Press Release of the Week: Bad taste is universal

Every couple years, I see an advertisement claiming that either Busch or Pabst is "America's favorite beer" based on some sort of large-scale taste test. Which has always led me to believe that either a) these contests are rigged or fictional, or b) people (when taken together as a large group) have really lousy taste. In other words, many individuals have okay taste -- I'd probably vote for Anchor Steam; I know Dave would vote for Brooklyn Brown -- but when you average out everyone's taste to reach a common denominator ... well, you realize the common denominator pretty much always sucks ass.

This hypothesis was bolstered this week when Sony announced the Top One Hundred Songs worldwide, as voted on by more than 700,000 people in a poll linked up to the company's introduction of its Walkman phone (a product that's pretty much what you would imagine: a phone with a built in ipod-like device).

Here are the top ten:

1. Queen, We Are the Champions
2. Britney Spears, Toxic
3. Michael Jackson, Billy Jean
4. The Eagles, Hotel California
5. Shakira, La Tortura
6. Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit
7. The Beatles, Yesterday
8. U2, One
9. John Lennon, Imagine
10. Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing

I had the same reaction to seeing these results that I have whenever I see one of those beer commercials. Not only are some of the picks kind of crappy, many of them just don't make any logical sense. "Busch? People picked Busch?" (a sentiment I feel like I've uttered on numerous occasions, incidentally).

I mean, Queen: fine. I actually like Queen, but is "We Are the Champions" really the band's best song (I'd vote for "Under Pressure" or "Somebody to Love")? Although at least I can make some sort of twisted sense of the WATC pick, given its omnipresence in sports arenas worldwide. But then how to explain Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing," which is not only clearly NOT the band's best song (I'd reserve that spot for "Romeo and Juliet"), but which would also seemingly lose out in a popularity contest to "Money for Nothing," that staple of 1980s MTV?

And do I even need to mention my sense of shock at the selection of Britney Spears? Or Shakira? I don't even know what "La Tortura" sounds like. I wouldn't expect to necessarily LIKE the 5th Most Popular Song of All Time, but I would at least expect to be able to hum a few bars.

Now, I know what you're thinking: But these are crazy Europeans, Mike. These are the same people who periodically throw random early eighties dance numbers up to the top of the Worldwide Pop Charts for seemingly no reason. These are the same people who like techno and David Hasselhoff. Well, kiddies, I thought that too. Until I read a little further down in the press release and found out that in the U.S. version of the poll, Shakira held the Number One and Number Two spots, with "La Tortura" and "No," respectively.

Let me just repeat that little bit of weirdness: The two most popular songs of all time, as voted on by America, are both by Shakira. As Shakespeare once famously said, something stinks like poo-filled diapers in Denmark (or, in this case, Detroit and Duluth).

So how to explain this little bit of irregularity? First of all, whenever I see a poll like this, my first question is: What were the choices? Unfortunately, the voting is now closed, and Sony doesn't say. But the fact that Shakira won is, in some ways, less dubious than the fact that Shakira was even included to begin with. And if you scroll beyond the Top Ten (which you can do on the web site), there's even more Shakira, and even more Britney!

Now, what do these two "artists" have in common, aside from midriff and questionable vocal talents? If you guessed "They're both signed to Sony or one of its subsidiaries," then pat yourself on the back, you justifiably cynical bastard. Also a Sony artist? Michael Jackson (who has lots of songs in the top 100). Queen was not signed to Sony (should I use the present tense, or can we all pretend like Queen isn't still touring minus Freddie Mercury?). But Sony did recently release "Killer Queen," a tribute album, and the first track on that album is ... you guessed it ... "We Are the Champions," as sung by Gavin DeGraw.

So, kids, let's review what we've learned:

1. Some individuals have good taste, but people as a whole have very bad -- or at least very weird -- taste.
2. Shakira is the greatest recording artist of all time.
3. Sony owns 43.2% of the entire world.

Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot

Have you been wondering, like me, whether you're better suited to be a monkey, ninja, pirate, or robot? Don't worry, because this quiz will help you sort it all out.

I'm a pirate, by the way. But that's just how I roll.

Brett Easton Ellis, you got served -- by Stephen King!

For a while now -- at least a year, maybe a bit longer --- Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King) has had a back-page column in Entertainment Weekly, in which he writes about ... well, pretty much whatever he feels like writing about. It's pretty clear EW has given him free reign, which quite often results in moments of unintentional comedy as the author explores the wilds of pop culture like he's your trying-to-be-hip, 60-year-old uncle. A few months ago, for instance, King babbled on about how cool these new ipod thingamajigs were, and how you can -- get this! -- download music from the Internet.

This week, though, King turns his attention to writing -- specifically, Brett Easton Ellis' new novel Lunar Park -- and writes what has to be his best EW column yet (not that the competition was very stiff). Maybe he should have stuck to writing about books from the start.

I haven't read Lunar Park yet, so I can't say whether I agree with King's assessment of the book (he liked it). But I thought his brief, biting review of American Psycho was a very accurate, and funny, description of what went wrong in that novel:

"I'm not quite a Brett Easton Ellis virgin. I read American Psycho just to see what all the bellowing was about, and thought it was bad fiction by a good writer, the sort of hectoring narrative you can't wait to get away from at a party, delivered by a guy who's backed you into a corner and keeps telling repetitive anecdotes while his drink dribbles slowly onto your shirt."

Burn!

And I couldn't agree more. I'm actually a fan of Ellis' other work -- particularly his first couple novels; even, to some extent, the weird, surrealist Glamorama -- but American Psycho I couldn't even finish.

King goes on to say lots of nice things about Lunar Park, which is like "John Cheever writes The Shining." He also thinks it's unfair that critics "have stuck it in the literary microwave and given it about four hours on high."

"Even in American Psycho, that boringly bloodthirsty book, it was clear to me that Ellis was a fine storyteller. It's this facet of his writing that has most appealed to readers and been most overlooked by critics. It seems at times to have appalled Ellis himself (one could almost believe it's the Terby hidden inside his laptop, flexing its claws). I got a clear sense of Lunar Park starting almost as a joke -- perhaps a rather desperate one, part apology for American Psycho -- and having finished as what is close to a credo. That is the true magic of novels, which often possess more strength (and reality) than their creators suppose: They see into our secret hearts."

Banned Books Week

Hey Kids -- It's Banned Books Week. With all the incredibly bad other shit that's going on right now, the fact that Native Son, Slaughterhouse Five, Beloved, and hundreds of other important works are still getting knocked around almost slips right by you.

Say what you want about the librarians, but they do not take any shit on this matter. The American Library Association has loads of information on their site, including this list of the 100 most frequently challenged books from 1990 -- 2000.

