Thanks to webmaster and urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com CTO PCL for sending this:

If it had only dropped a couple years ago, it woulda been a contender!

Okay, people are requesting more excerpts from “DOOM DUST.” I’ll try posting another installment later this afternoon.

GET DUSTED!

By request, here’s more from the play I wrote in elementary school called “DOOM DUST.”

NARRATOR: Jarm didn’t know where he was. He had smuggled 231 samples of illegal weapons right under the ACFIB’s (Alien Care For Intelligent Beings) noses. Suddenly he knew where he was.

JARM: Oh, no! They dumped me on the prison planet of Nebulae! You can’t survive for more than 5 hours because the dust clogs your breathing organs! (I bet this is where the title “Doom Dust” comes from –ed.)

ISK: Then … I will die in less than 7 minutes.

JARM: Who are you?

ISK: Isk. Just Isk. Dumped here because I was thought to have shot 3 people.

HERE ENDETH THE EXCERPT. Give it up for that grammar, by the way. “I was thought to have shot 3 people.” I really snaked through the thicket on that one.

Time for another Friday Face-Offs! HOLD ON TO YOUR FACE OR IT MIGHT FALL OFF

This week’s Friday Face-Off is “You Belong With Me” by Cannibal Corpse Taylor Swift. Watch the original here:

Decent song. I picked it over Myley Csirus’s (sp) “Party in the USA,” which I find banal (save for that “zweet zwoot” sound in the chorus).

YEAH, I SAID IT: I FIND “PARTY IN THE USA” BANAL. She writes a whole song about that one time she was in a car and heard Jay-Z on the radio??? Like she’s Proust and “99 Problems” is a madeleine? C’mon, I hear Jay-Z all the time — you don’t hear me writing a song about it. (Can’t even tell if this rant makes sense, but screw it; I’m really down on “Party in the USA.”)

Besides, Taylor Swift and Milee Crysysz both get crushed by my girl Kelly Clarkson. Goddamn, why haven’t I done a “Since U Been Gone” FFO? That would be a scorched-earth internet phenom.

ANYHOO … let’s get this started! Friday Face-Offs! First contestant is up next!

The only thing badder-asseder than wearing an old grungy gas mask while you play your drum kit … is wearing a shiny, spotless, I’m-not-trying-to-buy-army-surplus, brand-new gas mask while you play your electronic drum kit. Almost makes me wonder if the mask and the drums are sold as a set … maybe in the “Chemical Ali Memorial Corner” at Guitar Center?

The drums sound so killer at the beginning of the song! “Gas mask keepin’ it in the pocket.”

Also, dig the honorary 3rd member of this band, a creature drawn to 5-string basses like a moth to flame (0:49).

FRIDAY FACE OFFS! “WHAT YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR HAS BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME”

I like this more than I should.

SPOILER: It’s two guys, right?

The diagram of the screen would be:

1 - 1 - 2
2 - 2 - 1

Where 1 = “Belushi Jr.”
And 2 = “Johnny Cheekbones”

Friday Face-Offs! EXPLORING THE FLUID NATURE OF ONLINE IDENTITY SINCE 2042.

What I like about this one is that, judging from the Christmas tree, and how blindingly shiny the headstock of that Epiphone is, we are witnessing the ol’ “first song played on the new Christmas guitar” ritual, like she tore off the wrapping paper and was like, “Oh hell yeah, the electric guitar I asked for! Mom and Dad you’re the best — now set up the video camera I’m about to SET IT OFF like a one-woman Shaggs guitar-tone cover band except I’m gonna sing that Taylor Swift song everyone likes!”

LOL, for what is Taylor Swift, if not an upper-middle-class one-woman Shaggs, y’know?

“Taylor, I’m a let you finish, but ‘My Pal Foot Foot’ is one of the best videos of all time!”

ALSO: From the user’s video description: Christmas 2009 - on to the next level

F*R*I*D*A*Y F*A*C*E*O*F*F*S

EXACTLY. (0:50) BRING IT HARD OR GO HOME THIS IS FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!!! (2:20)

I like this video because it’s basically how I sing along to any song released after 1995 — with an inarticulate mixture of crushing boredom and flashes of rage.

Friday Face-Offs! WE THROW GUITARS

I’m loving the bassist pretty hard. Are you kidding? (0:50)– game face is ON.

And notice how sad the drummer is after nailing the fill at (2:09). Yeah, she’s basically pretty sad.

