To commemorate the return of everyone's favorite cooking reality show, we at D/B have sampled and ringtone-readied the single most important sound effect in the history of Top Chef. Here it is, the knife-sharpening YOOOOOWWWWWW that accompanies every good turn of events at Judge's table. This is our gift to you, friends, because we're just that hardcore:
Top Chef RINGTONE - iPhone Version
Top Chef RINGTONE - Mp3 Version
Top Chef RINGTONE - Wav Version
Cheers,
-TEAM DEPLORABLE/BEAUTIFUL
WE SING THIS LIFE ELECTRIC!
Fucking hell. There is no phrase more perfect for the way the last month has panned out. For me, it began on the heels of the worst kind of news twice over; two friends of mine -- one from high school, one from college -- both wiped off the face of the Earth after 30 years with not a spec of sense attached to either event.
This being 2008 and all, the resulting fall-out of both tragedies has been a post-millennial mind-fuck of epic proportions. Traces of two once-thriving and vivid lives can be seen right now in bright, clean white and pastel blues, sliding into the digital ether, by anybody with a Facebook account. Fucking hell.
Cut then to the madness of the later half of this month. As I type this, the chills that shiver up my spine as I consider the Obama election nearly overwhelm; it's just that amazing. Smashed on top of that came the most indescribably wonderful event of all: my mom BEAT CANCER. Fucking hell!
These deplorable and beautiful events arrived on my personal timeline, mangled together within days of each other, with what I can only can describe as an electric…
POP!
ZOOM!
ZAP!
KERPLOW!
So where does all this blood and sunshine leave me? Once again thinking about Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and this MOTHERFUCKING BLOG, and how it’s time to ratchet it up, and sing not just our bodies, but our lives, electric.
Welcome to the new DEPLORABLE/BEAUTIFUL.
This being 2008 and all, the resulting fall-out of both tragedies has been a post-millennial mind-fuck of epic proportions. Traces of two once-thriving and vivid lives can be seen right now in bright, clean white and pastel blues, sliding into the digital ether, by anybody with a Facebook account. Fucking hell.
Cut then to the madness of the later half of this month. As I type this, the chills that shiver up my spine as I consider the Obama election nearly overwhelm; it's just that amazing. Smashed on top of that came the most indescribably wonderful event of all: my mom BEAT CANCER. Fucking hell!
These deplorable and beautiful events arrived on my personal timeline, mangled together within days of each other, with what I can only can describe as an electric…
POP!
ZOOM!
ZAP!
KERPLOW!
So where does all this blood and sunshine leave me? Once again thinking about Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and this MOTHERFUCKING BLOG, and how it’s time to ratchet it up, and sing not just our bodies, but our lives, electric.
Welcome to the new DEPLORABLE/BEAUTIFUL.
STRIKE THAT! THE NEW D/B WILL NOT COME TODAY, BUT RATHER IN 2 WEEK'S TIME. UNTIL THEN, WE SHALL PRESS ON JUST AS WE HAVE, WILLY NILLY
That's right reader, or readers, if there are, in fact, more than 1 of you... we've pushed out the official launch of this here blog a mere 2 two-weeks so we can spend a wee bit more time getting our shit together.
Until then, we will continue with the hodge podge, we will press-on with the horribly inconsistent tagging and formatting, and we will allow the reds and blacks and whites to slurp up their final monochromatic electrons like the drunken sub-atomic heathens they truly are
For once the new D/B has arrived, we wil all be awash in the splendor of regular content updates, a kick-ass, built-from scratch Blogger template, and the most dependably unpredictable content since Pat Sajak's now sadly defunct mind-fuck of a blog, Sajak Says.
Either way you should probably just go ahead and subscribe right now so you don't miss any of it mmmkay?
Until then, we will continue with the hodge podge, we will press-on with the horribly inconsistent tagging and formatting, and we will allow the reds and blacks and whites to slurp up their final monochromatic electrons like the drunken sub-atomic heathens they truly are
For once the new D/B has arrived, we wil all be awash in the splendor of regular content updates, a kick-ass, built-from scratch Blogger template, and the most dependably unpredictable content since Pat Sajak's now sadly defunct mind-fuck of a blog, Sajak Says.
Either way you should probably just go ahead and subscribe right now so you don't miss any of it mmmkay?
THE NEW D/B IS COMING - FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
Hey friend-O's, just a quickie note here to let you know that the new and improved / officially open for business DEPLORABLE/BEAUTIFUL will be launching this Friday. If you've been digging everything so far and think we've got a good thing going here, go ahead and subscribe or bookmark this shit and get ready for the real deal, coming at you all official-like, next Friday.
UNTIL THEN - GODSPEED.
Dudes, you gotta check out Wikipedia’s Dude Entry!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude
A few choice excerpts:
- "Dude" may also be used alone in a sentence denoting a feeling of surprise, happiness, disappointment, amazement or other emotions.[2] The word might also be used practically anywhere in a sentence in order to convey such sentiments in conversation. Example: 'Listen dude, we have to go'
- The word as used in contemporary culture, typically American, may have had its origins in the Irish, and indeed, dúd in modern Irish is a derogatory term for a foolish person.
