, and Nolan never caught up.

"Two out of three?" I asked.

He made a face that was a combination of amusement and determination. "Yes."

He built a 10-2 lead almost instantly. I spent more time spinning around than I did actually driving my tank, though I bounced all over the map.

"I think there's a problem with this game," he said, as the match ended, 11-6. "It's way too easy to just chain your attacks together and completely own the other player."

"I think that's part of it, though," I said, starting a new game. "You've just got to find a way to keep moving and get in that first shot."

He got in the first shot, and the next five shots. I got in a couple shots of my own, but it wasn't enough. I realized, too late, that I was probably struggling because I'd forgotten to make Survivor play the appropriate 80s inspirational rock song in my head.

"You're the undisputed master of Combat," I said. "As your reward, you get to watch me play Adventure."

I flipped switches, and was soon on my way to collect the various items required to complete my quest.

"What's that?"

"Oh, that's my sword," I said, pushing my little box against an arrow-shaped icon.

"What do you use it for?"

"Slaying Dragons!" I said, as I entered a once-simple maze of passages that the passage of time had made as vexing as it was when I was eight.

"You realize you've gone into that dead end five times, right?"

"Quiet you. This is how we did it back in the 80s."

"You ran into the same dead end over and over again?"

"Yes, it was part of Reganomics."

I finally found my way out of the maze, and approached a castle, anxious to impress Nolan by grabbing the chalice within.

That's when the dragon showed up.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a dragon, of course," I said, holding the joystick out in front of me like I always did, convinced that if I moved it around, it would help me escape faster.

That's when the dragon ate me.

"This is really what you guys did for fun?"

"Well, there was this, and we'd occasionally fend off Indian attacks when we weren't Dinosaurizing our caves, yeah."

He laughed. "What other games are on this?"

I showed him Yars' Revenge. "This was my favorite 2600 game when I was a kid. I liked it even more than [ii]Pitfall!"

He looked at me.

"I liked Pitfall! a lot."

He continued to look at me.

"We all liked Pitfall! a lot."

"So, you're this insect creature called the Yar," I said as the game began, "and this guy here is the Qotile. He destroyed your home planet or something, and you've built this Zorlon cannon to extract your titular revenge."

I flew around the screen, through the neutral zone and chipped away at the Qotile defenses. My Zorlon cannon activated, and I waited to take my shot.

"From time to time, though, the Qotile turns into a Swirl, and shoots itself at you."

That's when the Qotile turned into a Swirl, and I blasted it out of the sky.

"Yes!" I looked at him, so I could bask in his approval.

"That's it?"

"Well, you get to fly around in this cool screen between levels, too," I said, "and the second level has a rotating shield."

He looked at the flashing graphics on the screen and scratched his chin.

"How many people got seizures from this when you played it?"

"I ... do not know."

"I bet you I can destroy it three times without dying," he said.

"Do it." I handed him the joystick.

"So I shoot at this thing that looks like a distress signal?"

"The Qotile," I said. "Yes, you shoot at the Qotile. With your Zorlon Cannon. Because you're exacting --"

"Revenge. I got that."

I watched with more pride than I thought possible (or revealed to my easily embarrassed teenage son), as it took him about two minutes to do exactly what he said he'd do.

"Does this ever get hard?" He asked.

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"

He shook his head and handed the joystick back to me.

"Sorry. Reflex. Um, yeah, it gets challenging later on. The missile thing moves a lot faster, and the Swirls fly out a lot faster and more frequently."

"But it's pretty much the same two levels over and over again."

"The same two awesome levels, yes."

We looked at each other.

"It came with a comic book. Did I tell you about that?"

"You are so weird."

"But I'm also kind of awesome, right?"

We looked at each other.


Wil Wheaton is weird, and he is totally cool with it.

This month's Geek in Review stands entirely on its own, but also goes well (if I do say so myself) with this week's LA Daily -- click HERE to view.

I have to admit, the greatest thing since Obama took over the presidency is watching Glenn Beck’s quick descent into insanity. It really is epic theater and could easily have been a movie, or a television show. He is completely out of touch with reality – and it’s fucking awesome. It’s... more

I have to admit, the greatest thing since Obama took over the presidency is watching Glenn Beck’s quick descent into insanity. It really is epic theater and could easily have been a movie, or a television show. He is completely out of touch with reality – and it’s fucking awesome. It’s as if the crazy conspiracy guy at the coffee shop got his own show. It may actually end with him pulling a Smith & Wesson out and blowing his brains out on live television. And I am not in any way kidding. That’s how crazy and awesome Glenn Beck has become.

Becks’ ratings have been skyrocketing, much like Mister Rodgers would have if he had begun smearing his trains with feces and ranting about how Mr. Greenjeans was going to put us in camps. A couple of weeks ago, the kids at Morning Joe on MSNBC decided to take a closer look at Glenn and they found a man on the edge of sanity, weeping openly on television.