The Name of This Band is Snaggletooth Rex

This is kind of a follow to my post about bad names for your fantasy football team. Kistulentz noted that many of these bad fantasy team names were also bad band names, and I know I'm not the only one who's spent an inordinate amount of time dreaming up names for bands that I am not in and will never assemble (seeing as to how I have no musical talent, can't sing, and don't know anybody who might be in a position to name their band, and can't imagine why anybody in the position to name a band would give up the privilege).

But anyway...I'm not the only one with a host of imaginary bands, am I? With imaginary band names? And I play the lead guitar and sing on a few songs, kind of like Keith Richards but a better singer, and with less bangles. You all do that, too, right?

Right?

Anyway, here are my imaginary band names and the kind of imaginary music they play.

Snaggletooth Rex: kind of grunge, kind of pop, kind of hard rock.

Plumb Loco: southern rock

Mother and the Fuckers: Clash-like punk/ska (as opposed to third wave type punk/ska)

Fuckie and the Uppers: see above

Giant Angry Midgets: power pop

Crazy Retard Strength: metal

And by the way, best real band name ever has to be Seven Mary Three. The band itself, not so much, but the name is taken from Ponch's call numbers on CHiPs ("seven mary three, come in, seven mary three...").

Come on, I know I'm not the only one out there. What are your imaginary band names.

Barrelhouse gets to sit at the (imaginary) lunch table next to Brett Lott

Just a bit of self-congratulatory back patting: Barrelhouse was featured in this month's Emerging Writers Network E-Panel alongside the editors of Carve, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, Controlled Burn and The Southern Review (edited by the aforementioned Mr. Lott).

Get an inside look at how we do the voodoo that we do.

The Sports Guy Interviews Josh Schwartz

I missed this the first time around (a few weeks ago), but Bill Simmons, ESPN's "Sports Guy" -- and official "Friend of Barrelhouse Who Doesn't Know We Exist" -- interviewed Josh Schwartz, creator of The OC.

For British Eyes Only

I just have to second Dave's assessment of Arrested Development. I missed the first episode of Season 3, but this show's genius was displayed in so many ways in the second episode that I am still laughing. And with next week's introduction of Scott Baio as Attorney Bob Loblaw, it will only get better. I say, if you can get the whole cast of Happy Days on the show while maintaining this level of comedy, go for it! Pottsie, Mouth, bring it on!

What's Going On?

There's really not much I can say about this, except that it involves the characters from the He-Man cartoon singing a techno rendition of that 4 Non Blondes song. If that doesn't sound like your particular cup of tea, then, well, maybe it's best to just move along. For the rest of you: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll laugh some more. Sound definitely required.

One Sentence Reviews of the New Television Season

Skpping ahead a day...one sentence reviews of some of the new television season:

Alias: Ah shit, she’s pregnant – well, that was pretty good while it lasted (but maybe this will at least dissuade JJ Abrams from going again to that dried out “Rimbaldi/Evil Derevko Sister” plotline he keeps crawling back to like Tara Reid to an open bar).

The Apprentice: Same old, same old, getting kind of, uh, old.

The Apprentice, Martha Stewart: “You just don’t fit in” is the worst catchphrase since “wha’ happened” and somehow this spinoff manages, in just one episode, to be more stale than the original.

Arrested Development: Still fucking fantastic.

CSI: Amish: This show, following the fascinating work and private lives of Amish crime scene investigators, is the best, most groundbreaking CSI since CSI: Scranton; Keanu Reeves work as brilliant and conflicted, zipper-phobic, quilt-obsessed lead investigator, Detective Elmer “Beechy” Beechy, is among his best.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: See above, Arrested Development.

Daily Show: Somehow the best comedy on TV is also the best news show on TV.

Desperate Housewives: if you still care then you failed to notice last year that this show, despite a handful of (extremely well advertised/publicized) inspired moments (Bree on trying to kill her husband: “well I feel badly about that”), really isn’t very interesting, funny, dramatic, compelling, or, uh, good.

Everybody Hates Chris: Pretty good, if a little “sitcom-y” sitcom about Chris Rock’s early years.

Extras: It’s not The (BBC) Office, but its still Ricky Gervais, and watching him put his foot in his mouth and try to extract it is, apparently, funny in any environment.

Family Guy: See above, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Ghost Whisperer: Jennifer Love Hewitt talks to ghosts (and I think that statement speaks for itself) in a crappy show that manages to rip of a TV show and a book at the same time.

Head Cases: This legal dramady starring Chris O’ Donnell as The Normal One and Adam “The Hebrew Hammer” Goldberg as the Crazy One is sure to be around for a long, long -- what’s that you say? -- oh, never mind, it got canceled already.

How I Met Your Mother: The new season must totally suck suck sucking suck-suck if this show, which is basically a watered down smoothie made from Friends and The Single Guy (that’s right, the show is so bad that it absolutely demands Single Guy references), and, well, all of those Friends rip-offs that they foisted on us in the nineties (anybody remember any of those by name? it’s practically a drinking game category in and of itself), is anywhere near anybody’s lists of best news shows.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (okay, this isn’t new, but nobody out there watched it, right?): Acerbic, politically incorrect, occasionally just boring and disjointed, occasionally really funny series about a bunch of twentysomething slackers who buy a bar in Philadelphia and get into wacky hijinks with titles like “Charlie Has Cancer,” “The Gang Gets Racist,” “Charlie Wants an Abortion,” and “Charlie Gets Molested.” If I had another sentence it would say: “Sorry Charlie.” If I had one more it would say: “Ha ha.”

Lost: Starting to feel a little like Twin Peaks, what with the apparitions talking backwards, new characters leaking in to jazz up season two, and that crazy dude in the hatch and all, but let’s hope that unlike David Lynch’s early nineties detective show, which was really, really great for one season and one season only, the people behind Lost actually know what’s going on.

NFL: The Redskins improbable, undefeated start has saved me the horror of having my team’s games announced by Brian Baldinger and/or Tim Green...for the time being (oh, and what’s with all the shit going on at these games lately? If I want to sacrifice my self-respect and go to a Jessica Simpson concert, I’ll go to a Jessica Simpson concert).

Numb3rs: Dude, they totally solve crimes with math.

Quiznos Commercials: Talking babies, way creepy.

The Office: Still no match for the original, but the American version wisely capitalizes on Steve Carrell’s sweet/goofy performance in The 40 Year Old Virgin by playing down the snarky factor and letting some of the melancholy that pulled its BBC cousin along, at least in the first episode, which is the best so far.

Rome: HBO’s pretty good Roman drama is worth it if only to watch Polly Walker as Atia, basically playing the The OC’s Julie Cooper in ancient Rome (uncannily accurate character description from HBO’s website: she is “snobbish, willful, and cunning. She is also sexually voracious and totally amoral”).

