In Memoriam: Bands We Lost In 2011 (Video)

In the spirit of the montage we have become accustomed to seeing during Oscar telecasts, stereogum has made a video of the bands that have broken up over the course of the year.

As with the awards show "In Memoriam" segments, there's the sporadic swell in applause.  There are the occasional superstar/A-List bands, scattered amongst the sea of bands that 98% of people have never heard of (unless there is a true fan out there).  The clip even features a couple of moments that catch you off guard, just like the Emmys do every goddamn year.

"Oh my god...LCD Soundsystem broke up?!?"

It's really quite clever.  Take a look.

Asshole Of The Week

So, I've decided to write another weekly post.  Earlier yesterday, I wrote the first of a new weekly post titled "BAMF of the Week".  I figured, if I'm going to feature a bad ass once a week, it's only fair for me to feature an asshole.

Sadly, as much as I would have personally wanted the first ever "Asshole of the Week" to be Sarah Palin, this week was "Ignore Sarah Palin Week".  Over 118,000 people pledged on Facebook to turn the TV when Palin comes on, or click to another website when they see a news article about her.  Hundreds of websites and bloggers, including myself, agreed to not so much as mention her this week.  I have no idea if she's even still in the country.  Will someone please email me and tell me she isn't?

No, this week's asshole is Fox News host and potential 2012 Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee.

Mr. Huckabee was on New York's WOR radio Monday morning, speaking on the nationally syndicated 'Steve Malzberg Show'.  For some unknown reason, the topic of the supposed secrecy of Barack Obama's birth certificate came up.  Then, the following conversation followed:



Yeah, I can't believe it either.  Just to make sure I'm covering all the bases here, I'm going to show a transcript of the above conversation:

MALZBERG: Don't you think it's fair also to ask him, I know your stance on this. How come we don't have a health record, we don't have a college record, we don't have a birth cer - why Mr. Obama did you spend millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate. It's one thing to say, I've -- you've seen it, goodbye. But why go to court and send lawyers to defend against having to show it? Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man?

HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits --

MALZBERG: Of Winston Churchill.

HUCKABEE: The bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

For those of you that are confused in regards to the reference of the but of Winston Churchill:  Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the British government loaned a bronze bust of Winston Churchill to then President George W. Bush, to be displayed in the Oval Office.  The bust, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, has been sitting in the office since.  Approximately three weeks after being sworn into office, President Obama, requested that the bust be sent back to the British government art collection, and replaced with a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

Journalists eagerly awaited an explanation or clarification to the comments Huckabee made on the radio show.  If you notice, he didn't specifically say that Obama was born in Kenya, just that he grew up in Kenya.  He would have been able to deny spreading any "birther" rumors, while still fueling the controversy.  Keep in mind, he is speaking to his base.  72% of potential Republican primary voters think Obama may have been born in another country.

So how did Huckabee respond?  He "misspoke".  According to a statement released by a spokesman on Tuesday:

"Governor Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in 'Kenya.'  The Governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia. When the Governor mentioned he wanted to know more about the President, he wasn't talking about the President's place of birth - the Governor believes the President was born in Hawaii.  The Governor would however like to know more about where President Obama's liberal policies come from and what else the President plans to do to this country - as do most Americans." 

He didn't "misspeak".  If he did, he wouldn't have said that he "grew up in Kenya" twice.  And, probably most importantly, Obama didn't grow up "with" his Kenyan at all.  In fact, he only saw him once, when Obama was ten years old, according to his autobiography.  So his father had no influence in his life whatsoever.

If Obama grew up in Indonesia, and without the influence of his Kenyan father, it's hard to believe that he would have developed this "very different" view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya, with some brewing hatred pointed toward the British people.

