One thing you may or may not know about me already is that I keep up with Ain’t It Cool News almost religiously, even though the quality has clearly gone down the (series of) tubes over the years. One of the things that keeps me coming back day after day is the amazingly horrendous “Talkback” comment system. If you’ve somehow never been to the site, let me clue you in: each news post has a single flat thread of comments without so much as a numbering system. You must have an account to post, and all you can write is a subject and a comment. If you post URLs, they have spaces randomly strewn through them. People tend to indicate which comment they are replying to by using the original comment’s author name as their comment subject, when they even bother. Sometimes it reads more like a stream-of-consciousness mish-mash than any kind of conversation.

I have been lurking there for years because of the spontaneous gems that show up. The amount of misdirected vitriol spewed at times is unbelievable, and the occasional expression of twisted insight or random absurdity can yield an unexpected belly laugh. I find Talkback to be one of the great unharvested sources of comedy on the Internet, and a few of the more amusing regulars there could probably be cultivated into real writers if they aren’t already. For quite some time I have considered skimming some of my favorite posts into a standalone blog, but I don’t really have the time to do that regularly. Still, I think it could be fun to occasionally go through the recent threads and post some favorites. So without further ado, here is my AICN Talkback Roundup. (Click on the images to enlarge them for easier reading.)

This one showed up in a thread about the Thor movie in production:

While discussing the next Universal Soldier movie and JCVD’s gymnastic prowess, Binks figures out how to spice up boring sports:

In response to an interview with Kevin Smith, YackBacker demonstrates how AICN readers hate anyone with any modicum of success:

A Talkbacker with yet another clever username exhibits the art of the cheap shot:

In the Talkback for Old Dogs, from the same director who brought you Wild Hogs, mustang_dvs shows off his screenwriting chops:

The posts in AICN Coaxial, the TV/DVD section, attract a different breed of Talkbacker, usually a bit snarkier:

Or sometimes they are just bitter:

Whenever Harry (the head of the site) posts a review, the freaks really come out of the woodwork. It’s sort of like when a D-list celebrity shows up at a mall for a book signing. These next three are from Harry’s review of The Lovely Bones:

BadMrWonka is a bit of a minor Talkback celebrity:

Sometimes the subject is all they need:

Well, they can’t all be winners. Now that I know I will be compiling these lists occasionally, I will keep an eye out during my standard browsing for the best ones to collect over time.

/joe

Most of the music that I listen to has been referred to me by other people. Someone will share something that they like or that they think I would like (or both), and perhaps it will catch my ear. I still remember how I found out about most of my favorite bands, and what better time than Thanksgiving week to thank those people who gifted them to me.

Mr. Bungle – I’m not sure I would have even known who Mr. Bungle was if it wasn’t for Adam Betzold. He was my best friend in elementary and middle school, and I looked to him for all of my musical cues until I developed taste of my own. I can still remember the time we went to Uncle Sam’s on University Drive as we so often did, but this time my mom had driven us. Adam had to get the Mr. Bungle album because it had Mike Patton in it and it was supposed to be totally raunchy and great. It had the big fat Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics sticker on the front. Now, if my mom ever saw that label on an album, it was completely verboten, regardless of any arguments I provided. For example, even though it was one of the classic albums of the 90s, I had to sneak Faith No More’s Angel Dust because not only did it have the label (more for the subject matter than the language), but also she was put off by the band’s name and the album title. Mr. Bungle, on the other hand, although musically diverse, had some of the most juvenile, sexual lyrics you could conceive. Imagine my terror when we got in the car and my mom wanted to see what Adam had bought. I still remember her looking at the track list on the back of the CD. “Squeeze me macaroni? The girls of PORN? Adam, you can never let Joseph listen to this album.” Of course he immediately made me a cassette copy that I practically melted from listening to on the school bus every day. That is one of my all-time favorite albums, and it holds up even better today. Thanks, Adam!

Dead Kennedys – In high school, I started getting into some punk music… but not the new punk that was becoming so popular at the time. I listened to a handful of bands like the Dead Milkmen, Descendents, and Bad Religion, but the one that got me into it in the first place was Dead Kennedys. I think Adam may have played some DK for me, but I credit my stepbrother with getting me into all that music, and if I recall correctly he bought me Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables as a present, starting my collection of their albums. They had such an influence on me that I have for years harbored plans of organizing an online tribute album. Thanks, Justin!

