Edwin MacPhisto

Wow. That was fucking good. A good promo creates options. With this combo summary/illumination, you've opened up a multitude of different paths to take after the PPV, regardless of whether you win or lose. Awesome. I haven't been able to keep up with the fed much but I am keeping up with this angle, and I'm really looking forward to that main event.

I thought Clinton's speech was excellent. All about Kerry and especially about the wisest direction for the Democratic party, which it sorely needs. Good choice to really kick everything off, and fun to watch, too.

And I forgot to mention: there was a guy in front of me during the Cure set who had very obviously just done a few lines of coke and wouldn't stop trying to make friends. He *really* enjoyed the show.

If you have any intent of going to college, I think taking a year off now is a mistake. The way you're describing it, it's not "I want to experience the world for a while" or "I don't have the money to do it right now." It's "I won't go because I don't think I can do it." Take a year off with that approach and I don't think you'll be getting back into it any time soon. If you don't add to your education in some way in the meantime, you're not going to get beyond that concern of college being either a waste or an impossibility. The community college idea is a good one, though I would say get into the best university you can and go full bore. You'll learn by fire if you must. Otherwise, community college, yessir. Without that you'll never start.

On Saturday, a friend of mine noticed that the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa had released some new seats for the Curiosa Festival the next day. Color me shocked when I found out that we could get pit tickets. In an amphitheatre like this, the pit is not that big and pretty much ensures that you’ll be within 50 feet of the stage no matter what. $49.50 plus and an assload of service fees made it about $63 total, but I figured, what the hell, I haven’t seen a show yet this summer and I do love me some Interpol, like me some Cure, and enjoy me some Rapture. No disappointments; this festival was fantastic. First of all, what a great idea to set things up so that performances on the main and second stage don’t overlap. I didn’t bother with the second stage too much except watching Cooper Temple Clause while I ate a hot dog, but a lot of people ran back and forth and caught all 8 bands. Good for them. The performances were great. Mogwai was pretty uninteresting, mostly on account of their Slint-ish wall-of-noise not faring so well in a largely empty amphitheatre and the open air. The Rapture, however, really surprised me. Echoes is okay, but I mostly just dig on “Olio,” “Sister Savior,” and “House of Jealous Lovers.” Yet these guys made me a fan in one 30-minute performance. They’re a bunch of kids having a good time playing music and dancing around, and they sure love their cowbells and saxophones. Really fun, danceable, great stuff that took a lot of lessons from the excellent DFA remixes. Crowd was way into them, and the guitarist gets bonus points for running around on the front of the stage and using his guitar as a rifle with this oddly bemused “I can’t believe I’m doing something this cheesy” face. Hilarious. For Interpol, I’ll just copy the PM I sent to Lord of the Curry with the recap: So I was already happy. The Cure then put on a very good show to top it all off. I won’t call it great, because there were a few flaws. One, it could have used an injection of more ridiculously great pop songs – no “Just Like Heaven,” “Catch,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Close to Me,” or “Why Can’t I Be You.” Two, the end of the main set really trudged along, ending with one nondescript number and “The Promise,” which essentially amounted to 15 straight minutes of chugging semi-monotony. Intense, but not necessarily a good call when you’ve only got an hour and 45 minutes to play. Griping aside, it was a very good show. “A Night Like This,” a sinewy “Fascination Street,” a surprising “Jupiter Crash,” “In Between Days,” “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea,” and a bunch more, including a superb finale of “A Forest.” "M" was another nice surprise. But the greatest moment by far was the double-shot of “Pictures of You” and my favorite Cure song, “Lullaby,” which amounted to about 12 minutes of pure baroque pop joy. Great lighting to boot; most of the designs were pedestrian (let’s show a forest for “A Forest!” And green water for “Deep Green Sea”!), but “Pictures of You” was off-the-charts gorgeous both visually and aurally. For $60, this was a steal. If there’s a show near you and you like any of these bands, go. Big-time recommendation.

Honorable mention goes to Billy Idol for putting on a $10 show in the middle of a field in rural Virginia. Bless his heart. 5. Tool, November of 2002. This marked both the second time I saw Tool and the first time I saw Tool without getting brutally kicked in the head. Gorgeous images, perfect musicianship, and "Opiate." Wowzas. 4. The Curiosa Festival, yesterday. How's that for immediacy, bitches? Superbly organized festival featuring blow-away performances from The Rapture and Interpol, and a luminous nightcap from Robert Smith and co. This one's boosted by the impulsiveness of my trip. Saturday afternoon, more pit tickets were released. A friend and I got them, headed out on Sunday, and had a blast 15 feet from the stage. GA is always the way to go. 3. Andrew WK, September of 2002. This was a revelation. I would pay $100 for the Andrew WK experience; anyone else who's seen him will understand why. He has this weird blend of party rock, super-cheesy motivational speech, and a steady smile. Pack 1000 party people into DC's 9:30 Club, let whoever can get onstage get there and go nuts. What a hell of a night. The second time I saw him comes close, but the first still has it for the amazement at how great he really was. 2. Prince, Musicology Tour, back in April. Not much needs to be said here; I think he's the most talented guy out there, and this set of hits was pretty much everything I could have dreamed. The show managed to be both balls-out rockin' and intimate, and I've never seen a crowd having so much fun. The best encore I've ever seen, the one that I always babble about ("The Beautiful Ones"/"Nothing Compares 2 U"/"Purple Rain") remains indescribable. 1. U2, Elevation Tour, opening night, in the heart. My favorite band at the time (and still way up there) at their finest; hits, new songs, rare tracks, reinventions. In an arena of 20,000 people, I had the good fortune of getting into the special GA section and was basically surrounded by the band and within 10 feet of them for the whole show. It was the debut of the new version of "The Fly," and it was pretty much a perfect night. My first truly euphoric concert experience, and one that will be hard to top.

