The Best Song I Heard This Week

I heard one of the greatest songs ever the other day. It's Franz Ferdinand doing a cover of the Gwen Stefani track "What You Waiting For?" It starts off in the traditional Franz Ferdinand post-punk fashion as they plod through Stefani's lame lyrics. But the best part, which elevates the track from a quirky cover to a brilliant send-up, is during the build up when the forgettable pop tripe suddenly becomes Billy Idol's "White Wedding." Genius. You can download the song here (scroll down, way down). I highly recommend it.

I guess the only other thing worth mentioning is that the good folks at Exclaim! published some comments I sent in regarding Wolf Parade's debut album. My comments are among those featured in the February issue of the publication as part of results from their 2005 Readers Poll. This marks the fourth time that my comments have been published by Exclaim!. If you can't get to your nearest record store to pick up the issue, you can see my comments by clicking on the following link and scrolling down to the section regarding Wolf Parade's album (my comments are 8th in that section).

"Welcome To My World."

There are a lot of things that have gained popularity over the last few years due to the boom in internet culture, two such examples would have to be: mullets and Chuck Norris. Thankfully in 1991, perhaps anticipating their place in culture-to-come, these two things met in a little movie called The Hitman.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "how did I manage to miss such a culturally significant movie like The Hitman?" To which I would have to reply, "I don't know, I just don't know." Lucky for you though, I just finished watching it, so I can at least fill you in on some of what you've missed.

Our story begins, like many action movies, on the loading docks. Our hero Chuck Norris and his partner are on a stakeout, looking for suspicious activity. During their investigation a drug smuggling operation is discovered, some guys get their asses kicked (courtesy of Mr. Norris) and our hero is betrayed by his partner. Later, at the hospital, our hero is recuperating after multiple life-saving operations. Since, as we all know, Chuck Norris cannot be killed, not even after being shot multiple times, then falling out of a building on to a station wagon. Chuck Norris' boss decides that as far as the public is concerned, our hero died in the line of duty.

Flash forward three years to the bustling metropolis of Seattle. We're introduced to the crime syndicate run by one Marco Luganni (played by Al Waxman, which is the first clue among many that tells us that this movie was filmed primarily in Canada). After some tough guy back-and-forth, we learn that Luganni's new number-one-guy is Chuck Norris. That's right kids, after survivng a near fatal shooting, it only took Chuck three years to become second in command of one of the west coast's biggest crime families. But don't worry kids, Chuck didn't go bad, our mulleted man-of-action is actually deep undercover trying to put an end to Luganni's gang of Italian-American stereotypes, their French Canadian competition (who are from Vancouver), and a group of Iranians who are somehow in the middle of everything.

I don't want to give everything away, but there's plenty of action, a bizarre love interest, a few roundhouse kicks and a tender subplot wherein Chuck helps an underprivileged kid stand up to the neighborhood bullies who chase him home from school everyday. Action, romance, and racial sensitivity, all of which you would expect from a Chuck Norris movie.

I Almost Forgot To Give This Post A Title

First things first, I was watching The Colbert Report last night and Stephen Colbert totally referred to C.H.U.D., one of my all-time favorite movies. It was during the threatdown, in a story about terrorists tunneling out of prison, a fiendish criminal scheme that could only have been orchestrated by the C.H.U.D.s. Being such a big fan of the 1984 movie, I was impressed that Colbert would even be familiar with C.H.U.D., but I was even more impressed when the man took it a step further by letting all the folks at home know just what the acronym stood for.

CANNIBALISTIC HUMANOID UNDERGROUND DWELLERS

If I had a hat, it would be off to you, Mr. Colbert.

So, this past Friday I was in another poker tournament at the local kick-and-punch. I did a bit better this time, coming 15th (or so) out of 70. I'll be playing again this coming Friday and I hope to do even better. I'm a little worried though, as much as I like playing at these tournaments, I don't wanna become one of those aging, drunken assholes that I have to play with. Those guys seriously piss me off.

Clinic has a new single out and it's available as a free download on their website. I'll be the first to admit that Clinic isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea, I can't say I've ever really known anyone else who was into them. But John Peel thought they were cool, they toured with Radiohead, and Internal Wrangler has to be one of the best albums I've heard in the last five years. So, if your taste in music borders on the eclectic side of indie bands, you might wanna check them out.

And finally, for you rockers out there, The Raconteurs (Jack White's new band) have a single coming out soon. You can listen to the tunes on their very cool and very retro website or you can proabably still download them from here.

Good Time Super Happy Go Go Links

First off, we have a digital short from SNL, this one is a mock music video concerning the Young Chuck Norris. It's not as funny as the Lazy Sunday clip, but anything Chuck Norris related deserves a look.

Night of the Living Dead in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. It's pretty self-explanatory but it's also pretty darn funny. If you check out the site you'll see that the 30 Second Bunnies re-enact lots of movies, this just happens to be their newest (and my personal favorite).

Here is another live interpretation of a classic Nintendo Game. This time it's a band doing the music to Contra. They're playing it live with a big screen showing the game in progress behind them. It's pretty cool stuff.

Remember those "Whassup" commercial parodies where they dubbed the commercial over cartoon characters and whatnot? No? Well, now you're at least up to speed. Here we have a clip similar in concept to those older parodies, except this has dialogue from the movie Office Space over clips of the Justice League.

Here is a clip of a monkey washing a cat in a sink. No further explanation necessary.

And finally, a cool commercial from the Super Bowl featuring MacGyver. It kills me that this commercial is so cool. But who doesn't love MacGyver? Seriously, who?