Dr. Robert

I got a real bad feeling in my stomach when I heard earlier today that the levee broke in New Orleans. I've got people down there. They were lucky enough to be able to evacuate, but it looks like their homes will be gone. To everybody there, and all along the Gulf Coast, our hearts are with you. Damn.

'Scrips:

• Let's just go ahead and declare it the Summer of Wayne. I already told you dude was on The World, now check out the positive pub in the Boston Phoenix. Big up.
• This Spike Lee endorsed "Confederate States of America" flick looks sociologically interesting (and maybe even funny) but historically retarded. Ignoring the fact that slavery was on economically shaky legs even before the war and surely wouldn't have lasted until today, wouldn't a more interesting premise have been to suppose that the South was able to secede and form their own nation (which is what they were after, after all) and not that the whole country would have become Confederate?
  
• For the insensitive and heartless among you, this is sick but funny Craigslist Katrina-related humor.
  

The new John Waters flick, A Dirty Shame, which due to its NC-17 rating didn't see theatrical release and was banned from Blockbuster, is a fucking riot; as slick as his more recent stuff, but just as filthy and outrageous as Pink Flamingos (noting of course, that nothing could ever be as filthy and outrageous as the talking sphinctor butthole dance*).

The casting is brilliant. Tracy Ullman is incredible, Selma Blair has the best fake fake-tits ever, Chris Isaac makes a great square, and even Johnny Knoxville is great as a beatific sex-addict. Mink Stole and the rest of Waters' regulars are top-notch as usual. Track this joint down or else we'll all know what a neuter you are.

B-More free with your sexualities y'all.

*If anybody has a clip of this, please share... oom-bow-bow-oom-ba-oom-bow-bow...

Nothing to say here.

• Matt Jones is a freak of nature; 6'6" and runs a sub-4.4/40. Druing their beatdown at the hands of the mighty Falcons, Leftwich kept tossing 'em up for Jones to go get, and he did. Not bad for a fucking hippie.
• Speaking of, Gerald Green is the Jerry Garcia of the NBA.
  
• There's a war going on inside the heart and mind of Ricky Williams.
• Loquacious Wayne is making moves. Check dude out on NPR's "The World" dropping that Reggaeton knowledge.
• Where are those fascist Utah stormtroopers when you need them? Idiots.
  

Hate Scions 'cause they're ugly? Hate Scions 'cause they perpetuate played-out backpacker aesthtics? Hate Scions 'cause they're exploiting a subculture to make that money?

All valid resons. I'm gonna go ahead and hate them 'cause they censored Bavu Blakes.

Huge thanks to whoever had the ingenuity and focus to pair two of my favorite people in the world, Vince Young and Bubba Sparxxx, on this stupendous highlight video. (I ain't mad at Luba Luba either, though I would have preferred some T.I.P.)

The neighborhood of West Campus, Austin, TX is about as college (big state university style) as you can get. White kids with well-worn baseball caps in shiney new SUVs with Jerry Jeff Walker and/or Sublime stickers. Hemp necklaced girls and guys cruising by on shiney new Gary Fisher or Rockhopper mountain bikes. Big columned frat-house mansions with manicured lawns. A few rat-trap apartment and co-op complexes for the hippies and hipsters and various hipster vegan type kids. Lots of large, new, pre-fab looking condo complexes. Grande Mart convenience store where two randy Pakistani brothers have been selling booze to under-age co-eds (and kegs to their boyfriends) for two decades now.

This neighborhood--wealthy, idyllic, ridiculous--was the scene of a gruesome murder on Monday. Colton Pitonyak, a 22 year-old douchebag ex-frat boy drug dealer shot a girl named Jennifer Cave to death in her condo. Then he drove over to the local over-priced chi-chi hardware store and bought industrial strength 55 gallon drum liners, rubber gloves, carpet cleaner, and a hacksaw.

He hacked her into pieces and then either lost the stomach for the clean-up or was interrupted, because he disappeared, and that's how her body was found, shot, stabbed and chopped up.

Authorities traced a call made on his cell-phone to somewhere in Mexico, and dude was on the run. In the midst of this manhunt someone tracked Colton the killer down on online college social network Facebook, where he had all kinds of creepy quotes and mob-movie appreciation things going on. Typical wannabe gangsta frat-boy drug-dealer steez, except we know dude had made his fantasies reality. Creepy.

He also belonged to a number of French-speaking clubs, fueling speculation that he might be fluent in Spanish (and thus much harder to catch South of the Border) as well, or at least on his way to Martinique.