Simpsons: Still on, still funny, just not as funny as it used to be.

Taradise: Let’s hope America is up for another Family Guy style fight, because word has it that E is set to pull the plug on this train wreck, which stars train wreck Tara Reid (in what used to be called “Wild On”) partying in train wreck fashion across the globe in such a vacuous, stupid, and incredibly watchable way that this just might be the most entertaining show on TV right now.

Veronica Mars: Everybody who loved Buffy loves Veronica Mars and yes, that is a very, very good thing.

Still waiting for…Man Versus Beast III. Celebrity Boot Camp II: Private Coolio’s Revenge.

Please come back, Dave Chappelle.

Rock Paper Scissors Fire Gun Water Nuclear Explosion

Today is movie day but my moviegoing has been adversely affected by the following factors: no good movies, I am lazy, the NFL.

So, courtesy of the Backwards City Review's blog, here's an little time waster, an update/expansion on the old Rock Paper Scissors game, simply knowns as RPS-15.

Interesting to note, my friend Tim and I actually created an updated version of RPS when we were in high school. It was, of course, a drinking game (and I'm sure we weren't the only restless kids drinking in cornfields in small towns making up RPS drinking games).

Ours was called Rock Paper Scissors Fire Gun Water Nuclear Explosion (RPSFGWNE), and it was, far as I can tell, pretty similar to RPS 15. We had fewer "gestures," which was important when you were drinking in the middle of a cornfield, since most games tended to end in tangential arguments about whether a gun would actually live through a nuclear explosion (hey -- we didn't say it would still be relevant, we just said it would still be around).

You can guess the gesture for gun. For nuclear explosion you kind of held your palm upwards and flat, as if you were checking for rain, then made a whooshing sound and pushed upwards. Anything with gun or nuclear explosion was, of course, multiplied by two, in terms of drinks awarded, because it was, after all, a life or death matter.

RPSFGWNE also included the additional and unnamed gesture of "Fuck," which beat everything and for which the loser had to drink half his beer. As long as nobody else threw Fuck. If more than one person threw Fuck, then everybody who Fucked had to drink their whole beer.

So there you have it, my gift to you. Grab a case of Busch, hit the nearest cornfield, and enjoy.

Finally, a board game Michelangelo and Donatello can get...well...on board with...

Ladies and Gents, if you are looking for the "next" thing in board games, look no further than Cluzzle. Cluzzle is what you get when you mix...yup, you guessed it--clay and puzzles. The game is just like pictionary, but with clay, but HERE’s THE TWIST!!!—you don’t win if no one can guess what it is!!! So your sculpture must be semi-competent! See! See how fun it is!! As the ad for Cluzzle says:

"Cluzzle is a fast-paced game filled with laughter and incredulous eye-rolls…"

Are the eye-rolls themselves incredulous, like "up in the skull showing nothing but the whites incredulous"--in which I must posit that demonic possession is probably taking place, or are the eye-rolls only expressing incredulousnessity? You be the judge. Buy the game.

Full Disclosure: I went to college with the designer of Cluzzle and to be honest, I find the dude to be very annoying. However, any publicity is good publicity as they say, and I guess since I'm not a successful bored game designer who won $15,000 playing MAGIC: THE NERDY CARD GAME, the joke's on me.

Press Release of the Week: Down With the Monarchs, Up With Democracy

Finally, the day that all you freedom-loving Barrelhousers have been waiting for: someone has mustered up the courage to break down yet another oppressive, monarchic structure in favor of a more democratic ideal! And what I'm talking about here, of course, is playing cards.

No more Kings and Queens and Jacks ruling over the deck with their iron fists! No more "boring numbers." Ted Soloview, a graphic designer from Alaska, has invented a new "democratic" deck featuring a 64-person family in six generations.

"My customers asked me the quick explanation of this game. I told them, it's like playing cards. But instead of three characters of King, Queen and Jack, in my deck each card is a costumed member from a non-monarchic family. Here we match husband and wife, children and parents, but not the boring numbers anymore. It's not a fight between four suits; it's matchmaking and creation of the family."

And for those of you who love the thrill of gambling but want to throw off the shackles of traditional cards' monarchic rule, you're in luck: Soloview has introduced a new game, GenPoker, which is almost exactly like regular poker, if by "exactly like" you mean "completely different than." Soloview explains, on his own web site:

GENPOKER, as most of the Poker games, is a game of chance. The name "Genpoker" comes as a combination of two words: GENERATIONS and POKER. The major difference with Poker is: a card with lower number in Genpoker always has more value.

Genpoker is played with a standard 72-pack of Six Generations cards, but in the beginning the players must remove 8 cards from category #6 out of the deck, and play only with other 64 cards. The cards to withdraw are: any 4 couples from the same nation (country) from Set #6, total of 8 cards.

The other 64 cards to play with are divided into six categories, or sets. Each category portrays a different generation. There are couples from 16 countries of early 19th century Europe (32 cards) and five generations of American descendants (16, 8, 4, 2 and 2 cards), the last generation of which is a brother and sister living at the start of the 21st century.

The cards are ranked (from high to low) Children (#1) - 2 cards, Parents (#2) - 2 cards, Grandparents (#3) - 4 cards, XX century (#4) - 8 cards, Victorian (#5) - 16 cards, and Europe (#6) - 32 cards. The cards are also divided into "Europeans" (32 cards #6), "Americans" ( 32 cards from #5 to #1); "Ancestors" (62 cards from #6 to #2), and "Children" (2 cards #1).
There are two suits: red (women) and black (men), 32 cards of each suit; however, no suit is higher than another.

What could be simpler than that?

Of course Soloview's realistic about the future: "It might take some time before Las Vegas will accept this new deck to play poker in their casinos, but the time could come."

I have a writing-related question

I’ve recently started writing in bed, after buying one of those back-rest pillow thingies with the little arms – in the South, such things are called “husbands,” but they may have less metaphorical names in other parts of the country. Personally, I’ve always liked the Southern name, because its sociological implications are intriguing. Maybe this is one of those secrets of marriage no one’s ever let me in on, that married ladies get to use their actual husbands as back support when reading or writing or watching television in bed, while the rest of us are left with these corduroy-covered stand-ins to fill the void.

But I digress.

The other reason I recently started writing from bed is that I needed a change of setting, and my apartment only has two rooms. Well, unless you count the bathroom, but I’m not quite prepared to begin writing in the tub, or on the toilet.

Also, it turns out, both Marilynne Robinson and Frank Conroy write from bed. Though not together in the same bed, of course. And in Frank’s case I suppose we should use the past tense, since now Frank does his writing in whatever version of The Great Beyond you happen to believe in. Personally, I like to imagine Frank going a few rounds with God over the clarity of certain Biblical passages. “Do you really need all these characters begetting one another?" he'd ask. "That’s an awful lot of confusing backstory.” Or he’d slam his fist down on the table and tell God he’s drunk on the language. “Have another sip of champagne!” he’d yell. “Purple prose! Purple prose!”