The Mau Mau Revolution was a conflict in Kenya that took place between 1952 and 1960, between an anti-colonial group called the Mau Mau and the British Army.  It eventually became what amounted to a civil war and killed more than 50,000 citizens in the process.  Keep in mind, this happened in Kenya in the 8 years prior to the President's birth.  As a child, Obama lived Indonesia, primarily in the Jakarta area.  Indonesia is separated from Kenya by 3,000 miles of the Indian Ocean.  To think that he would have any view of the Mau Mau Revolution would be a stretch of the imagination.  It would be like saying a 9 year old boy in Portugal is deeply affected by what happened before his birth in Ohio.  It's a ludicrous notion, at best.  The only reason he said these things is just to rile up the "birthers" that are tuning in and remind them that "there's a crazy African Muslim in the White House, and he must be stopped at all costs".

You would think after that debacle, Huckabee would have kept his mouth shut for the rest of the week and  try to avoid any further negative press.  Not quite.

As many of you know, Natalie Portman won the Oscar last Sunday night for Best Actress, for her role in 'Black Swan'.  She is engaged to Benjamin Millepied, the choreographer of the film, and they are expecting their first child this summer.  Look at her.  Isn't she just beautiful?

Doesn't she look stunning?  Sexy even.  During her acceptance speech she thanked her fiancée, saying, "...and my beautiful love Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed the film and has now given me my most important role of my life.(referring to motherhood)"


What a simple, well written, and touching nod to her partner, right?  Not if you ask Mike Huckabee.


During the SAME radio interview Monday, he said the following about the media darling:




In case you missed it, here's a snippet of the bile that you just heard:

"You know Michael, one of the things that's troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children, and they're doing just fine.' But there aren't really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.

You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids -- across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering."

You know, for an "informal" interview, for two guys that were supposedly just "riffing", Huckabee had a shitload of statistics handy, didn't he?  

Where do I start on this one?  Natalie Portman is not going to be a single mother, first of all.  She's engaged, which, to me, means she's planning on marrying the father of her child.  And secondly, she thanked her fiancée and the father of her baby.  How is that "boasting"?  I don't see that.  She's not encouraging young girls to go out and get pregnant.  She's not "glamorizing" anything.

The reason why, in Huckabee's words, so many single mothers are "very poor, uneducated, and can't get a job", is because Republicans like him have eliminated funding for women's services and family services programs that single mothers around the country depend on.  If single parents still had state funded Head Start programs, government assisted day care programs, and funding for women's reproductive resources, there would be an opportunity for single mothers today to have the time to find a better job, have time to get an education, and have the ability to have access to health services for proper birth control and contraceptives.  It would also help if fathers today acted like fathers and not "baby daddies", but I digress.  This is a post for another time.

Back to Huckabee.  Do you know how many successful people were the result of a single parent household?  A single mother household?  George Washington was raised by his mom.  So was Bill Clinton.  As was Barack Obama for a large portion of his life...and those are just U.S. Presidents.  The notion that if you are not married to your children's "sperm donor", your life, and theirs, are automatically fucked, is ridiculous.  I can tell you from experience.  My father was present my entire life.  He is still with my mom.  They're celebrating their 39th wedding anniversary this month.  It would have been much easier for all of us if we were raised in a single parent house.  

Where was Mike Huckabee when Bristol Palin was on 'Dancing With The Stars'.  She never married Levi Johnston, her child's father.  She's raising her son as a single parent.  The only reason she was considered a "star" was because she got pregnant.  She's not an actress.  She doesn't sing.  We all saw that she couldn't dance.  She got knocked up.  That's it.  And now she's a celebrity.  Why isn't Huckabee ripping her a new one on the radio?  Hypothetical question.  We all know why.

Interesting fact I found.  Did you know that Ronald and Nancy Reagan got married on March 4, 1952.  Their first child, Patti, was born on October 21, 1952.  Do the math.  That's right, folks.  The lord and savior of the Republican party and his significant other had a bun in the oven when they got married, 50 years ago.  We're only talking a matter of weeks, so Nancy may or may not have known that she was pregnant at the time.  But it definitely shows that they weren't the holy/righteous figures that everyone on the right would like to paint them to be.  They're all hypocrites.