Jesus, why don’t you lube up America, enter it anally and make sweet ass love to it? Just to be clear, that is not a man doing a show, or a character, that is a guy on the edge of a mental breakdown. Unfortunately, I have no sympathy for this impaired lunatic because he is a right wing fucknut. The crazy thing about the right wing is they already have no grip on reality, whether it be science, economics or foreign affairs, they have nothing to base their horseshit on. But The Beck has brought it to a whole new level.



What could possibly be seen as odd about that picture? It's just a guy sitting next to a close up of his eyes. How incredibly not odd.

The man has taken fear and consumed it. Fear is Glenn Beck’s bitch. And the man we are to fear, this Obama character, is so shockingly less destructive to our civil rights than his predecessor it is astounding. George Bush woke up every morning and tried to figure out a way to make us less safe, while he shit on the flag. Obama has pulled back on so many (certainly not all) of the crazy, rights destroying policies of Bush it is insane. But we are supposed to believe Obama, the guy who did not invade a country for no reason, is the next coming of Hitler. Holy fucking shit.

Glenn is quite concerned about our guns. He believes Obama is going to take our guns away. Now, I’d like to point out that if you believe Obama is going to take your guns away, you should have your guns taken away, because you have the intellectual capacity of a rodent. You are shockingly stupid and beyond pathetic. There is zero evidence this will occur in the future and Obama has emphatically stated he has no intention of doing so. So, stop it, you morons.

Glenn is also horrified by the prospect of socialized medicine. It would obviously ruin our country. It would be like opening up a bunch of USSR sponsored Chuck E. Cheeses. Please pay no attention to the fact that Obama has never proposed socialized medicine, never campaigned for socialized medicine and has even said a single-payer health system will not work. Yes, there are no plans for socialized medicine, only universal healthcare, which is pretty much the opposite of socialized medicine. It means the private sector is, you know, providing health insurance and care and stuff. Nonetheless, because Obama wants to provide fake socialized medicine, he is a Nazi. Because if there is one thing the Nazis were about, it was a national single-payer healthcare system. That’s actually what Nazi stands for: National All Single (cough, cough, what?)



That is fucking insane. He is the lunatic who should be wandering the streets and screaming at trees. He’s pretty much got the same take on every subject. Last week Glenn commented on a New York Times article that stated Obama was going to take on immigration reform. Obviously, everyone, right and left, agrees we need some sort of change when it comes to immigration. Glenn had an awesome take on the news that Obama was planning on dealing with immigration.

True dat. Was he done there? No, next he pretended to pour gas on someone.



Look, there is not much difference between a new immigration policy and shooting Glenn Beck in the head. I actually think it should be the first step taken by the administration. It is amazing that this man is allowed to spew such nonsense on national television. You can do anything you want, as long as it gets ratings, even if it is a man’s mental breakdown.

Ratings are ratings. You actually don’t need a huge number of people to watch your show in cable to be a star and there certainly are a large number of insane right wing lunatics who believe what the Glenn is telling them. They are being stoked and enflamed by his complete and total nonsense. For liberals and Democrats, this couldn’t be a better thing. It’s another big face for the Republicans to wear for the American public. He’s worse than Rush Limbaugh and that is quite an achievement. At least when Clinton was in office, they went after him for stuff that could actually be real. The Whitewater mess, Travel gate, getting blowjobs from interns is all spectacular criticism compared to what lunatics like Glenn Beck are doing now.

And feel free to enjoy some Glenn Beck poetry,, which he recites everyday on his show.

WRONG WITH US

Put these people in jail, put these people in jail,
Put them in jail, what is wrong with us;
We knew this guy was in the country,
He was -- he has been in the country
And extradited before; we have thrown him
Out of the country, then we brought him back, and
Then we threw him out and he came back again;
What the hell is wrong with us, what is wrong with us.

("Glenn Beck," Fox News, March 11, 2009)

Just sit back and enjoy the madness of Glenn Beck, it couldn’t be better advertising for the left.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper

A guy I know wrote me the following question: Zazen is the type of meditation I teach. I use the word meditation here a bit loosely since zazen differs greatly from most other activities that fall under that heading. Unlike most forms of meditation, zazen is completely non-directed and has no goal. more

A guy I know wrote me the following question:

Zazen is the type of meditation I teach. I use the word meditation here a bit loosely since zazen differs greatly from most other activities that fall under that heading. Unlike most forms of meditation, zazen is completely non-directed and has no goal. This is the key to its tremendous power. To see SuicideGirl LizaRose demonstrating how it's done go here. For more info see my book Hardcore Zen.There must be a zillion on-line sources of info on it as well.

The subject of Zen practice (aka zazen) for survivors of trauma has been much on my mind of late. I’ve tried several times to write something intelligent about it. But since I’m not a survivor of trauma myself -- other than life’s usual traumas that we all have -- I sometimes feel it’s not my place to say. I have known people who are both childhood sex abuse survivors and dedicated Zen practitioners. I hope one day one of them will write about this subject. But until then, I’ll take a shot. Much of what I want to say is based on what I’ve observed in them. But whether they involve childhood sexual abuse or not, traumas of all kinds are serious business and probably share much in common.