But really? Watch this whole video and maintain your focus on the bassist and then get to (3:17) and tell me you’re not feeling irie.

My one criticism is the extreme disparity between the guitar amp and the bass amp. Poor kid is running his “thunderbroom” through some 1X12 Peavey while she’s got like a Marshall cab or something? C’mon, guys. FAIR IS FAIR.

Can I be serious for a second? One of my favorite things about Friday Face-Offs (this incredible internet thing I do every so often, like as in right now) is finding videos, where, I’m like, “Man, these people are great. The people in this video just seem soooo cool and awesome.” It makes me feel so happy! I’m not even kidding, guys! I know sometimes I come across as a grump (one of my 2010 goals is to smile more and look friendly instead of existentially constipated) but deep down I really like people and it makes me excited when people decide to get awesome.

Like, have you ever stayed out late with a good friend drinking and people-watching and suddenly you get this charged feeling, like “Holy shit everyone at this bar/cafe/club is JAMMING right now, everyone within my purview is fuckin’ COLD CHILLIN’ and having a GREAT time … everything’s gonna be okay, humanity is not destined to destroy itself, we just might make it!”

I had this feeling once at a bus station in Virginia in the middle of the night and it was AMAZING.

Also I had it with a good friend at that bar “Tryst” in Washington, D.C. (Famous cafe/bar where everyone’s updating their blogs all the time.) We were sitting at the window watching all the other bars let out and it was one of those scenes where nobody was mad at anyone and everyone was just holding it down like 5,000%.

All this to say, I get a real nice vibe from these two:

I LOVE YOU GUYS. I have rented us a van and I am going to drive you around the country and you will perform Taylor Swift songs for the people of this great nation while sitting on your sofa and I will sell t-shirts that say “WE’RE DOING THIS” and we will make lots of money and at the end of every song you will hold your head in your hands like you do in this video in that special way that makes me so happy so if you’re ready to execute this amazing plan text “MNFTIU TOUR BEGINS ASAP” to 2350926094641123.

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!!! “I’m on the bleachers.”

Plinkety-plinkety-plink! Ragtime!

This guy puts the “swift” in “Taylor Swift.”

Friday Face-Offs! Winning video is next!!!!

TIME TO ROCK.

Get in your car and CRANK THIS and roll down the street and get more respect than you know what to do with.

Dude, did you hear that keyboard??? WHAT.

I promise if you listen to this from beginning to end, you will feel illegally high.

“Can’t you see / you belong with Friday Face-Offs!” FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!

And now, let us never speak of Taylor Swift again.

Have a great weekend.

I just realized that we have another week. Let’s get to it!

Last week’s Friday Face-Offs generated an enormous amount of reader mail. (Almost four emails!) Here’s a sampling:

From reader KG, an accusation:

It has gradually dawned on me that there is an insidious aspect to Friday Face-Offs that I can no longer deny. Essentially, you have created–whether intentionally or inadvertently–the greatest earworm delivery service known to man.

Being myself in the official “fuddy duddy” category, I have often never heard or even heard of some of the songs you feature in FFO. When I listen to the original song in your first FFO post, I often don’t care for the song. ‘This is something I would never listen to,” I say to myself. “This isn’t even a good song. Why would a minimum of 6 to 8 people even want to cover it?”

By the time I reach the winning entry, however, the song is firmly embedded in my psyche, and I find myself humming it for days. I have even been known to go to iTunes and download a copy for myself. You win this round, Rees …

Reader DM chimes in on the spirit of FFO:

On a straight-up note, I would like to say that I straight up love your humanism. To sully that praise with an awkward comparison, it reminds me of Parks and Recreations vs. The Office. Both have some satirical components, but Parks and Recreations seems to have an admiration and love for its characters/people whereas the Office so often just makes fun of things with cringe-inducing vulgarity. There’s a sweetness about your aesthetic of “glorified normality” that is refreshingly lovely in our age of saturation and cynicism.

Exactly! The whole point of Friday Face-Offs is to strike a blow against cynicism. It’s about leaning back and enjoying some jams!

Speaking of which, this week’s FFO is going to be a classic. I’ve picked a great song that lends itself to glorious interpretations.

Let’s talk soon on the internet.

What do you think they sound like? I’m imagining a John Zorn vibe.

