Giuseppe Zangara

Outside of "Working Class Hero" and maybe "God"—the latter of which is more notable for the lyrics than anything else—Plastic Ono Band doesn't have any real standout songs. Which isn't a criticism, mind you. It's just better appreciated as a whole than for any individual moment.

Subway is gross. And dirty. And they all smell funky. You ever notice that? Every Subway has the same odd aroma. Is it the bread? Must be.

Office party was this past Friday. Held at a swank country club, but the food was blah and you had to pay for the liquor. Really dull overall, so me and the gf didn't stay for long.

Your math only works assuming every penny of every CD sold goes to Best Buy. Best Buy makes very little money off the sale of individual CDs alone; that's been the case as long as they've been in business. What are the specifics of this exclusivity deal? Did Axl & Co. trade off the right to royalties in exchange for the $14 million? I doubt that. That money's largely going to pay off debts accrued during the recording of this album. Then, of course, there's the idea that once people go to Best Buy, they'll end up buying a bunch of other stuff, thus helping the chain make a profit. That's what they've been doing for years, so obviously it's worked for them, but is that happening with people who buy Chinese Democracy? How many of those people are going in there, picking up the album, and getting, say, a Blu Ray player or new refrigerator while they're at it?

No Reservations is basically Lou Reed's Lonely Planet.

Also, Good Eats is a fun show. I've known a lot of girls who've had the hots for Alton Brown, including two ex-gfs and my current girlfriend. I thought it strange at first, but I guess I can see it. Funny, knows a lot about cooking, and good looking in a Thomas Dolby sorta way. Sure.

Fun fact: I have appeared in an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I can be seen (for several seconds!) sitting at a table at the [place redacted], drunk and w/ dark circles under my eyes. If it looks like I haven't slept for days, it's because I hadn't. EDIT: Caught you lookin', Kreese.

I imagine you stamping your feet and gritting your teeth as you typed that. Now how much money do you think Best Buy will lose on this? And Kreese, though this did help the album make its money back, there's no way it would've turned a profit otherwise.

I've encountered enough girls who play with their hair when anyone talks to them to make me realize the whole "she only does it if she's into you" thing to be overstated. Or maybe I'm just a stud.

Accepting the fact that there was no way this album was going to turn a profit anyway, that's about as a good a first-week posting you're going to get from a new GNR album in 2008.

The writer himself doesn't fall into that line of thinking, though, yes, anyone familiar with West who would think that is displaying a certain naivety on his part. Given that a lot of Pitchfork hip-hop reviews in the past have often been a shameless showcase for their writers to show just how much they supposedly know about rap, I like that Plagenhoef doesn't kid himself about who he's writing the review for. Where he asks "So why is this approach, from this guy, now such a problem?" after citing acts like Battles and Dan Deacon ("wtf do they have to with Kanye West???"), it makes sense as people who go to read a review of the new Kanye West album at Pitchfork Media are likely going to have a passing familiarity with those artists. This isn't The Source.

Since I'm never going to stop eating there no matter how much I fool myself into thinking otherwise, my latest Einstein Bros. fave is the asiago bagel dog.

I would argue that his expression is the least puzzling thing about the cover.

There's hot naked chicks in it. Even if you don't get into the movie, it might be good for spank material.

Kreese, what's your opinion on Luis Buñuel? I recently watched That Obscure Object of Desire; I admired it, but found the characters a little too hateful to say I enjoyed it.

Oh, I know, but I couldn't think of any examples of oh-aren't-we-so-clever reviews off-hand. My point stands. All things considered, watching a video of a monkey drinking its own urine is preferable to reading 800 words of Brent DiCrescenzo's masturbation.

If the delay for both to appear was the result of each writer taking his time to write a fully considered piece on the albums in question, then good. Even though it was funny, the apologetic pugs from Partie Traumatic review must've taken less than an hour from concept to execution. I say the above there, but I realize another part of what makes these reviews work is that Ian Cohen and Scott Plagenhoef (the latter of which wrote, or was at least credited for that Black Kids "review") actually talked about the records. For the longest time, Pitchfork's problem was its writers were so in love with their own writing that they assumed it was good enough to carry each piece. Perhaps Ryan Schreiber et al. have realized that anyone surfing the Internet for music recs can go to countless different blogs or message boards and get their fill of snark and instant opinions. So now they have to offer something different. Or maybe I'm giving them (Pitchfork) too much credit; maybe these two reviews are exceptions to the rule. Perhaps the review for the next Franz Ferdinand album will be a YouTube of a baby eating cat shit.

Both the reviews for this album and Chinese Democracy are surprisingly well written. Are Pitchfork's days of self-consciously witty, "meta" reviews gone? I don't feel like sifting through current reviews of indie bands everyone will forget by next week to find out.

Here's the pic nice and big:

lol

Like fine wine, this thread.

He feels it validates his own opinion.

No fucking lie, I'd still hit that shit.

Kreese's long post up there was on point, mostly. I've said in the past that the story of the making of the album fascinates me endlessly, so of course I was more than to willing to talk about it.

I can't wear clothes that I know for a fact have been worn by someone else. So thrift-store shopping is forever out of the question. And I'm aware there's a good chance that any article of clothing I buy/try out at, say, Old Navy, has been worn by someone else, even if only briefly. It's easy to convince myself that I'm the first one to put on this shirt or those pants. Another thing about this: I'm not some germophobe, not at all. It's the idea that I'm wearing something that has once touched some strange person's skin that makes my own skin crawl.