Then somebody noticed that our violent fugitive frat-boy was logged-in to Facebook from somewhere in Mexico and had even updated in the time after the murder. Holy shit. So wrong. Not just creepy; super-nerd creepy. Internet beef has calories too!

Mexican authorities caught the manpris-wearing guy yesterday and sent him back to Texas.


Further complicating matters is the fact that he was with an ex-girlfriend, Laura Hall, who wasn't charged with anything. Was she kidnapped? Coerced? Unaware? Maybe, but her Facebook profile is pretty creepy in it's own right. Under "Additional Info:" she wrote, "I should really be more of a horrific person. Its in the works." Woah. Sounds like they were on some '05 Bonnie and Clyde ish to me. Hell, maybe she killed the girl and dude was only trying to help her cover it up.

Update: She has now updated her Facebook profile to say, "Colton's innocent. He's the most generous, kindest person that I have even been blessed to spend time with."

UPDATE!!!: Some guy named "pimpology" over on Hornfans is in the midst of an IM conversation with Laura Hall. This is so super-secret-internet-google-cheat-codes, that I'm beside myself. I can't wait to live-chat with dude live from Death Row dude while he's waiting for the needle.

Update (8/27): Hall has been arrested for helping Pitonyak escape.

(9/29): Here's the arrest warrant for Laura Hall. "That's just how I roll," the poor confused little murderess stated when asked how she could help Pitonyak. Sounds like she's been hanging out at a few too many "Kill Whitey" parties.

A TV movie, no doubt, will let us know soon enough.

Excuse me while I go throw up.


Back in the Game 'Scrips:

• Loquacious Wayne, doing a terrible job of dispelling the myth that Harvard folks are smarter than the rest of us, is back from the Cape.
• B-More is so depressing. The Police Chief's daughter is a crack-whore.
  
• I have no idea what the story behind this fascist police action at a Utah rave is. Anybody?
• Is it September yet?
  

Outta town for a couple of days. Gearing up for big things in September. While I'm gone, check out the folks to the right plus these guys below who ought to be on the blog-roll and would be already if I wasn't too lazy to update...

• Free Darko
• Broken Language
• Beer and Rap
• Sexy Results
• Weave in They Hair
• That Good Good
• Off-Color Commentator
  

Cont. from Monday...
As the summer wore on and the little skeeze intensified her efforts to ensnare my friend in her smooth-skinned, skinny-legged little trap, he came up with a plan; he would fuck her, but he wouldn’t tell Hawk.

That plan was quickly scrapped. Shooter was a thoughtful young man, enamored of psychedelics and Buddhism, and could not forsake the path of truth. He would fuck her, but he would first ask Hawk if it was cool.

“So, uhh, Hawk,” Shooter began one evening over Yeungling’s and bong-rips. “[Forgettably Named Skeezer]’s a real cool girl, uhh…”

“Yeah, bol, she’s cool. She a freak, though, nahmean?”

“Heh-heh,” Shooter forced a laugh as he coughed out a lung-full of smoke. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t kno... uhh, really?”

“Yeah, man, you know wha’msayin’! Ha!” Hawk winked as he pulled a massive tube.

Shooter grinned, squinting and nodding his head and letting little snorts escape his nose every few seconds. Yes, he thought, I know exactly what you’re saying, Hawk, exactly.

“So I, uhh, I got the green-light then?”

The stylized coy inked on his tricep rippled as Hawk slowly put down the bong.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, Shooter felt very high.

“The green-light, the all-clear, to, you know to, uhh…” Shooter bit his lip and pumped his fist in a half-hearted “gettin’-it-on” gesture.

“The fuck you say?” Hawk stood up, cocking his head at Shooter.

It took Shooter a couple of seconds to figure out exactly what had just happened. He was confused and couldn’t believe he had misread the situation so completely, then he was angry. It wasn’t as if he had actually done anything disrespectful.

He hadn’t. In fact, if anything, he was being overly respectful by asking permission at all. Yeah. He could have just hit that shit one afternoon and Hawk never would have been the wiser. Shit, every afternoon. Just taking that willowy, satin-skinned, little tramp and sticking his fingers in her glossy-lipped little mouth and wrapping those long-ass legs around…

“Nah, man. That’s my jawn, dawg. Hell no.”

Shooter was again forced to assess the situation at hand. Hawk was up and in his face and ready to rumble.

This is bullshit, he thought, and began to grow angry himself.

He stood, banging his knee on the coffee table and knocking over a Yuengling as he did so, but still managing to look something approximating threatening.