An email from reader EK shows he gets the spirit of FFO:

I have been contemplating writing this message since Friday night, after viewing and reading the Taylor Swift edition of Friday Face-Offs. Your sign-off at the end of the countdown (”And now, let us never speak of Taylor Swift again”) implies that you share my basic assessment of this song and its singer (”not so good, really”), but I believe that I apprehended what is beautiful about the FFO project: tapping into the joy that compels people to upload their renditions of these songs to the Internet.

Even the apparent narcissism of many Internet videos disappears, and their creators’ basic longing for sharing and connection is on display. FFO is not about Taylor Swift at all, but about humans reaching outward into the world.

Exact-a-mundo-lutely! Friday Face-Offs is a celebration of enthusiasm. Just like the old Pontiac ad says: “We build excitement!”

If it’s Friday, it must be time for

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!

Welcome to the 22nd installment of an internet legend.

This week’s song is “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon. Watch the original here:

This is a pretty good pop song. I think it won a Grammy a couple years ago, which is interesting, because so did “Beautiful Day” by U2, which has many rhythmic and structural and tonal similarities to “Use Somebody,” so what I’m saying is, if you’re really dead-set on winning a Grammy, you should write a song in this style (and if you win you have to thank MNFTIU in your acceptance speech), but the cool thing is, we don’t really care about winning Grammys, we care about watching Friday Face-Offs, so let’s get down to it, because this is gonna be one of the all-time hottest Friday Face-Offs!

Friday Face-Offs! Faces fallin’ off every which way.

PS: I need to warn you guys—this song will be stuck in your head like a muhr-fuhr-kuhr by the end of the day.

This is how you start a hot Friday Face-Offs. First ten seconds of this video? So exciting. Whetting your appetite. Getting you pumped. Getting you ready. Eric Stanley is about to rip it up.

Eyeglasses? ENGAGED. Violin? ACTIVATED. Viewers? READY TO ROCK.

My favorite moment is 0:15, where he’s trying not to betray how much he loves “Use Somebody” and how psyched he is to lay down some fat vio-riffage over the track. Look at him trying not to smile! Love it!

Friday Face-Offs is back! Get yr rosin ready!

These guys are trouble, right? They must be. You don’t play the claves like that unless you’re the biggest bad-ass in town, and also? Mark Ruffalo is totally holding it down on guitar.

I like to imagine they were watching their soccer match and all of a sudden one of them was like, “Hey let’s record a version of ‘Use Somebody’ real quick! Everyone pick an instrument they barely know how to play and let’s just rip this and get famous. And by the way leather jackets are MANDATORY.”

I love the final soul-moan at the end (1:47), where he sounds like a Luther Vandross balloon that’s being deflated.

By the way: if you’re having trouble following the lyrics, somebody was kind enough to transcribe them in the comments section to this video:

I was rapping the black in the other down before my beat,
And the place to place do you want to ??? (”rob”? –ed.) the one I see,
You know you last to please my body
You know you was to please somebody
CHORUS:
Someone like you ( x 2)
I was black in the ??? (”broom”? –ed.) bless in now the door the moon I stay,
In the lost today you want the break you want my stay,
I know you last to please my body
I know you last to breast my body
CHORUS:
The breast like you, someone like you.
Oh …

Why is this so funny to me? Reading transcripts of half-remembered lyrics sung in strange accents always makes me giggle. Am I a child, or a man? Only the Kings of Leon know …

I. LOVE. THIS.

(I think that’s the first time I’ve ever done the “ALL CAPS-PERIOD-ALL CAPS-PERIOD” internet-writing technique.)

Anyway, yeah: I. LOVE. THIS.

Just listen to it two or three times and then get back to me and we’ll discuss it …

1. When did I know this was the jump-off? At precisely (0:29), when he says “Listen–” That’s when I rang the “this-guy-knows-what-he’s-doing” alarm. No looking back.

2. How about two seconds later (0:31) when the beatbox kicks in, with the fist pumping? That works for me.

3. When it gets to (0:45), I need you to focus on the hand motions he’s making in the rightmost square/quadrant/sector. That’s how you make hand motions while you’re singing.

4. Also, is it just me, or did he freakin’ double the lead vocal? That’s really bad-ass. It sounds thick like he doubled it, but there’s only one video of him singing the lead, so if he did double it, he’s being sly about it, which I love.

5. Mainly, this guy can just sing. It’s nice.

6. Overall, it’s not a bad way to show off your hat collection.

Are you kidding me? Look at what happens at (0:03), I mean come on—does she find her groove very hard right then?

