Phenomenal mix this week from The Reborn Identity. It pairs one of my favorite tracks from the last couple of years, La Roux's 'In For The Kill', with The Kooks' 'Always Where I Need To Be'.
Today would have been Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday. It's easy to imagine what he would be doing if he were alive. To wonder, what kind of impact would he have continued to have on music.
To me, music hasn't sounded the same since 1994. This is footage of Cobain playing in one of his first bands, Fecal Matter. The song's called 'Buffy's Pregnant'. Something you get to see that often.
I had originally intended to post another song today. However, within the last hour, one of my favorite artists, Norwegian Recycling, released his latest track.
It is a tribute to the late Whitney Houston.
Simply titled 'Whitney', it's a very touching memorial to the singer, who was laid to rest yesterday in New Jersey.
The mashup includes the following songs:
1. Adele – Fire To The Rain 2. Whitney Houston – How Will I Know 3. Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) 4. Whitney Houston – So Emotional 5. Florence And The Machine – You Got The Love 6. Bruno Mars – Grenade
A couple of days ago, Lennon and I were walking to the mailbox. I had my cane, and Lennon was on her Tinker Bell bike.
Suddenly, she stopped pedaling.
"Daddy. You and Mommy aren't invited to my birthday anymore." (She turns four in May.)
"How come, Bug?"
"Because you won't buy me that dog poop toy for my birthday."
This is the toy she wants....
This is a real toy. I'm not kidding. A couple of months ago, she saw a commercial for it on Nickelodeon, and was instantly enamored. Who can blame her? It's Play-Doh dog shit. I'll admit: I'm almost 37 years old, and I still think the way dogs look when they poop is one of the funniest things on Earth. If there is a god, you know he has a sick sense of humor.
Am I right?!
'Doggie Doo' is the latest in a long line of toys that Lennon has begged for. At Christmas, it was Lite Sprites. To this day, I still have no idea how that doll works. She pestered us about that thing for months. Played with it on Christmas day. Hasn't touched it since. The same goes for the "Ice Cream Play-Doh Maker" she received for her birthday last year. On that one, she practically started a Change.org online petition.
Not this time.
I very politely explained to her that, even if Mommy and Daddy don't go to her birthday party, she still wouldn't be getting that toy as a present. I told her that we had already told all of the party guests that she wasn't allowed to have that toy.
She huffed. Then pouted for a second, and started to ride away.
"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - French philosopher and Jesuit priest.
In my Senior year English class, I sat directly across a handwritten 3x5 card, which had this quote on it. 20 years later, it still inspires me.
BME posted the following photo of this stunning tattoo today, and I thought I would share. The work is by Parisian tattoo artist Nick Bertioli. I have seen his work many times over the last year. In my opinion, he is one of the best European artists today.
The piece is very dark. Once it has had time to heal and have some of the excess ink seep out of the skin, it should lighten up considerably. As is, it looks very lovely on her arm.
Over the last 24 hours, a clip has gone viral of GRAMMY winner Adele allegedly singing 'Someone Like You' to the crowd gathered at the Staples Center, during a commercial break. During the song, the words have been changed to be called 'Someone Like Newt', seemingly slamming the Republican presidential candidate.
Personally, I have seen the video featured on more than a half dozen political blogs this morning, as well as dozens of status updates on my Facebook page.
It's fake. 100% bogus. As much as I wish it wasn't, I hate to say that this is a hoax.
Here is the video that is being passed around today. So far, it has nearly 50,000 views.
The video was released by Venga Productions, a YouTube user that has been posting politically based musical parody videos for the last four years. The video itself is edited from the 2011 Brit Awards performance of 'Someone Like You'. Watch it here.
If you saw Sunday night's GRAMMY telecast, it would be easy to spot the differences in Adele's makeup, hair, and facial structure. It would be even easier to spot the fact that the stage featured in the "Newt" video didn't exist.
While I can understand the average person forwarding the video, if nothing else, for entertainment value alone, I cannot comprehend why bloggers and journalists with millions of readers would pass this along as "truth".
I despise the Republican party as much as anyone else. I also believe in integrity.
It took a matter of 20 seconds and one YouTube search to determine that this video was a hoax. Check for yourself. Go to YouTube, and search "Adele GRAMMY performance 2011". The first result will be the video from the Brit Awards. Search "Adele grammy performance 2012". It's the second one down. This is her ACTUAL performance from Sunday night's ceremony. You'll see that it's an entirely different woman singing.
Writers: If you're going to call yourself "journalists", do some fucking research before posting every salacious video on your website. It's about informing people, not page hits.