- The word "Dude" may be an abbreviated form of the word "Doodle," which, in the eighteenth century, meant a simpleton or a fool.
Awesome, dude.
A few choice excerpts:
- "Dude" may also be used alone in a sentence denoting a feeling of surprise, happiness, disappointment, amazement or other emotions.[2] The word might also be used practically anywhere in a sentence in order to convey such sentiments in conversation. Example: 'Listen dude, we have to go'
- The word as used in contemporary culture, typically American, may have had its origins in the Irish, and indeed, dúd in modern Irish is a derogatory term for a foolish person.
- The word "Dude" may be an abbreviated form of the word "Doodle," which, in the eighteenth century, meant a simpleton or a fool.
Awesome, dude.
Hoverboards, Creationism and the sad sad tale of Kirk Cameron’s decent into Delusion
Ok, walk with me for a second. This morning I read that the original hoverboard prop from Back to the Future II is being auctioned off on Ebay with a starting bid of 30 thousand dollars. I clicked through and sure enough, it’s true. 30K for this piece of wood:
If you’re as big a fan of this movie as I am (clearly, I am a HUGE fan), the fact that the hoverboard from Back to the Future II is in fact a piece of wood might really piss you off. Why? Because we were once told otherwise. By Kirk FUCKING Cameron.
You see, around the time that BTHFII and BTHFIII came out, Kirk Cameron, former best friend to Boner, appeared in a farce of a documentary called “Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy.” Now, perhaps due to the absurd mind-fuck it implanted in the brains of adolescent boys across the country, footage of this documentary has all but vanished from the interweb. But I assure you, friends, it did happen; here’s its IMDB page and here’s a still from a now-removed YouTube clip:
In this riCOCKulous made-for-TV fraud, Mr. Cameron had the gall to tell everyone watching that Matell had invented real, working hoverboards, but that “parents groups”, concerned for the safety of their offspring, had them banned for eternity. Needless to say, this sent my little 12 year old brain, and millions like it across the country, into a drooling, panting, hoverboard-wanting frenzy for YEARS to come. It wasn’t until the trilogy finally made it out to DVD in 2005 that the whole thing was put to bed in a far more reputable (and factual!) making-of documentary, helmed by a thankfully nameless and faceless narrator. For that, I say FUCK YOU KIRK CAMERON.
It’s only fitting, then, that a man capable of propagating such an impudent and unadulterated sham upon the populous would later in life become a creationist. Creationism and its stupefyingly obtuse doppelganger Intelligent Design, are, after all, the most ludicrous theories to ever poison mankind. But what’s really shocking here is not that Mikey Seev-ah has become a god-fearing agent of indoctrination for some dumb church, it’s that he has done so with such incredible idiocy. Have a click through a “Kirk Cameron” search on YouTube for some of this jackass' remarks, or better yet, watch the clip below, and try not to shed a tear for what the once-beloved son of Carol and Mike has become.
If you’re as big a fan of this movie as I am (clearly, I am a HUGE fan), the fact that the hoverboard from Back to the Future II is in fact a piece of wood might really piss you off. Why? Because we were once told otherwise. By Kirk FUCKING Cameron.
You see, around the time that BTHFII and BTHFIII came out, Kirk Cameron, former best friend to Boner, appeared in a farce of a documentary called “Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy.” Now, perhaps due to the absurd mind-fuck it implanted in the brains of adolescent boys across the country, footage of this documentary has all but vanished from the interweb. But I assure you, friends, it did happen; here’s its IMDB page and here’s a still from a now-removed YouTube clip:
In this riCOCKulous made-for-TV fraud, Mr. Cameron had the gall to tell everyone watching that Matell had invented real, working hoverboards, but that “parents groups”, concerned for the safety of their offspring, had them banned for eternity. Needless to say, this sent my little 12 year old brain, and millions like it across the country, into a drooling, panting, hoverboard-wanting frenzy for YEARS to come. It wasn’t until the trilogy finally made it out to DVD in 2005 that the whole thing was put to bed in a far more reputable (and factual!) making-of documentary, helmed by a thankfully nameless and faceless narrator. For that, I say FUCK YOU KIRK CAMERON.
It’s only fitting, then, that a man capable of propagating such an impudent and unadulterated sham upon the populous would later in life become a creationist. Creationism and its stupefyingly obtuse doppelganger Intelligent Design, are, after all, the most ludicrous theories to ever poison mankind. But what’s really shocking here is not that Mikey Seev-ah has become a god-fearing agent of indoctrination for some dumb church, it’s that he has done so with such incredible idiocy. Have a click through a “Kirk Cameron” search on YouTube for some of this jackass' remarks, or better yet, watch the clip below, and try not to shed a tear for what the once-beloved son of Carol and Mike has become.