“I didn’t touch your jawn, who is a dirty little slut by the way, and…”

Shooter was interrupted by a crash of broken glass and splitting wood and a scream of terror from the front room. He and Hawk ran out there (both secretly relieved their throw-down had been forgotten) to see a bearded, emaciated, man from the mental–institution standing amidst the shattered remnants of their front-door wearing only a diaper, with a crack-pipe in his mouth and a squirrel on his shoulder.

In each hand he held a steaming, greasy paper-wrapped cheese-steak.

“You’se guys hungry? We got extras…”

Next borough my ass.


Like Serg Always Say: Clickity Clack Yerself Before You Rack Yerself:

• Scoop Jackson manages to squeeze references to both Run-n-Shoot and Magic City* into this cynical piece on the Hawks situation. I sure hope dude is wrong about Joe Johnson being the next Joe Smith.
• This would be funnier if it was real, but it's still good for a laugh. Prepare for downcount: 5...4...3...1...Offblast!
• Jim Jones handwritten diary entries. Fucking retarted.
• Ohio State Buckeyes say they're ballers, but they're acting like some bitches. I smell... (sniff, sniff) football.

*C'mon, Matt Wright from AOL CityGuide, who isn't "looking for a high-power night of nubian nudity"?

I haven't been to PhillyThe Next Borough except for a couple of days back in the summer of '96 or '97 when my boy Shooter lived there in a rough-ass spot (South side?) next-door to a mental institution. This crazy-house was pretty low-security and actually left a gate open during the day so the bolder of the residents could step out and wander the sidewalks cackling maniacally and talking to the squirrels and shit.

Shooter lived with a big, black, tatted-up mover dude named Hawk and Hawk's stripper girlfriend. I can't remember her name but it might as well have been T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Little jawn would act all quiet and angelic while Hawk was around, but as soon as he left she'd start prancing around in her underwear, sitting with her legs all spread, sucking on lolli-pops, dancing to Bone Thugz CDs, and generally trying to seduce every dude she laid eyes on, especially Shooter who was alone in the house with her nearly every afternoon. It was clear that the express purpose of these flirtations and seductions was so that she could sit back and watch, feeling sexy and desirable, when Hawk inevitably got home and whupped the shit out of whoever was unlucky enough to fall for her whiles.

My boy was friends with Hawk, had no love of violence or drama, and did his best to keep his distance, avoiding all advances and generally behaving towards this little tramp with an aloof air of gentlemanly respect. He wanted to fuck her real bad though.

As the summer wore on and the little skeeze intensified her efforts to ensnare my friend in her smooth-skinned, skinny-legged little trap, he came up with a plan.
to be cont.

Monday Bonus 'Scrips:

• This + Sandwich = LUV: This girl has serious skills. Skills.
• Crackers: Some idiot OU student "forgot" he had a pipe-bomb in his luggage. Thing is, I believe him. Fucking Okies.
• Sloganeering: I'm thinking about getting into advertising. How's this? Hummer H3, my other car is a Porsche 944! (Does this qualify me for unofficial TATs crew status? Seriously, NICER, BG, holla at a blogger!)
• Bounce Bounce: fi5e and his lady have put together a video of the recent Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show at the South Street Sea Port. Even if you're not feeling BK's next big Talking Heads redux, you're gonna love the stockbroker who can't stop wylin' the fuck out.
• Fall in the Urr?: Y'all ready for September? Ohio State watch out.

Fat Ass:
Watch a fat man grope Vida Guerra in a hot-tub. Spanish language television is light-years ahead of the rest of us.

Fat Actress:
I snickered, I laughed, I guffawed, I snorted. Wedding Crashers was great, but am I the only one wondering why the boys didn't crash a black wedding? I kept waiting for an "electric slide with plus-size aunt" scene.

Fat Pad:
Micheal Jordan's crib is huge, but it's not as sweet as Bill Gates' place. Damn.

Fat Head:
It looks like the Joe Johnson/Belkin debacle is now in Commisioner Stern's hands. Stern is an evil tyrant, but I actually think he might decide in the Hawks favor on this one, just for the chance to flex and screw over an owner.

This Joe Johnson situation is starting to get me really fucking salty. To recap as briefly as possible for those of you who don't follow or give a shit about the Atlanta Hawks...

1. JJ had a very good season as the 2-guard and the third/fourth option on a spectacular Phoenix Suns team and was a restricted free-agent.
   