A trailer has been released for what may be this summer's most original blockbuster: 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'. It tells the story of our sixteenth president as he hunts the undead and their slave-owning helpers. It's based upon the 2010 novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, the author of 'Pride and Prejudice with Zombies'.
Man, does this look badass.
The film stars relative unknown Benjamin Walker as Lincoln. It also stars Mary Elisabeth Winstead (Ramona from 'Scott Pilgrim'), Alan Tudyk, and Rufus Sewell. It's directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who directed the mind blowing 'Night Watch' and 'Day Watch' vampire movies out of Russia a few years back. It's going to be very interesting to see how he tackles the material from the Civil War era.
As most of you are aware, the GRAMMY awards were last night. If you're Catholic, I'm sure you have already called your Congressman to call for the death of Nicki Minaj. Seriously, the head of the Catholic League made a statement today claiming she was possessed by the Devil.
In any event, Adele was the star of the night, taking six awards. Another surprise winner was Skrillex. Surprise, in the fact that an electronic artist was nominated for Best New Artist.
I'll be honest, when I first heard about Dubstep six months ago, my initial reaction was, "What the fuck is Dubstep?". A month or so later, I heard Skrillex for the first time. My response was very similar to Hitler's below:
Last night, I was hoping to see Deadmau5 win. I must say however, that it's a nice change of pace to see a DJ come away taking three statues for the evening. Other than Adele, the only other artist to win more than Skrillex was Kanye West (with five), and they were for multiple projects - some with other artists.
That being said, today's mashup is brought to you by Ca7. It's a mix of Adele's 'Set Fire to the Rain', with Skrillex's 'Kill Everybody'. The re-imagined title is 'Set Fire to Everybody'. Maybe it's the medication talking, but I like it.
My wife is a nail polish fiend. I would estimate that she currently has nearly 300 bottles tucked away in a cabinet, which was specifically purchased to hold her collection. As you can imagine, I've seen the gamut of bizarre names to describe the color of the polish in the bottle.
You may not know this, but there are a couple of manufacturers that specialize in colors designed for men. One of my favorite makers is Manglaze. They're a small company out of the Chicago area. Just a couple of people. They hand make all of their own products, still.
A little more than a year ago, I purchased a couple of colors from them for myself. They were both in matte finish. So, they were in no way glossy or sparkly. And with names like "Matte is Murder" (black) and "Fuggen Ugly" (grey), you didn't feel too girly putting them on your fingers.
Well, I'm pleased to announce that they're recently debuted their latest color: "Santorum". You guessed it folks. It's brown.
God bless America.
Isn't it a lovely "mix" of tones?
And yes, the bottle does read, "For Relaxing Times, Make It SANTORUM Time."
The color name is a limited edition. From what I have read, once they sell out of their current stock of labels, they'll be changing the name of the product. I'm buying a number of bottles this week. One for personal use. The others as keepsakes. As the presidential race goes on, the value of this product is only going to go up.
At the moment, Manglaze is redesigning their website. You can purchase a bottle of Santorum via Amazon. Type in the code "OCCUPYME" at checkout and get 10% off the retail price.
Perhaps I'm really late to the game, but I'm laughing my ass off at Ghetto Hikes. According to it's creator, the page is maintained by a 28 year old that leads urban kids on nature hikes. "I simply write down the shit they say."
Today's gem:
"We thought Thurman ova there havin' a seizure. Turns out he just excited bout nature."
A couple of my favorites in recent weeks include:
"Jamarcus mad cuz I change his Facebook status to say he like men, and he can't change it cause this forest ain't got no wifi."
and,
"We in nature dawg. Ain't no need dictionary words like beverage."
If you don't have a Tumblr account, you can still follow the adventures of Mr. Cody on Facebook or Twitter. Just click one of the links at the top of his website.
On Thursday night, Whitney made her final appearance on the red carpet in nearly a year. It was in honor of Kelly Price and Friends Unplugged: For The Love Of R&B GRAMMY Party, at Tru Hollywood nightclub. At one point during the evening, the 48 year old diva joined Ms. Price onstage, in what would ultimately become her last live performance:
Whitney Houston died earlier today. The cause of her death is currently under investigation.
Multiple news sources are confirming that legendary singer Whitney Houston has passed away at the age of 48. While her publicist has refused to confirm the whereabouts of the singer's demise, TMZ is reporting that crime lab vehicles are stationed outside the Beverly Hilton hotel, and that sources are indicating that as Ms. Houston's location.
In the course of her career, Whitney sold over 200 million albums and singles, and ranks as the fourth best selling female artist of all time. Though she publicly battled addiction at numerous times during her life, she will be remembered as one of the foremost influential artists of the century.