Putting aside the off-the-charts-breaking-the-needle adorableness factor, one of the reasons I love this woman and want her to join my traveling band of Friday Face-Offs champions is because she completely ignores the bridge and doesn’t sing along—because, let’s be honest, this song has no kind of bridge. (Remember earlier when I was comparing “Use Somebody” to “Beautiful Day?” The biggest difference between them is that U2 actually wrote a pretty hot bridge, whereas Kings of Leon probably woke up from some kind of sex-and-drugs binge and was like, “Oh yeah, we need a bridge, record label says we gotta have a bridge, okay let’s spend all of nine seconds writing a bridge.”)

By the way, the comments to this video are GREAT. Because everyone hates her and is rooting against her, LOL—yeah, people are really hating on her:

“Man oh man”. I love your voice! Whachuknow about Kings of Leon???

Speaking of that comment, I gotta say: Yeah, why are black people so into this song? I was not expecting to find so many black folks representing this song. I guess it’s because the lead vocal lends itself to melisma and “black singing?” Much more so then the lead vocal to, say, “You Belong With Me.” Anyway, people are killing this vocal left and right on youtube, and this is a hot fuckin’ Friday Face-Offs and you love it and I love it.

HONORABLE MENTION:

This video compliments the Jandek, Jr. video from a couple weeks ago. Beautiful composition as only accidental web-cam placement can provide. Look at those blues. Look at her face balanced by the mask. Just a nice, clean composition. Singing is okay, too.

I should go into Robert Christgau mode and give this an A-. You know how he gives 90% of the records he reviews an A-, until it doesn’t mean anything anymore? He’ll write some inscrutable esoteric shit where you can’t tell if he’s describing Finnegan’s Wake or the new Nickelback CD and then he’ll just give it an A-.

Here’s how Robert Christgau would describe this video:

“Contra Clapton, it’s in blue rooms where shadows run from themselves. Less “Use Somebody” than “Blues Somebody,” she knows to make allowances for tones between tones. Then again, if Miles Davis hadn’t dropped “Kind of Blue,” the Kings of Leon would be 50% less Kinks and 10% more Leon Redbone and we’d spread Aquafresh in our eyelashes. Village Blue Preservation Society, anyone? Sympatico, natch. Wooden masks rarely sing along . . . it’s a prog thing. GRADE: A-“

And you’re like, “Dude, what the hell are you talking about? It’s a goddamn 3-minute song. Should I listen to it 100 times in a row, or not?”

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS!!! You know that I could use some Fridaaayyyy!

In his video description, he apologizes for “the bussing noise,” and I’m like, “dude why are you apologizing for the most baddest-ass, accidentally in-key sound I’ve heard all week that is making this one of my hottest go-to jams that I’m gonna loop and blast in my car when I’m driving to Key Food to buy more yams???”

Things just keep getting more incredible and adorable.

This is basically St. John’s wort in video form:

Listen, I know the dirty secret of Friday Face-Offs: I know a lot of you just read my comments and don’t watch the videos. People say, “Hey that was a good Friday Face-Offs last week!” And I say, “Dude, did you love that one video when the kid hits the falsetto?” And they say, “I didn’t watch the videos, but your comments were funnny.” ARRRGGHGHH WRONG. You need to watch the goddamn videos! Set aside an hour and freakin’ do it. If you watch the Super Bowl on television, you don’t go around bragging about how you played in the Super Bowl! Same rules apply here! You haven’t experienced Friday Face-Offs until you’ve watched every goddamn video I have commanded you to watch! (Not sure if the Super Bowl analogy worked, but you get the point: True FFO-heads watch videos.)

So here’s my proposition to all FFO-posers who don’t usually watch the videos: why don’t you do me a favor and do yourself a favor and watch this video and if you’re not feeling good after thirty seconds you can stop, but if you find that it’s lifting your spirits then keep watching and just be aware of how sad you’re getting until you’re so sad you’re crying on the floor like “Waah, why are these ladies making me feel so sad, why do they have such a negative gloomy attitude,” LOL because umm yeah that’s exactly not how you will be feeling.

“Why?” The drummer, that’s why. He looks like he escaped from a Paper Rad show. The bassist’s visor doesn’t hurt, either. Check out (1:11) when the bassist checks in with the drummer, like, “You know I’m totally about to start poppin’ off, right?” and then (1:13) when he starts nodding his head soooo jammingly.