2. Phoenix said they'll match any offer made on him, meaning they've got him on lock if they want.
3. The Atlanta Hawks--who have sucked for a long time and haven't really been relevant since they traded Dominique Wilkins for washed-up loser Danny Manning while they were in 1st place and 'Nique was having a career season--have some promising young talent in Josh Smith, Josh Childress, Marvin Williams, and Royal Ivey. They need a point guard and a big man, and they need some veteran leadership.
   
4. ATL made a big offer, $70+ million for 5 years.
5. PHX offered to match.
6. JJ who perhaps wants to play point and to garner a little more shine than the stocked Suns could provide, said you know what Phoenix, it's been fun, but I want out.
7. Hawks and Suns worked out a sign and trade; same $70 million for Joe plus Boris Diaw (who is an absolutely worthless basketball player) and two "lottery protected" first round draft picks.
8. That's a lot for Joe Johnson. But the Hawks have been rebuilding forever and need to get better now. Cap-space doesn't do anybody any good if you don't use it.
   
9. The deal was vetoed by Steve Belkin, the most powerful of a loosely connected consortium of Hawks owners known as Atlanta Spirit.
10. The sleeping giant that is the Hawks fan-base was incensed.
11. The other owners took Belkin to court. GM Billy Knight came and said Belkin is a straight sucker and a cheap-skate and doesn't give a fuck about the Hawks.
12. Belkin won.
    

What's next? An appeal, I guess, and a public outcry against Belkin. Belkin seems like he doesn't give a fuck if the rest of the Hawks organization and the entire city of Atlanta hate him, though, so perhaps more drastic measures are in order.

I say we send your favorite rapper's favorite rapper (and favorite trapper's favorite trapper) to blow his fucking head off, and then you let Josh Smith put on a dunk show with it out on some ATL blacktop. Some real Run n' Shoot for that ass. Who's with me? Regulators, mount up!

A recent discussion about the sordid/storied realm of Norwegian Black Metal (these dudes make 3-6 Mafia look like MC Tickle Me Elmo) led to mention of Hatebeak, who, for those unfamiliar, are a Death Metal band whose lead-singer is an African Grey Parrot* named Waldo.

Well, wouldn't you know, in the course of Hatebeak related research I have uncovered yet another band of cross-species Death Rockers. Not only is Caninus fronted by two mean looking Pit Bull Terriers**, but the rest of the band is made up of Mole People! This is quite possibly, and I don't say this lightly, the realest shit ever.

*Don't worry, PETA people, they don't perform live because that would hurt Waldo's little parrot ears.
**Again, animal lovers don't fret, the dogs were rescued from shelters.

Pile on. This awesome Deathray Davies video featuring Kumar "Pagoda" Pallana has already been on Screenhead and USA Today's "Hip Clicks" (Yep, inevitably, even USA Today has a blog,) but can the tiny but scrappy Glurp servers handle the Dr. Robert effect? Only one way to find out; get clicking y'all. Buy some records while you're at it.

Click the 'Scrips:

• Big respect and thanks for all the music to Ibrahim Ferrer who died at age 78. The man had a gift.
• Remember Solomon Tat, that Nigerian brick-worker/rim-wrecker kid who I said was gonna commit to Texas? I was wrong. Looks like he's going to UGA now. Hunker down, Solomon, I ain't mad atcha.
• Lang breaks down what's going on with this Joe Johnson fiasco in ATL. This Belkin dude needs to hit the curb and fast, all real Hawks fans know we need JJ.
• I got cable on Friday. I haven't stopped watching "Being Bobby Brown" since. Dude knows how to party.
  

I'm consistently amazed with the quality and depth of the writing over at Wayne and Wax. My man Wayne breaks down and explains what makes music what it is (and then expounds upon the cultural implications thereof) with a facility and a clarity that is straight astounding. This piece about Reggaeton is a prime example.

Fri-day!

• Emil (who sleeps less than all y'all beauty-rest Herbs) already linked this up, but inspirational defiance in the face of looming oppression is bigger than this blog shit. Banksy rocks the West Bank! I've seen that "girl floating free with baloons" piece before, but unattributed... should've known.
• Watch this dude play Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" on the violin. It's pretty faithful to the original (ie a little screechy and long) but well worth it for the big Kinks riff at the end.
• Gotta go, it's my gurl's birthday, ans we got big plans. Remember baby, you deserve the best and more, you done been through it all. I STILL LOVE YOU SHAWTY!

Apparently my recent blog-related depression, is not an isolated incident. That's okay though, I'm over it, besides, now I have a new internet thing to fret my nerdy ass over: I need to step my source-code game up. As if the Google listing isn't dope enough, open the page and "view source"... ASCII tag!