As many of you know, Rick Santorum has been trying to have Google take down their unflattering search results for his name. The above advertisement is for an online porn company by the name of HotMovies.com (link is obviously NSFW). If you have been on the PornHub or Spankwire networks, you've seen their work.
Yesterday, Rick Santorum made his case for President before attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, held in Washington D.C. The convention is the annual meeting place for right-wing nutjobs and their hate group supporters to shit on anything that supports women, minorities, or the LGBT community.
In addition to the booths from recognized anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic, and white supremacist organizations, Thursday's conference included a speech from the head of the NAACPC. Yes. There's and extra "C" there. He said, "We have to eliminate the hyphens. First and foremost, we are all Americans. We're not Indian Americans or African Americans or what have you." Yeah. It's because African-Americans are segregating themselves that we have such a problem in this country. Not because of anti-minority organizations like the NAACPC. Riiiiight.
So, as you could imagine, the folks in attendance yesterday loved Santorum.
I am going to post the video of his speech, in full. I have to say, it took all I could muster to get through the 22 minutes of bullshit. If you would rather skip it, here's an overview:
Obama is a fascist dictator.
Democrats are trying to shove birth control pills down our children's throats.
Scientists made up the idea of climate change.
Clean energy is a joke.
Higher energy consumption equals better living.
The government is not above god.
"Obamacare" goes against freedom of religion.
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!!
At about 16:25 in the clip, Santorum ironically says that he supports the "Conservative vision of "Bottom up"". Probably not the best phrase to use when your name is floating around the internet as an alternate definition regarding anal sex. He used the "bottom up" phrase at least four times by my count. How embarrassing.
As least he's not pimping his handicapped kid onstage like Sarah Palin used to. That was beyond desperate.
This post marks a significant milestone for 'The Twitch'. It's my 1,000th post. When I started the site in September of 2009, it was with the intention of making it an online journal of sorts to document my newly diagnosed Tourette's Syndrome and PTSD. I never would have thought that, two and a half years later, the page would have changed in the ways that it has to become was it is today.
In my 36 years of life, I have not followed through with 1,000 of anything. I have consistently, time after time, given up when things have gotten difficult or required more effort than I was willing to put into it. Piano lessons. Saxophone lessons. There was even a time in my early twenties, when I paid a year's worth of rental fees for a cello up front, with the intention of learning to play it. It made for an interesting conversation piece to impress the ladies. Multiple guitars. Dozens of books, magazines and video games I have never finished. To see that I am writing my thousandth post is truly surprising to see. 'The Twitch' has become my baby - my job in a way.
That being said: If you are a regular reader of the site, or a friend of mine on Facebook, you've probably noticed the lack of posts coming from the website in recent weeks. In September, I posted 118 articles. In October, 80. November and December saw less than two dozen each. It's the 7th of February, and this is my first post of 2012. Well, let's just say that my head isn't in the right place.
It's really hard to explain.
As most of you know, I have been dealing with a number of medical issues over the last year or so. Lately, things have been seriously affecting my brain. It has become increasingly difficult to express a coherent thought.
Writing seems to be easier than talking. Still, during a large part of the day, I have trouble reading and spelling even the simplest of words. It's extremely frustrating, considering that in the past, I was writing as many as a dozen posts per day.
In the coming days, I'm hoping to get myself motivated enough to start writing again on a semi-regular basis. I have quite a bit to explain concerning my medical situation. I have a number of new issues that will likely require a couple of major surgeries this year. It's going to be a very long post, and I'm not really in the mood at the moment to write at length about what's keeping me bedridden. Let's just say that it's not good.
As I was writing that last paragraph, this song started playing on Pandora. I've heard it hundreds of times. It's one of my favorite tunes. This time, however, the words took on a different meaning to me. I'll be honest: I cried a bit.
38, queer, poly, happily married punk and stay at home dad to my five-year-old, Elle. In June of 2009, I was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome, and PTSD a month later. I have been on disability since. In recent months, I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia,Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Sjogren's Syndrome, a Chiari malformation, small fiber neuropathy, Type 1 Diabetes, and have a massive benign cyst in my brain. And, to top it all off, I was diagnosed with lupus in March of 2014.
I haven't been writing as often as I would like to lately. Trying to catch up on some lost time. Please forgive me.
I'm an anarchist and an atheist. My political views are too far left to even be considered Democrat. I believe that marriage and health care are fundamental human rights. And don't get me started on people calling themselves "pro-life", and denying education and food stamps to children.
