Decide was, for many years, the Old Faithful of Florida death metal. While other bands would come and go, form and re-form, expand their sound into tech-death or prog-jazz or contract it by way of ‘getting back to the basics’, Glenn Benton and his not-so-merry men could be counted on …
It’s pretty presumptuous — not to mention trite — for a critic to talk about the movie a filmmaker should have made instead of the one they made. But it’s also a suggestion that’s inescapable after watching a movie like The King’s Speech. Here you have a concatenation of massive …
In the Sandwich Century’s first clash with the authenticity problem, I found myself approaching this one — a south-of-the-equator version of the standard steak sammy — at something of a loss. Australian food culture, with its Thirst-flavored Life Savers and its Vegemite, has always struck me as something like a …
Oh, boy, folks, are you in for it now. The PetardCast is back, on its new biweekly schedule, but what we lose in timeliness we make up for in sheer audacious holy-shittitude. This time, the mighty William Ham stops by to engage in some chit-chat, we play up the bright …
David Brion Davis’ Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World is one of those rare books that manages to draw information from dozens, if not hundreds, of varying sources about an enormously complex subject and streamline them into a work that is incredibly readable and …
When I was thirty-two and still living alone in the rented house near the river, I found myself in conflict with the radio announcer. Nowadays I need quiet to write; I cannot abide even the softest music, or the flicker of the television with the sound off. But then I …
Having been to the Conservative Political Action Conference before, I can testify firsthand that even at the best of times, it’s a non-stop Ronald Reagan strokefest. But this year, being what would have been Reagan’s 100th birthday had Alzheimer’s disease not finished the job that stupidity started, it’s a downright …
Even in the wicked world of chanson, where a borderline pedophile like Serge Gainsbourg or an accused Nazi collaborator like Maurice Chevalier can become a massive international superstar, Georges Brassens was an odd duck. Born in the beach town of Sète (which he remembered fondly in song his entire life), …
I’m beginning to think that my beard and I are going to have to part ways — not just for now, but for good. I have, in recent years, wanted to grow a big-ass, menacing beard. (This has less to do with any hipster tendencies on my part than with …
First of all, how about that title, eh? The movie could be a heap of shit and it would still win points for the title, which sounds like some lost French new wave picture. Éclat de Silence, avec Alain Delon. But no, it’s an American film noir, albeit a pretty …
After a half-century of perceived American cultural hegemony, Europeans feel the need to get back at us in any way that they can. You really can’t blame them; after endless decades of ruling the world, here we come with our fat loudmouthed tourists and our Big Macs, ruining everything, and …
So Andy Gray, the voice of Sky Sports for two decades and one of the most familiar announcers in soccer, has been sacked. He takes with him his hench-creature Richard Keys, along with any pretense that soccer announcers are any less cretinous than the voices of American sporting events. Gray …
I’ve always taken a special displeasure in the ‘things were better before’ approach to culture. While it’s undeniable that taste is taste, it strikes me as a particularly lazy way to come at the world around you to simply let your tastes calcify without protest. Sure, it’s hard to keep …
MANHATTAN. “Okay this one is easy. It’s what you call a basic, a basic cocktail. You take a whiskey, a rye whiskey, and vermouth, and a cherry. And there you ugh! Sorry, there you go! It’s easy! It was named after the Manhattan cocktail. I mean, the Manhattan Hotel. In …
Crime is perennially at the top of polls regarding what voters worry about the most. With the upsurge in terrorism, the advent of cyber-crime, and organized crime taking on a new international flavor, people are not only concerned about crime, but they seem to have new crimes to worry about …