Anyway, I really am getting to my question. Which is this: is there any truth to the rumor that sitting around with my laptop on my actual lap is going to bother my business? Slow down the little swimming fishies? Keep me from one day filling the Barrelhouse mansion with an army of miniaturized versions of myself?

Perhaps one of you scientifically or medically or computerically inclined Barrelhousers could give me some reassurance. Or else strict instructions to employ a metal TV tray or some other such shield-like device.

Thank you for any help you can offer in this matter.

Your friend,

Mike

Drawing Strength: Comics for Katrina

Comic artist John Gallagher (creator of crime-fighting, diner-loving, pop culture spouting Buzzboy) has put together a comic sketch book, "Drawing Strength," with all proceeds to benefit Habitat for Humanity's efforts to help Katrina survivors.

The book includes sketches from comic artists Brandon Peterson, Greg Horn, Mark McKenna, Jim Calafiore, Mike Manley, Neil Vokes, Frank Cho, Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley, Rich Faber, Gallagher, and many others.

Amazingly, the whole thing came together, from concept to creation, in about a week, and is available on Gallagher's Sky Dog Comics site for $15. Click here to buy a copy today.

I love lamp. I love lamp!

I haven't posted in a while, so in the spirit of Brick Tamland of Anchorman, I'll post something, anything, even if it reveals that I have no idea about what this blog is about or the inner workings of the human machine.

Well, fantasy football is going well. I have 2 wins against, get this 0...that's right 0 losses!

Portland, Oregon is a cool town. I just visited it and it has a lot of white homeless people, which is cool. Good to see some diversity there. Plus it is pretty beautiful from a nature standpoint. The surrounding area, not the white homeless people. Plus, you get to watch football at 10 am and finish up watching football at 830 pm, leaving you about 3 hours to continue to neglect your wife and/or girlfriend if you have one, but I don't, so I just neglect my pets. But I don't have any of them either. Due to neglect.

LA is also a cool town, but not in temperature, at least not at this time of year. LA--where not just the hot chicks are hot! When I also visted LA a few weeks ago, I stayed with my friends and their 2 adorable kids at their house in Van Nuys. I told people that residents of Van Nuys are obligated by city ordinance to make their house available at least 3 days per year so that it can be used as a porn movie set, and I was almost believed!

I'm told that there is a place in LA called Mariachi Square wherein many mariachi band members mill around and people wishing to employ a mariachi band just drive up and pick one. So I'm told.

Well, I'd start to tell you all about my cubicle but I have to go eat lunch, so maybe some other time. You stay classy, Barrelhouse Blog Readers, and thanks for stopping by!

L-I-V-I-N

Last night there was a great little documentary on American Movie Classics about the making of Dazed and Confused.

In case you don't know the movie, here's the IMDB description: "The adventures of incoming high school and junior high students on the last day of school, in May of 1976." That's about all there is to it. That, plus a young cast that included Matthew MacConaughey (as the stoner/loser who has graduated but hangs around the high school anyway), Ben Affleck (as the asshole), Jason London (the good-natured stoner/jock who gets along with everybody, but won't sign the "declaration" that says he won't get high or drink during football season), Parker Posey (the bitch, of course), Cole Hauser (the knucklehead football player), Joey Lauren Adams, Milla Jovovich, and a whole shitload of others. It's not The Outsiders, but a pretty impressive cast.

And, by the way, Affleck and MacConaughey are so good in their roles as assholes that you might even forgive some of the movies they've made in the past five years.

The movie in general is a pitch perfect take on what it was like to be a kid in a small town in that era. Everything -- the music, the clothes, hair, the way kids talk, the fact that there is nothing to do but drive around, the ennui of the smart kids who know its all bullshit but still worry about what they're missing, the melancholy of knowing that these might be the best years of your life and realizing that they are slipping away and also that they are, in fact, not so great (as London's character, Randall "Pink" Floyd says "All I'm saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life - remind me to kill myself") -- is just about right.

Anyway, it's a great movie, and the making of documentary -- called Making Dazed -- is worth catching. Mainly, it reminded me of The Last Waltz or Festival Express in that it really made me wish that I was there and got to be a part of that.

I wasn't. Oh well.

At least I can take some solace in the words of MacConaughey's Wooderson, who delivers what message the film has to offer:

Man, it's the same bullshit they tried to pull in my day. If it ain't that piece of paper, there's some other choice they're gonna try and make for you. You gotta do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do man. Let me tell you this, the older you do get the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N.

Press Release of the Week: the Olsens clone themselves

Just when you thought the Olsen twins were finally disappearing into the pop culture ether -- both figuratively (as their transition to more "adult" roles has been a bit rocky) and literally (as a steady diet of water and nose candy has further shrunk their already elfin frames) -- the Olsen Empire is expanding, with a new set of pre-teen twins coming into the fold.

Cole and Dylan Sprouse -- who you may recognize from their tag-team job as Adam Sandler's adopted son in Big Daddy -- aren't exactly household names. But that's all about to change, if Mary Kate and Ashley have their way.

Dualstar, the Olsen twins' production company and the people behind "the flagship marykate-andashley brand," have taken on Cole and Dylan as clients and rechristened them as "D.C. Sprouse." Because, as anyone knows, being a movie or television star is no longer enough. If you want real success, the kind of success that involves bathing in a tub filled with hundred dollar bills, what you need to do is create a brand. That way, consumers can enjoy all sorts of products licensed with your name: clothing, albums, facial products, perfumes, video games, prophylactics, hemmorrhoid creams. Once your brand has penetrated America's subconscious, the sky's the limit.

"Dualstar will be identifying opportunities in the teen market to develop strategic brand and entertainment campaigns for the D.C. Sprouse brand as well as Cole Sprouse and Dylan Sprouse, respectively. While seeking to license the rights for trend-right and appropriate consumer products for teen boys and girls, the company will restructure an online destination for the D.C. Sprouse brand, which, akin to its www.mary-kateandashley.com, will offer a broader lifestyle environment appealing to their existing and new fans from all over the world."

Let me translate that from marketer-speak to plain English: If you think Mary Kate and Ashley were/are obnoxious, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Cole and Dylan -- or, excuse me, "D.C. Sprouse" -- will make you long for the days of Full House reruns and straight-to-video titles like How the West Was Fun.

"'Cole, Dylan and the D.C. Sprouse brand are a perfect fit with Dualstar as we begin to move our company into the next phase of business development and expansion,' adds Mary-Kate Olsen."