In the comments people are slamming the drummer, but I like this kind of floppy drumming style. It works for this song. Because, what? It’s like a Sunday afternoon and you’re chilling in your dorm and you want to record a version of a song you like and so why bring in a PhD in Drumming to help out? Just throw a kit together and get floppy.

FRIDAY FREAKIN’ FACE-OFFS! Winning video is next!!!

Blog reader (and birthday boy) MH made me a great sampler CD of contemporary heavy metal: Genghis Tron, Necrophagist, etc. I was relieved to hear the screaming monster vocal style is still the default mode of expression within that genre.

This kid holds his own against all those bands. He’s like “David After Dentist” meets Myotonia.

There’s a great line in Joe Meno’s novel “Hairstyles of the Damned” about a feeling I know well—loving a song so much it risks inducing violence: “What was it about that song? I loved that song so much it sometimes made me want to kick a hole in the wall.”

It’s like this kid is trying to kick his voice through a wall.

In the opening moments, I imagine him talking to his blankie: “ARGGGHH Blankie, I love this song so freakin’ much I can’t believe it!!! Kings of Leon!!!” Then at (1:24) it’s too much for him: “Get me out of this car seat and into the pit! I need to put my foot through a wall NOW.” But then he also has flashes of profound calm and contentment (1:31). I’ll bet you nine prayer-shawls this kid is a bodhisattva.

FRIDAY FACE-OFFS! “We did it again.”

Have a great weekend.

What a pope, huh guys? That’s some pope we got there.

1. Hope

I’ve been scouring the internet for my pope research. Man, there are like over 100 facts about the pope!

Apparently he lives in his own special city in Rome, called “Vacation City.”

He wears a white dress and holds a scepter.

He can speak English like normal people, but he can also speak Latin (Bible-language the ancient gods spoke) and German (the language of love).

As soon as I find more pope facts, I’ll post them here.

In honor of tax week, I’ve applied for an extension for this week’s Friday Face-Offs. It’ll be back next week.

I’ll be liveblogging from the wine shop starting around noon EST. “Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus.”

Big show tomorrow night! Anyone who travels 5+ hours to attend GETS IN FREE.

It’s on, I’m in the shop. Holy toe-lee-dough this California Cabernet is SMOKING. “Who says you can’t make wine in California?” Come by and grab a bottle of this Wyatt Cab … it’s nice.

You guys know about this wine? It’s a white wine. I just sold two bottles of it. “Now you know.”

I sometimes call white wine “the other wine,” because it’s not red wine, which is what I consider “the real wine.”

But they have a nice white wine open right now for tasting … as soon as I get a minute I’ll go copy down the info and post it online, here, on this web site, so you can see it.

“When You Were Young” by the Killers banging’ on wine-shop Pandora internet radio???

“Fuhgeddaboutit,” we’re ON FIRE right now.

I’m about to get a goosebump up in this motherfucker and I’m not even joking.

I’m working in the wine shop with T., a brilliant grad from the Culinary Institute of America who knows A LOT about wine. He’s like 20 years younger than me. He was looking at my comedy show flyer (scroll down to see it) and he just delivered his verdict: “Epic fail.”

LOL, “color me humbled.”

Next flyer? Nothin’ but helvetica. GET READY.

Anybody see that Lars Von Trier movie called “Anti-Christ?” (I think it’s a children’s movie or something?)

Anyway, apparently at one point in that movie — right before things go completely buck-wild, a fox pops his head up and looks at the camera and says, “Time to go crazy!!!”

Well, that’s about where we’re at right now in the store … bottles flying off shelves … people LOVING this Spanish white wine … and the California red wine … it’s on, it’s on, the party is on …

Buy that wine …

“Our job is turning Mondays into Fridays. Let’s get to work.”

Are you kidding? Look at how early it is. Amazing. I have to drive in my car to a secret location for the first day of census training. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s census time!

I’ve been having so much sharpening #2 pencils at my U.S. Census training, I’ve decided to open a mail-order artisanal pencil-sharpening business.

Basically you’ll mail me your unsharpened #2 pencils and I will hand-sharpen them and mail them back to you. This service won’t be cheap, because each pencil will receive my undivided attention.

More details soon … for now, let me just say I really enjoy being a total genius!

That was quick! Thanks to Mike Houston of Cannonball Press for designing and printing the logo for my new business!

More information next week on 1.) how to get a copy of this print and 2.) how to get your pencils sharpened by ME.