You've Got a Fever:

• Street Art Blows! Agree. Disagree.
• Exit Instant Replays. Enter The Off-Color Commentator. (How did no-one else come up with that handle yet? Classic.)
• I'm jacking another link from the Fader (this time on purpose.) This Zakk Wylde tribute video to his dead homie Dimebag Darrell is fucking awesome, employing every metal ballad cliche you can imagine, yet obviously heartfelt as all Hell. A theory: The "Pet Semetary-meets-Stand By Me subplot in the forest" is not "nonsensical," it is metaphor for young Zakk and Darell's journey (descent?) from punk little BMX riding kids into the deep, dark, goat-sacrificing world of serious Metal motherfuckers.
  
• Relive your lost youth; play the Oregon Trail. Shit is real. Be a banker, buy your shit, get there easy. Be a farmer, start off broke, DIE OF DYSENTERY!

A multi-round, bench-clearing brawl broke out in the middle of a Puerto Rico/China international b-ball game over there in China. Word is the Sinostines laid the smack down on the Boriqua, but Yao never even left the bench. China not soft, Yao is! What happened Yao, you used to be cool, man...

Click the 'Scrips:

• This Sony/Spitzer Payola Scam fallout has trickled all the way out to Texas, hit Austin, and I couldn't be happier. I like Lucinda Williams just fine, but Bob Schneider is a stupendous douche (and a terrible painter). Two Elton John tix to play his shitty frat-funk, singer-songwriter, dumped by Sandra Bullock crap? I'd have charged a lot more than that.
• Poplicks brings word of a life-size, bulged-crotch, Japanese R Kelly doll. Weird, weird Japanese. In further aRruh news, here's a Cliff's Notes version of the Trapped in the Closet saga. There's really no limit to the creative possibilities that might spring forth from this Trapped well of inspiration.

RIP Dixon. The unnamed man who died in this somewhat mysterious drowning (was it an electrocution?) was Dixon Colburne Coulbourne, THE major documentor of Austin's punk scene from '79 to '86 with his Idle Time zine. Some of the pictures and zine-pages he has archived are absolutely amazing. Big Boys. Dicks. Butthole Surfers...

• Slam-dancing to the Circle Jerks at the Ritz, back when they actually had bands there.
• Rank and File (yep, that's a crazy young Alejandro Escovedo on the right).
• Trouble Funk??!!

Rest in Peace, Dixon. With this, plus the murder of Ram (of legendary San Antonio punk-rock dive Taco Land fame,) the old gaurd of TX punk is starting to disappear, in violent fashion no less.

Update: This new Statesman article has a little more info on Dixon and his death.

I really need to step my blog-game up. I haven't written anything of substance over at Mr. Babylon for almost a month, that "Warren G Week" story I mentioned this morning was on the Fader blog 3 days ago, and I somehow completely missed this amazing college-football-team-as-rapper post last week over at Sexy-Results. That Sexy-Results piece kinda reminds of these old AG "articles." (That Superbowl thing is especially funny because the Pats actually ended up winning that game.)

213. The mayor of Long Beach, CA has officially declared that since, "he got the sound for your ass that it's easy to see that this here week be Warren G* Week." She didn't actually say that, but still, has it ever been any more obvious what a herb** Bloomberg is?

Geography 'Scrips:

• 512. To quote my man EZ, yuppie bastards ruining Austin. I always wanted a pet goat, and this goat is one of those badass satan-looking types. They should shut down that shitty (though aptly named) fake Mexican joint Guero's, and let the goat have the run of the place.
• Next Level. Yancan drum! This guy demonstrates how to use the keyboard drums and then some. My man GOES THE FUCK OFF.

• DC. I'm turning off the "no shameless celebrity gossip" filter for a second here because this Kiefer Sutherland drunk blasted and horny story is pretty damn good. A friend of mine in LA told me a very similar story once, only his ended with Kiefy Kief and some big, gay, tatted up bartender shirtless and making out on the bar. The lesson here, fellas, is always proceed with caution when another dude starts complimenting your shirt. If he calls it a "top," run.
• Netherworld. I've written before about Revs and his legendary underground diary, written in spraypaint, paragraph by paragraph, throughout the Subway tunnels and other deep, dark, dangerous places in NYC. These crazy Urban Explorer guys run into Revs stuff--roller tags, wheat-pastes, whatever--in every nasty hole they crawl into, and now they've found the fabled 1st page.
  

*Y'all know Warren produced The Chronic right?
**I'm officially bringing back "herb" (pronounced like the name not the aromatic kind of plant you gotta buy in bunches or dimesacks) as my epithet of choice for doofus type dudes.