It’s a fact that zazen brings stuff up. No matter what kind of stuff you have locked away in your mind and body it's going to come out during sitting. It’s also true that zazen is different from other forms of meditation (if zazen is even a form of meditation) in that it is not directed at any ideal condition. In zazen you allow whatever comes up to just come up as it will, rather than attempting to move the mind toward a specific desired state as most forms of meditation do. This means that trauma survivors may be more likely to face repressed memories and suchlike while doing zazen than while doing other forms of meditation.

I don't think it's truly dangerous for trauma survivors to do zazen. But they have to be careful. Of course, anyone should exercise caution while doing the practice. But survivors of trauma need to be possibly even more careful. A practice that's very much focused on having an "Enlightenment experience" quickly is more likely to bring this stuff to the surface before you’re ready for it. This is yet another reason why crap like Big Mind® is so incredibly heinous and irresponsible. A pox upon them and their putrid ilk!

But here’s what a trauma survivor might expect to encounter in traditional Zen practice. Most of this is also applicable to anyone who practices zazen, trauma survivor or not. There’s not a single person in the world who doesn’t have some stuff they don’t acknowledge buried below the surface.

On the most superficial level zazen will bring up memories. At first these will be familiar memories. Meaning they won't be particularly surprising, just stuff you haven't thought of in a long time. For a trauma survivor, this can mean you start recalling things that are painful and that you have avoided thinking about, but which you are basically aware of. The reaction to this runs along the lines of the response you'd have to it even if you weren't sitting zazen. But sitting tends to intensify emotions. You might start crying or having other similar responses. This can be a bit embarrassing in a crowded zendo. But you should know that you are not alone in having feelings like this.

On the next level zazen can bring up things you have deliberately repressed and forced yourself to forget. At this level the memories can be surprising since you might start recalling things you were not consciously aware had happened. You may even be unsure if they're true memories or not. Indeed some may not be true at all. That’s important. Just because you remember something doesn’t mean it actually happened. These memories might make you confused, angry, etc. Again, the fact of sitting zazen can intensify this more than if it had come up in a "normal" day.

As you continue to practice you get to stuff that is hard to even recognize as memory. You may get strange impressions of vague things or just bare emotions devoid of any particular context. These are harder to deal with because they're impossible to figure out. You’re better off not to even try to figure this stuff out because that just builds up more thought and emotion on top of what you’ve already got to deal with. Acknowledge it and, as much as possible, try to just let it be. It will pass.

Sometimes -- even when they try not to -- practitioners will assign these emotions to events and people inappropriately. People who experience this kind of thing and don't understand the source of it (and no one could possibly understand the source of it) may blame it on their teachers or on other people practicing. It is often the difficult duty of a Zen teacher to bear the brunt of some of this misdirected stuff. So be kind to us, please! Or practitioners may blame themselves or have a whole lot of different responses. Don’t worry about your responses either. Let them go.

I should point out here that it generally takes months or years to get to this level. It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to encounter in your first zazen class. What you generally encounter in your first few times doing zazen is utter boredom!

So what do you do if this happens? By the time you get down to the more difficult strata of buried stuff you will probably already have developed a relationship with a teacher. If you have a teacher it's good to discuss it with her or him. That’s what they’re there for. As long time practitioners you can be certain they have experienced this themselves. Remember that most of us in the Zen teaching game came into it because we had our own very serious stuff to deal with. Since they have watched their own stuff come up in a similar matter, your teacher should be able, at the very least, to tell you how they dealt with it. They can also assure you you're not going crazy and so on.

Whether or not any of this comes up in this way depends largely on the practitioner. If you're very gung-ho and in a big hurry to reach some rarified state of consciousness or -- God forbid! -- Enlightenment, you're more likely to encounter this kind of thing faster. If your practice is more gentle and unhurried, you're less likely to. If it does come up, you’ll already have some grounding that will allow you to handle it. So I would suggest taking it slow and easy. Just enjoy sitting zazen for its own sake and don't try to get anywhere with it. If you do it that way, the stuff that comes up will come up in smaller portions over time and won’t confront you before you're ready to deal with it.

In spite of all the foregoing cautionary material, I still believe zazen can be a very good thing for survivors of traumatic experiences. Maybe even the best thing. It can put you directly in contact with the source of the trauma itself. By slowly and carefully removing the psychological barriers you’ve erected to protect yourself from these memories you can finally become aware that the memories themselves are just thoughts in your head. No matter what the content of your thoughts are, they are all just thoughts. This is easy to say but very difficult to truly understand because we’ve been taught since birth to believe in our own thoughts.

Once you’ve seen what these thoughts and memories truly are, you will come to see that they have far less power than you imagined they did. And once you’ve seen how powerless all thoughts really are, you can then transcend these memories and the detrimental effects they’ve had upon you. The key is to see what's going on right now, rather than trying to see into the past through memory or into the future through thought.

This is all more complex and involved than I can possibly get into here. But these are the basic things to look out for.

Brad Warner is ON TOUR RIGHT NOW and may even be in your area! To see where Brad will be speaking next take a look here!

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up! and the newest Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff and a MySpace page too. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.

Buy the new CD by his band Zero Defex at CD Baby now!