Mary-Kate's use of the term "next phase" makes me nervous. Is it just me, or does that sound a little too much like cult talk or war planning? Perhaps the Dualstar brand will round up all of America's teenaged twins, teach them to use firearms and then unleash them on an unsuspecting population. Sure it sounds crazy. But when Mary-Kate and Ashley have wrested control of our nation's capital and rebranded us all as their minions, I'll be the one saying "I told you so."

Summer Fiction Tits

How's that for a headline? Kind of grabs you, huh? I wish it was mine, or ours. But it's not -- it's the headline of the Editor's Note in the new issue of Fence. Which features, you guessed it, both fiction and, at least on the cover, tits.

This brings to mind my previous post about our review in New Pages and the use of the word "Maxim-esque", which brought on a slew of "youthfully masculine" comments by fellow Barrelhousers and guests alike, all commenting on the possibilities available, should we fully embrace our "Maxim-esque" potential (sample grab, from Most Valuable Blogger TMC: "This month in Barrelhouse: Never before seen photos of Flannery O'Connor! A good man may be hard to find, but we had no problem finding one bad girl!").

Anyway, goddam if Fence didn't beat us to it.

So what is Fence, a much more established, less youthfully masculine mag, edited by a woman, doing with a cover full of tits? Editor Rebecca Wolf explains:

Tits and giggles, really, when it comes right down to it, and perhaps more tits than giggles. Metaphorically speaking, it's tits that make us want to buy something, whether it be a journal or a car or a handbag or a sweater for a baby -- if tits can be made to stand in for the quotient of glamour, or the promise of effulgence, or the metronomic catapult of image saturation: one eye on the tit back at the tit back at your eye. Tits equals extra. Tits equals vibration. Tits equals fiction! Tits equals valley and leverage, glen and demonstration. Tits equals hot food for the rest of your life.

Tits and giggles. Who are we to argue with that?

Swayze in the Poconos!

Earlier this year, my special lady and I were in search of a venue for our impending nuptials. A cursory view of the DC wedding scene convinced us to look somewhere else—shit in the and around The D.O.C. is more expensive than a kick in the nuts. Since she comes from Long Island, another locale that takes its weddings seriously and charges an amount per head reflective of it, we ended up, more or less by default, looking into places near my parents in Northeast PA. I'm proud to say this is one of the joints we toured.

Here’s the money quote:
“Mr. Casella is frequently told that his life resembles that of Johnny Castle, the dancer portrayed by Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, the 1987 homage to places like Woodloch. It is a comparison he embraces: after all, he began dating Ruth, the woman who is now his wife, while she was a Woodloch waitress. They now have daughters, ages 10 and 7.”

Interestingly enough, when we finished our day of viewing possible locations we could use to bind our souls before God and loved ones, we met up with a friend of mine. I told him we looked at Woodloch and decided against it, citing the fact it wasn’t us. He gave us a knowing glance and said, “A little too Dirty Dancing, right?”

He hit the mullet right on the head.

The dumbest thing I saw on TV all week

Did anyone else see that new Fox show Reunion last Thursday? Come on, you can admit it. You were all pumped for the first new episode of The O.C., and once it was over, you were too spent to move from the couch or change the channel.

From what I can tell, the show is sort of modeled on Lost -- a program I haven't seen but that I understand is pretty good -- in that each week, we'll learn more about the characters' intertwining backstories. Which is a decent enough premise, but the show's writers pull out so many hackneyed tricks in their attempts at creating suspense that it's impossible to watch Reunion without either laughing or wanting to punch the show's creators in the mouth. Or both.

Take the opening. We start at a funeral, Big Chill style. Only the music is worse, we can't really see any of the mourners, and we have no idea who's dead. Our only clue comes via the anonymous (so far) guy giving the most improbable eulogy ever:

"I can't think about this person without thinking about all six of them, whose lives were so intertwined from the first time I met them."

Because what the relatives of the deceased really like to hear is that their son or daughter was indestinguishable from a crowd.

But there's a reason he's being so vague. You see, the "mystery" of the season is going to be who's lying in that coffin. Which really isn't really a mystery at all. You see, mystery is when the characters of a show are trying to figure something out, and the audience gets to follow along. Mystery is NOT when everyone on the show knows something, and they're just being pricks by going out of their way to not tell us about it. Who's in the fucking coffin? It's not as if the cop doesn't know, or the five remaining friends, or even the woman who delivered the flowers that morning. So why can't the audience know? Because the writers have pulled the oldest asshole storyteller move in the book, the one that gets you laughed at (or maybe yelled at) in even the most basic undergraduate workshop.

Next we meet the Police Detective (played by Keith from Six Feet Under) who, after the funeral, wants to interrogate one of the six inseperable characters. So, aha! It was a murder! Maybe! And whoever is dead, we know it's not this girl he's interviewing! (Yes, I realize I could look up her character's name on IMDB, but I'm never going to watch this show again, and really I don't care enough to bother).

The rest of the episode comes from 1986, the year all six of these intertwined characters graduated from high school. (And remember! One of them is dead! Which one is it? We're not going to tell you! Ha ha ha!) We see how one of the characters got in this drunk driving accident, or something, but then his friend takes the blame, and goes to jail, because he's in love with the guy's girlfriend, or something, and ... you know what? Who fucking cares?

At the show's end, just in case we've forgotten Reunion's main trope -- that someone is dead! and we don't know who it is! and maybe it was a murder! and there's a cop! -- we go back to the present day, where the female character is still talking to Gay Keith (See, all that backstory? It came from her mouth. That's what we call a frame story, people. Brilliant!)

And then, in the show's closing moments, we're treated to perhaps the worst dialogue in an hour that's been chock full of stupid, contrived dialogue:

Cop: So tell me about 1987.
Girl: Well, I guess you could say it started off with a bang...

Roll credits! Tune in next week!

But if you do, don't say I didn't warn you.

Press Release of the Week: People love sugar, exorcisms and George Lopez

At any given moment, there are thousands of scientific studies and tests taking place, and most of them have noble goals: finding a cure for cancer, building better artificial limbs, creating an over-the-counter medicine that will allow old people to eat Indian food without getting the trots.

Then there are the studies that make you scratch your head. Like the one recently performed by the C&H Pure Cane Sugar Company, which found that -- prepare to be blown away by the wonder of scientific discovery -- people prefer food made with sugar!

"Consumers who participated in blind taste tests of pound cake and brownies baked with pure cane sugar, Splenda and Splenda Blend, overwhelmingly agreed that those made with pure cane sugar were superior in taste, texture and appearance."

And to all those people who want to watch their weight? "Renowned pastry chef" Emily Luchetti has some words of wisdom for the fatties: "Why would you want to sacrifice the taste of something you love just to save a few calories?"

Thanks, Emily. Remind me not to call you the next time I decide to give up smoking.