Ween – Ok, this is a biggie, and it is hard to give credit, but I will try. Most people’s first experience with Ween was seeing “Push th’ Little Daisies” on MTV (specifically Beavis and Butthead). I was familiar with the song, and Adam bought Pure Guava because of its exposure. I only heard little bits of the album from him, but it intrigued me. I think he eventually sold it though because he found it too weird to have much relistenability. While in high school, I used to listen to a local radio show on WKPX (the Piper High School radio station) called “No Class”, hosted by the Almighty Geekhead. (Information is scarce, but according to this unlikely source Geekhead was not the original host and his real name was Adam Deckinger.) I liked probably 90% of the music that Geekhead played, even though there was no overriding genre to the show. He seemed to play certain bands more than others, and Ween was one of those. After hearing numerous Ween tracks on the show, I took the plunge and bought God WEEN Satan: The Oneness. I bought it from one of those generic mall chains like Musicland or something, and I remember clearly that the guy who rung me up was an old hippie burnout with the long grey ponytail who told me he loved to get high after hours and blast the album. I took this encouragement to be a good sign for some reason, and I was not disappointed by the album’s weirdness. Before long I had all of their albums, including 12 Golden Country Greats which had just come out and gave me a new perspective on country music. (Also there is another funny story involving mom and “Piss Up a Rope”, but I’ll save that for later.) Thanks, Geekhead!

Devo – I believe Terry got into Devo before any of us. Of course everyone had heard “Whip It”, but I borrowed Devo’s Greatest Hits from Terry and listened to it a bunch. I also borrowed Devo’s Greatest Misses from him and listened to it even more. I also heard Geekhead play a handful of Devo tracks on “No Class”. Eventually I bought what I called the “red album”, “purple album”, and “green album”. These were double album CD re-issues of most of Devo’s albums. Soon after that I also got Rykodisc’s Hardcore Devo, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2. All of the albums that I have mentioned are incredible. I kept on acquiring all things Devo and they are still one of my favorite bands to this day. Thanks, Terrence!

Negativland – My #1 favorite band. Throughout high school I had started listening to more and more sample-heavy music. There was just something about it that I couldn’t get enough of. Then during my freshman year at Tech, I met some other computer nerds in my dorm building including one of the leaders of the local 2600 meetings. Through them one night I met Tom Cross (pretty sure that link is him, although he probably doesn’t even remember me) who had with him a CD wallet and a portable player. I remember a cluster of us sitting outside of the Glenn building while Tom played tantalizing snippets of Negativland. In particular, I remember him playing “Gimme the Mermaid”, although I had no idea what the song title or album were. I started buying all the Negativland I could find, and while I loved it all (except for Points, which I’ve never been crazy about), I was continually disappointed to still not have found that track until I eventually bought the Fair Use book and listened to the CD that came with it. But before that, I was not even aware such a genre (my favorite genre!) existed, and it led me to find all kinds of other great bands such as the Evolution Control Committee, the Tape-beatles, People Like Us, and many smaller groups that I met via the Snuggles mailing list which I joined in 1997 and still subscribe to today. It inspired me to make music as well, and my group Social Security contributed to two compilations released by folks from Snuggles, The Droplift Project (for which I used to be the webmaster) and Free Speech For Sale. It’s funny that one guy had such a profound impact on my life and probably doesn’t even know who I am. Thanks, Tom!

Kool Keith – Here’s an odd one. I was back home for the summer from college, and I was visiting Uncle Sam’s again when I ran into an acquaintance from high school, Mike Spiegler. I’m fuzzy on the details, but I remember we got into one of our cars to check out some tunes, and he played some of Dr. Octagonecologyst. I liked it enough that I ended up buying it. And apparently I flipped my shit over it because I ended up buying as many Kool Keith albums as I could. He’s still my favorite rapper to this day. I think that day Mike also gave me a demo cassette of Spearhead’s first album, which was also solid and led me to Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. That’s practically a triple play! Thanks, Spiegs!!

I hope other people find this topic even a quarter as interesting as I do, or at least that it inspires someone to check out any of these musicians. Maybe if you’re feeling inspired you can share some thanks for the bands other people have given to you!

/joe

Starting yet another new version of phatjoe.com, this time using WordPress. Still ironing out the theme templates and getting accustomed to WordPress. Going through all the old phatjoe.com files was quite a blast from the past. I’ll post some greatest hits once this thing gets going again.