20 Minute Loop!
Alrighty friend-O’s: I mentioned somewhere down there that I was holding back the D/B music coverage because I hoped to launch with a piece about one of my absolute favorite local bands, 20 Minute Loop. Why? Because to me, 20 Minute Loop is the essence of Deplorable/Beautiful. The quintessence, even. Their sound is at once sublimely pretty and totally and completely fucked up. For example, check out the dichotomy going on in the track that originally did it for me, a song that would likely be #1 on my “Deplorable/Beautiful” playlist, “Jubilation” from 2001’s Decline of Day:
This is a song about “bloody steak knives” and “bunions, cut off the feet” that arrives at your ear drums on the wings of soaring, glorious, JUBILOUS two-part harmonies, and I ask you, what could possibly be more deplorable/beautiful? Seriously, if you have any thoughts on that, I’d love some comments.
Now then, 20ML have just put out their 4th album and let me be perfectly clear, it kicks a whole lot of arse. As each 20ML record has done before it, Famous People Mary Famous People dances that fine line between harmony and discord, splendor and squalor, glory and infamy. I could go on about this for ages, suffice it to say I think you should all click THIS LINK and buy yourself some 20ML records, immediately.
But wait, there’s more. In celebration of the new record’s long awaited debut, 20ML threw a party a couple Fridays ago at the best club in San Francisco, Bottom of the Hill, and I got to watch and film as they tore through the new songs. The video below captures not only the show opening, but some lovely post-set fashion modeling by singer/guitarist Greg Giles, a fascinating rumination on what it’s like to play live whilst pregnant by singer/keyboard player Kelly Atkins, and finally, a few comments on just how much the show sucked courtesy of bassist Adam Cunha.
Further 20ML Reading: Jeremy and I interviewed Greg, Kelly and Nils just before the release of their previous record, the equally and unnervingly awesome Yawn + House = Explosion for SF Station a couple years ago. The article is here, just don't ask me why those fuckers gave me such a puny, bottom-feeding byline.
This is a song about “bloody steak knives” and “bunions, cut off the feet” that arrives at your ear drums on the wings of soaring, glorious, JUBILOUS two-part harmonies, and I ask you, what could possibly be more deplorable/beautiful? Seriously, if you have any thoughts on that, I’d love some comments.
Now then, 20ML have just put out their 4th album and let me be perfectly clear, it kicks a whole lot of arse. As each 20ML record has done before it, Famous People Mary Famous People dances that fine line between harmony and discord, splendor and squalor, glory and infamy. I could go on about this for ages, suffice it to say I think you should all click THIS LINK and buy yourself some 20ML records, immediately.
But wait, there’s more. In celebration of the new record’s long awaited debut, 20ML threw a party a couple Fridays ago at the best club in San Francisco, Bottom of the Hill, and I got to watch and film as they tore through the new songs. The video below captures not only the show opening, but some lovely post-set fashion modeling by singer/guitarist Greg Giles, a fascinating rumination on what it’s like to play live whilst pregnant by singer/keyboard player Kelly Atkins, and finally, a few comments on just how much the show sucked courtesy of bassist Adam Cunha.
Further 20ML Reading: Jeremy and I interviewed Greg, Kelly and Nils just before the release of their previous record, the equally and unnervingly awesome Yawn + House = Explosion for SF Station a couple years ago. The article is here, just don't ask me why those fuckers gave me such a puny, bottom-feeding byline.
What is the opposite of a Blowhard?
Whatever it is, David Carr is one. A blowsoft, let’s call him. He blows softly, but the words that he blows cut like a knife. His recent tour de force NY Times Magazine cover story, “Me and My Girls”, exemplifies the kind of writing that truly affects me. It’s all about economy of language. It’s all about cramming a shit-ton of meaning into every sentence, every beat. Writing like this inspires me, gives me goose bumps, and makes me proud that I somehow managed to stumble upon it:
The chronicity of addiction is really a kind of fatalism writ large. If an addict knows in his heart he is going to use someday, why not today? But if a thin reed of hope appears, the possibility that it will not always be so, things change. You live another day and then get up and do it again. Hope is oxygen to someone who is suffocating on despair.
Friends, this is as close as prose can get to poetry without slipping into verse. Read it.
The chronicity of addiction is really a kind of fatalism writ large. If an addict knows in his heart he is going to use someday, why not today? But if a thin reed of hope appears, the possibility that it will not always be so, things change. You live another day and then get up and do it again. Hope is oxygen to someone who is suffocating on despair.
Friends, this is as close as prose can get to poetry without slipping into verse. Read it.
Ultimate Corporate Tchotchkie Quest, Part 2
Well, the higher ups vetoed the Switchblade Comb (see it in all it's awesomeness below) .. something about not wanting to associate our product with a killing device, BLAH BLAH BLAH.
So I racked my brain and came up with what I now, truly and actually believe is the ultimate corporate tchotchkie. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Flp* Clip:
*Luckily I work for a company whose name rhymes with "clip"... otherwise it wouldn't work as well. I mean... VMware Clip? Nope, just not the same.
So I racked my brain and came up with what I now, truly and actually believe is the ultimate corporate tchotchkie. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Flp* Clip:
*Luckily I work for a company whose name rhymes with "clip"... otherwise it wouldn't work as well. I mean... VMware Clip? Nope, just not the same.
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