Then there's this peculiar online survey, which found that 66.03% of people believe in demonic posession, 61.4% believe in the devil and 64.26% believe in "supernatural forces." I say "peculiar" because roughly 2% of the survey respondents apparently believed people were being posessed, but not by either "the devil" or "supernatural forces." This is what we call a statistical anomoly, but instead of seeking to explain it, the fine people at Screen Gems just encourage us to go see their new movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I wish every movie would release a subject-themed poll. That way we could find out how many people in the country believe in Jesus (The Passion of the Christ), alien invasions (War of the Worlds), and completely implausible romances between self-absorbed, cliche-ridden characters (Must Love Dogs).

Finally, I have to mention this press release because I love George Lopez. Mostly, I love how George Lopez seems to have a standing invitation to join Monday Night Football's Al Michaels and John Madden in the booth (Sample dialogue: "Hey John, look who it is! Our good pal George Lopez! Star of ABC's smash hit The George Lopez Show, Tuesdays at 8:00 pm! Only on ABC!")

Looks like George will finally have something new to promote when he drops by the booth: gambling. Because George Lopez now has his own line of penny slots. But it's not just the George Lopez name that players will see as they sit before the machines, dropping their hard-earned pennies down the chute with a glazed look in their eyes from the flourescent lights and free watered-down cocktails:

"Lopez fans will recognize symbols and graphics that reflect his whirlwind southern California lifestyle, including golf clubs, cigars, and his trademark sunglasses."

On a personal note, if any of you have a nagging cough and sore throat and were thinking about trying out Vick's 44D, I have some words of wisdom for you: go easy on the dosage. Just a couple hours ago, my pupils were the size of nickels and I was curled up in the fetal position flashing back to a bad experience in 2000 that involved something called "red rocks" that was given to me in a concert parking lot by a teenaged kid who looked like he'd just crawled down from the hills of Appalachia. Apparently Vicks gives you that measuring cup for a reason.

Maxim-esque?

I'd like to take a break from the Katrina posts for a bit of good old fashioned navel-gazing. The first issue of Barrelhouse was recently reviewed by NewPages.com. NewPages is a very cool site that promotes all things independent and literary, including little mags like Barrelhouse.

The review was generally fair, if not exactly glowing. But there's one word that really bothered me: "Maxim-esque." To put it in context, here's the entire review:

It's fair to say that Barrelhouse is the most promising recent journal so proudly founded in drunkenness; in the introduction to their debut issue, the editors quickly establish its origin, writing, "Fine, we’ll admit it, we were drunk," thus establishing a youngish masculinity that reverberates throughout. The prose and essays here are of the hip, Maxim-esque variety: Stacey Richter's story "Reality X Reality" features a reality TV character providing audio commentary for an unseen DVD: "You have to be really good-looking and you have to be tan, and of course sexy, but not a skanky stripper-type." (Take that, Real World!) Similarly, Steve Almond's essay "Burn Hollywood" mocks popular cinema as he ponders, "Don't you get tired of feeling so empty, Hollywood?" while congratulating himself for not selling out. Some quite strong pieces diverge from the overall aggressive tone, as the poetry is generally subtle and reflective, notably Brad Tice's "Bees," and Paul Graham's short story "Partners" deals with the sexual struggles of a young husband whose wife, before their marriage, was raped. There's a lively interview with Emmylou Harris, too, and the interesting feature of an "illustrated" story – a comic realization of a story from the journal's website. Overall, the concern here is with being cool, and if that's your thing, this is the journal for you.

So...my question is, what the fuck does "Maxim-esque" mean? I guess what I should be asking is, "Are we Maxim-esque?"

Because when I hear Maxim-esque that word gets translated in my mind as "frat-boy, stupid-ass, think they're cool, SUV-driving, backward baseball hat wearing, pictures of Brooke Burns in boyshorts and ripped t-shirt assholes."

Don't get me wrong. I do think it's a pretty fair review -- there's a "youngish masculinity" that we're aware of and that may not necessarily be a bad thing, given the sense of, well, "elderly fragility" that pervades so much of established literary journals, and hey, we are the only literary magazine ever to be featured on the ESPN website. And it's good to be hip. Also to be promising.

But "Maxim-esque?"

So I don't know. Maybe the reveiwer has never read an issue of Maxim, because I have, and I can tell you that while there are plenty of pictures of damp C-list actresses named Brooke in bikinis, there's not a short story or a poem to be found, and the writing is, well, let's just say it's not exactly "The Atlantic-esque."

Maybe we should give in to our Maxim-esque tendencies and line up a special bikini edition starring Joyce Carol Oates and Brooke Burke. Maybe I should lighten up and stop letting that word bother me -- it is, as I said, a pretty fair and almost positive review, after all, and I seriously do love NewPages and everything they do to promote literature, and especially punky little independents like us.

So what do you think? Should we be insulted? What does "Maxim-esque" mean, anyway?

A long and rambling post about Katrina, our president, and the country's need to occasionally vomit

Sorry to make this blog Katrina Central, but frankly it's hard these days to think about much else. My family's lived through a few hurricanes, but I've never seen anything quite so bad as the images pouring out of New Orleans.

My parents lost their house last fall after Hurricane Ivan hit the Florida panhandle, and I mean lost their house in the literal sense. In the "where the hell did our house go? Oh, wait, I think I see part of the roof out there in the Sound" sense. And yet they have insurance, and another place to live, and so, sure, it sucks, but they're not out on the street. They're not being shuffled from shelter to shelter, they're not wading through floodwaters looking for something to eat. They'll rebuild, and life will go on.

In any storm, no matter how dire the warnings, there are people who decide to stick around and "ride it out." When my family lived in Charleston, we had one such neighbor, a retired Army General who decided he was going to "ride it out" through Hugo. Later, he told us that being in his house during that storm was the scariest thing he'd ever experienced. And this was a man who was a veteran of two foreign wars. In New Orleans, there were no doubt a few people (mostly men, because women are smarter than us, and less filled up with bravado) who refused to leave because they thought the prognosticators were overreacting. Who thought they could "ride it out." But the majority of people who were stranded in the city were stranded because they had no way to get out. Most of them, I imagine, would have loved nothing more than hopping into their Volvos with a cooler full of sodas and sandwiches and high-tailin' it to a hotel in east Texas. Except, of course, for the small problem of not having Volvos, or sandwiches, or enough money to pay for a hotel room.

And so they were stuck. Are stuck. And the rest of us are inundated with these terrible images on the television, and in the daily newspapers, images that sometimes look like artists' renderings of gristly science fiction novels. And it highlights for many of us, in a very real and tangible way, the huge economic divide in our country. How differently the poor fare when nature attacks. So then when George Bush Jr. goes onto the television and promises us that Trent Lott will be able to rebuild his house, God willing ... well, some people are understandably upset. Some people think maybe, just maybe, our president is out of touch with a great many of the people who live in his country.