He did for a show in Atlanta towards the beginning of this tour. The Time opened up, which is pretty awesome. Van Mundegarde might get lucky in the same fashion at one of his ATL shows if the pattern holds.

I'll take it, because this came up on google images when I searched for harelip:

I like that first one. Sign me up for some textual nonsense.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, though I haven't tried in a while. King of this is One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's so packed with straight-up fantastic writing that it's always a pleasure. And them there's Joyce's Ulysses; I've only read the whole thing once, but I can open up to any of the episodes and read one section again at any given time.

"Paisley Park" is splendid. I agree - top 10 material. I'm surprised he never turned into a huge hit. Ranking the albums is tough for me, mostly because I can never decide if I like the sprawl of Sign o' the Times more than the focused perfection of Purple Rain, or vice versa. Generally I go Purple, simply because, when someone asks, "what's your favorite album, period," Purple Rain is the first thing I say. The 80-87 period is pretty much a perfect run in terms of range, quality, and pop skillz. And everything outside that is still pretty good for a run, though the 90s material does work best when distilled down to a few tracks per album. A few tracks that I don't think get nearly enough love: "Sometimes It Snows In April," which is one of my favorite ballads. Gorgeous, minimal, perfect coda to a puzzler of an album. "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker," which is one of his best stories. And, even though I know it is quite popular, "When You Were Mine." Never will I get over how fun, funny, and intimate that manages to be. I'm thrilled that he decided to go big and really do a full-on, mainstream arena tour. I hope you're lucky enough to get an extended encore one of your nights; as I've said before, "The Beautiful Ones," "Nothing Compares 2 U," and "Purple Rain" one after another is about as great as you can get.

I have a weird history with these movies. Despite being mildly interested in them at best, I've seen both of them on their opening nights out of some random events. That said, I enjoyed this a lot. Another scenery-chewing role for Beloved Character Actor Brian Cox, and one thing I really admired: absolutely minimal CG. Everything felt very physical, grounded, and real, and I think the director managed to transcend a pretty conventional script. Nothing I'll be remembering in 5 years, but still a good time.

Wu-Tang Clan, "Gravel Pit." It came up on my iTunes shuffle about 10 minutes after I read Kotz's insert of the lyrics down in No Holds Barred. Bizarre, bizarro, sayeth the Meth.

When I saw Radiohead at Madison Square Garden, someone did actually manage to jump on stage. The security personnel tackled him and just slammed his head stiff into the ground. He was out cold immediately. Thom Yorke continued to twitch and have a club foot as if nothing had happened.

Someone else who's seen this, boom. I frickin' love this movie. It's embarrassing how bad any other film of horror stories is compared to this beast of coolness.

That's still the best picture taken. Of anybody. Ever. No, not the Tennessee one.

I like it. It's not earth-shattering, but I find it very charming and a really easy summer listen. It's got an odd sort of baroque-Strokes feel, for better and for worse. Standout tracks are probably "Jacqueline," "40'," and "Darts of Pleasure." I picked it up for $8, and I feel like that's about what it's worth. It's still sinking for me. Moments are great and a lot of the harmonies are wonderful, but in its entirety I'm finding it a bit too twee.

Andrew is incredibly loud, but it's a good loud. Your eardrums get happy instead of bleeding. More musicians need to let their fans onstage in massive swarming hordes.

yeah iced erth rulz

Hey, big congrats to Manson on grabbing the belt. Finally, some high-quality gold for all your efforts. I also really liked the Johnny/Landon promo; the inevitable rematch is going to be excellent. I always enjoy a feud that takes the simple things - you took my belt, you screwed me again, and I'm sick of it - and builds them into a series of killer matches that keep the story moving in the ring. That's definitely how this feels. Kudos.

The HOLT report is just something fun that Dub Cee (Mr. Slim Citrus, fella with the cyan letters) does for the shows - sort of a report of dark matches that of course didn't really happen and a take on the show from a fan's perspective, like the stuff that always gets sent to 411 or the Observer. It doesn't actually have any implications for your character; none of it really matters in continuity and kayfabe. Fear not.

Dark promo? More like dork promo!

There's one gas station in my town that still has 12 packs of Pepsi Blue. It's a bit scary. I loved Crystal Pepsi way back in the day. Actually, I loved the initial form - a few months in, I swear they changed the recipe, and it ended up being much less delicious.

If you're not counting the shitty opening acts Andrew W.K. tends to tote around with him, it's definitely the Rollins Band. Boom.

I'm going to continue to call him Janus with a hard J, because otherwise I'll be picturing him as the little guy from Ghostbusters 2. "Soon, the city will be mine and Vigo's...well, mostly Vigo's."