If you ask me, that one statement was perhaps the single most amazing Bushism of all. How in a few off-the-cuff words, our president managed to sum up much of the criticism that's been aimed at him these past few years, all the ways many of us think he's wrong-headed about the world. It was his I Am Not a Crook moment. His Dukakis Driving the Tank. His I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman.

Maybe some of the criticism of the administration on Katrina is unfair. Perhaps, if the last few years of our collective American history had been a little different, we wouldn't be so riled up. Shit happens, we'd say. It's a tragedy. What can you do, other than send money, and be patient, and pray, if you're so inclined? But there's been a mounting sense of frustration over so many things -- the economy, the seemingly neverending war in Iraq, the fear that our world is less safe now than it used to be, the feeling that our leaders in Washington live in a different universe than the one we inhabit. Maybe people couldn't always quite articulate their frustrations, except to say that they felt a growing sense of unease, of despair. A feeling that, perhaps for the first time in American history, our national narrative was turning in the wrong direction, that things were getting worse, rather than better.

And then Katrina hit. And we saw flooding that looked like the End Times, and people starving in shelters and dying in the streets and clinging to the very tops of their roofs for dear life, and something in the national zeitgeist just broke, I think. We could only be expected to take so much bad medicine before we finally spewed it up all over the streets and the sidewalks.

Maybe it's displaced anger, then, that we're all spewing now. A lot of built-up bile that's been waiting to get out, and Katrina was our ipecac. Maybe it's like dating a bad boyfriend for years, the kind who consistently lies to you, cheats on you, doesn't come home when he says he will. Then, one day, the basement floods, and you're left there by yourself trying to bail out the water with a bucket while your boyfriend is at work, or at the bar, and when he comes home you just want to punch him right in his smug little face.

I don't know if any of that is true. But I do know that people are angrier than I've seen them in a long time. On the news, on the Internet, on the streets. Maybe it will eventually subside. Or maybe it won't. At the very least, it's good to see some people channeling their anger into helping out the people of New Orleans. Sean Penn, who's been angry for so long I can't even remember the last time I saw him smile, was seen piloting a skiff through the city streets and pulling people to safety. Say what you will about politically vocal celebrities, but at least Mr. Penn's willing to put his money (and his time) where his mouth is.

Do You Know What it Means

"My heart's always gonna be in New Orleans. It ain't just the place, it's the whole culture. The music will survive; the people will survive."
-- Dr. John, September 2, 2005

Well, we just wrapped up music day here, but as every day goes by the gulf coast situation is looking worse and worse, and I can't help thinking about the profound musical heritage of New Orleans. In that spirit, here's a list of things you can do to help New Orleans musicians right now:

Donate:

• Preservation Hall's New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund: 100% of your donation goes directly to help New Orleans musicians affected by the hurricane. You can even buy a spiffy "Do You Know What it Means" t-shirt, with all proceeds going to support the musicians.
  

• Tipitinas Foundation: working to locate all New Orleans artists and their families and then find housing for those who need it.
  
  

• New Orleans Musicians' Clinic: offering comprehensive healthcare to New Orleans musicians.
  
  

• Help Rebuild WWOZ: New Orleans flagship roots radio station has been, like everything else, devastated.
  

DC People:

Twins Jazz on U Street is hosting a marathon fundraiser for victims of Katrina on Sunday, September 11.

When the Levee Breaks

Nothing left but the blues right now. From Memphis Minnie, written in 1929:

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
And the water gonna come in, have no place to stay

Well all last night I sat on the levee and moan
Well all last night I sat on the levee and moan
Thinkin' 'bout my baby and my happy home

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break
And all these people have no place to stay

Now look here mama what am I to do
Now look here mama what am I to do
I ain't got nobody to tell my troubles to

I works on the levee mama both night and day
I works on the levee mama both night and day
I ain't got nobody, keep the water away

Oh cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do no good
Oh cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to lose

I works on the levee, mama both night and day
I works on the levee, mama both night and day
I works so hard, to keep the water away

I had a woman, she wouldn't do for me
I had a woman, she wouldn't do for me
I'm goin' back to my used to be

I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan
I's a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan
Gonna leave my baby, and my happy home

You can hear a version by Kansas Joe here.

Sometimes thinking too hard makes my tiny brain hurt

I stumbled upon this Chris Martin quote near the end of an article about a recent Coldplay live performance. Apparently it was taken from some between-song banter:

"If we looked like Mariah Carey, we'd sell 25 times as many records, which would be a lot," Martin said, smiling as he added, "and we'd be able to sleep with people like Tom Cruise."

I find this confusing on so many levels. Would everyone in the band have to look like Mariah Carey, or just Chris Martin? Or would the bandmates be glommed together into one huge, beast-like Carey that would roam the countryside singing mournful pop tunes and devouring human babies?

Would Coldplay also be required to sound like Carey, or would it be Chris Martin’s voice coming out of the daisy-duke-wearing Carey Beast?

For Coldplay to sell 25 times as many records, would every single person in the world have to own a copy of X&Y? Haven’t they already sold something like a gazillion copies?

And what’s with the Tom Cruise thing? Would that be considered a step up, a step down, or a lateral move, considering Martin’s already sleeping with Gwynnie? Maybe it’s just that the Carey Beast doesn’t roll with the ladies, so he’d have to swap Paltrow for a dude?

But if Coldplay became Carey, it seems they’d have to sleep with Eddie Murphy, or Eminem, or maybe 50 Cent, who told Loaded magazine that Eminem was supposed to hook him up with Mariah:

"Eminem said that he was finished with Mariah and that I could, you know, I thought I was gonna hit that. And then he didn't hook me up, so I ain't really happy with him right now."

So there's your trade-off, Chris Martin. You can become the Carey Beast, get big boobs and smooth skin and maybe top the pop charts, but only if you're willing to be Eminem and Fitty's toss-around sex toy.

Two Season Finales, Two Really Different Directions

Last night was the season finale of Rescue Me and, holy shit, what a season finale. If you haven't been watching Rescue Me, and I'm not sure that anybody is but me, you're missing one of the best shows on TV. It's on FX, which is probably reason 1 that you're not watching, and stars Dennis Leary, which may be reason 2, as a New York City fireman who lost his cousin in 9/11 and is still struggling to come to grips with what happened that day.

If you're not familiar with the show, here's a sample grab. There's a lot of testosterone:

You want to know how big my balls are? My balls are bigger than two of your heads duct-taped together. I've been in the middle of shit that would make you piss your pants right now. Uptown, downtown, Harlem, Brooklyn. But there ain't no medals on my chest, assholes, 'cause I ain't no hero. I'm a fireman. We're not in the business of making heroes here. We're in the business of discovering cowards, 'cause that's what you are if you can't take the heat. You're a pussy, and there ain't no room for pussies in the FDNY.

In case you couldn't tell, that was Dennis Leary talking. Anyway, it's a great show. As you can probably tell, it's a guy show, a firehouse show with burning buildings and guys (mainly guys, but also Diane Farr) sitting around making jokes about the kinds of things guys make jokes about. Which kind of reminds me of another show that also had its season finale this past weekend -- Entourage.

I love Entourage, and even though I think the whole Mandy Moore plotline kind of hijacked our boys this season (I know, I know -- that was the point, but still, didn't that seem to take forever?), it's still the quickest half hour of pop confection that's come along in quite a long time, the perfect mental skittles to while away the end of the weekend.

So Entourage got us all worked up and then wrapped almost everything up a nice little bow: Vince decided to stay on the movie, E decided to stay with Vince, Ari and Lloyd (Lloyd!) started down the road to opening their own agency. Apparently out of The Coffee Bean. So that one wasn't quite as neatly tied up as the rest of the plotlines, but we still have the feeling that Ari is getting his shit together.

In contrast, Rescue Me had Leary's Tommy getting his shit together throughout the entire season. He tracked down his wife and kids, got back together with the wife, moved back in, started taking (well, stealing his wife's) antidepressants, and became such a nice guy that he was kicked off the hockey team and started bringing fancy coffee around the stationhouse for the guys. He even stopped seeing the Jesus and Mary Magdelene that had been stalking him all season (sample Jesus dialogue: "you got a sandwich?" Sample Mary Magdelene dialogue: "did he try that normal guy shit with you yet, ask you to make him a sandwich?").

But man, did they go the other direction in the season finale of Rescue Me. By the end of the show, nearly everything that had been neatly tied up was in tatters -- almost every character, or at least the majority of them, was left facing tragedy. It's going to be a hell of a next season.

I'm not saying one of those was better than the other -- I really don't expect any death or burning bodies on Entourage, but wihle I'll be looking forward to Vince and the boys cruising into another season, I really can't wait to see what happens when the Rescue Me boys try to piece their shit back together.

Press Release of the Week: hurricanes, transcendental tee shirts and bling

This week’s Press Release of the Week feature required a little more digging than usual: it’s hard these days to find a press release that’s not about Hurricane Katrina. In case you were curious, Campbell’s is sending New Orleans $2 million worth of soup, Arby’s is donating $100,000 (what, hurricane victims don’t like beef n’ cheddar?), and Celine Dion is giving a cool mil. Which is impressive, although I imagine Dion’s the kind of person who sometimes pulls on a pair of jeans and finds a stray wad of thousand dollar bills crinkled up in the pocket.

Anheuser-Busch, meanwhile, “Continues to Supply Water to Victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

Ah, we shouldn’t laugh. But, really, couldn’t someone have suggested "drinking water," just for clarity's sake?

Even the National Basketball Referees Association is getting in on the act.

Apparently, unless you issue an official press release, people will assume you don’t give a shit about the tragedy, that you’re not keeping the people of New Orleans in your thoughts and/or prayers, that you’re a cold-hearted bastard who can’t even muster up the energy to type an announcement letting the entire world know that you really, really feel for the victims.

But dig enough and you can find a few companies who have other things on their mind. As they should. If America has learned one thing about tragedy, it is this: as soon as we stop selling and buying shit, the terrorists (or in this case, the hurricane – or perhaps God?) win.

So we should all applaud the people at AN:TS for boldly moving forward with the launch of their clothing line, disaster be damned.

AN:TS will be making graphic tees and “headwear,” but it’s about more than the clothes. “AN:TS is an ideal … a lifestyle,” the company tells us. President and Co-Founder Ozell Freeman explains:

"After we decided to start AN:TS, we asked ourselves what the brand should be about. Of course, apparel is about fashion but we decided that since we believe life is about passion, that AN:TS as a lifestyle brand should be about passion as well as fashion.”

Oh, Ozell, you crazy rhymin’ freak, tell us more:

“Next, we asked ourselves what we felt fashion was about. For us, fashion is about the individual expression of a personal sense of style. But WHAT IF fashion could also serve as a subtle 'reminder' that we are all part of a global community - a world colony that we can make better? This 'reminder' is symbolized through our name and anthill logo. AN:TS carries a message of global citizenship and responsibility through the creation of uniquely styled and well made apparel."

And here you thought clothes were just to cover your shameful nudity. No! They can also symbolize things! Of course this is nothing new, really. A Members Only jacket, for instance, symbolizes that you’re part of a super-exclusive club. A Jerry Garcia Band concert tee symbolizes that you’re a smelly hippie. A trucker hat symbolizes that you’re an asshole. See how this works?

So wearing AN:TS gear will symbolize that you’re part of the global community. But there’s more. The clothes are also a (symbolic) call to action: “The name of the brand ‘AN:TS’ invites inquiry. AN:TS stands for ‘Achieve Nirvana: Transform Society.’ We at AN:TS believe that through the continual pursuit of your passion, you leave the world a better place than you found it. We all have a role. No effort is too small."

Which is actually a pretty nice message for a week in which an entire town needs all our help, whether we’re sending soup or bottled water or just a few bills we’d otherwise spend on beer. Sorry for the brief foray into earnestness, but seriously: that whole city is really fucked right now.

But let's not end on a downer. Instead, let's all laugh at yet another attempt by Corporate America to appropriate the language of the streets:

“While the ultimate fashion accessory of recent popular culture is flashy jewelry -- known by its street name "bling" -- Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is today saying high-capacity, miniature hard drives are the new "bling" for their ubiquity and desirability among the consumer digerati.”

Pastafari: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

You've probably seen this already, since it's been flying around the Internet for the past month or so, but in case you haven't, check out the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Although this is serious competition for our own religion, Religiance (keeping it really, really real), it's definitely worth checking out if you haven't seen it already.

Basically, it's an open letter to the Kansas School Board, as they consider whether intelligent design should be taught along with evolution. As you know, and as our country's President will tell you, the jury is still out on evolution.

Anyway, very funny response to an incredibly stupid situation, and one of those things that took off online. As usual, here at Barrelhouse, we're proud to be the very last to bring you yesterday's trends.

Hurricane Relief

I know that the last thing most Barrelhouse blog readers have is money, but donations to charities helping out the victims of Hurricane Katrina are important. Go here for a collection point for dozens of left and right bloggers endorsing charities of all stripes.

Barrelhouse on ESPN

I'm pretty sure it's a fair bet that Barrelhouse is the only literary magazine to ever be linked to from ESPN.

Thanks to the Sports Guy's Intern, and to TMC, who somehow made that happen. We owe you even more beer now, TMC.