So Mike Huckabee, congratulations.  You're a fucking asshole, and the first ever Daily Twitch "Asshole of the Week".  It's well deserved.

The Four Best Moments Of This Year's Oscars

I was really looking forward to seeing this year's Academy Awards telecast.  I am a big fan of both James Franco and Anne Hathaway, and I was curious to see how they would handle themselves as Oscar hosts.  Sadly, I wasn't impressed.  It doesn't appear that many were.  I don't think it's right to fault Franco and Hathaway necessarily.  They had writers.  It wasn't all ad lib.  Heck, they had a hologram of Bob Hope introduce Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.

In my opinion, this year's ceremony did have a couple of high points.  First of all, Christian Bale is a nice guy.  Who knew?  And get this....he's British!  I don't think anyone has caught him on camera using his actual speaking voice since 1987's 'Empire of the Sun'.  I don't know why it came as such a shock, like I was expecting him to give his Best Supporting Actor acceptance speech in his Batman voice, or with a Boston accent, but it was unusual to see Christian Bale as, well, Christian Bale.  And it sounds like he's a caring dad too:

Best speech of the night.  I got goosebumps again watching it as I was posting it on the page.  Well done, Christian.

Second highlight of the evening, and one that I have personally been waiting for for more than twenty years:  Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails wins an Academy Award.  The best part is that the award was not for Best Original Song.  So his Oscar legacy is not going to be with the likes of a bunch of singing mermaids and lions in Disney films, or that god awful 'Titanic' song.  Reznor won the Oscar Best Original Score for 'The Social Network'.  He beat out nine time Academy Award nominee, and this year's favorite, Hans Zimmer, and his work for the film 'Inception'.  If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend hearing, downloading, or purchasing the scores to both 'The Social Network' and 'Inception'.  They are both very unique pieces of work for film scores, and not your standard "over the top symphony" types of works.  Inception's score is, at times, unusually complex, and The Social Network's is dramatic and very subtle at times, while holding on to Reznor's industrial roots.  In 1989, when I first heard 'Pretty Hate Machine', I knew that Reznor would have a long, celebrated future in the music industry.  I never would have guessed that he would have been winning Oscars for film scores.  And, let me just say, the man looks pretty damn good in a tuxedo.  Am I right?

Yeah, that's his wife with him.  Her name is Mariqueen Maandig.  Some guys have all the luck.

The best parts of the evening, though, didn't happen during the telecast.  If you were watching the Oscars on ABC, you probably saw the first one a dozen times.  Unless you were actually sitting at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday night, you probably didn't even know the second event even take place.  ABC ran a commercial for their Wednesday night comedy 'Modern Family'.  I personally don't watch the show, though I know the premise. 

 The really attractive Latin woman is the dad's new wife.  She has a son that is about 9 or 10 years old, from a previous relationship.  Then you have the siblings in the family, which consist of this woman whose husband thinks he's cool, but is seriously out of touch, and her brother, who is gay, and has an adorable chubby husband.  They've recently adopted a little girl from China I think.  Based upon the commercial, the brother and his husband take Oscar night charades a little too seriously.  They're dressed up in tuxedos.  Between the Academy Awards and watching it on Youtube, I have probably seen this promo 20 times.  I still crack up every time I see it:

The best moment of the Oscars, that you probably have not seen, happened after the cameras were turned off Sunday night.  It was a musical performance from the choir of Staten Island, New York's, PS22.  They have been the darlings of Youtube for years.  Choir director Gregg Breinberg, started having the school's fifth grade students sing popular songs during choir practice since 2000.  Over the last 11 years, the students have garnered the attention of countless celebrities and musicians, as well as having nearly 30 million views on their Youtube page.  Sunday night, Oprah Winfrey invited them to sing Katy Perry's 'Firework', as well as a couple of other songs, for those in attendance after the telecast.  Unbeknownst to the children, a special guest was waiting backstage.  Take a look:

Right before the first chorus, Katy's voice comes in over the speakers, and you can start to see the confusion amongst the kids' faces.  Then the crowd starts to cheer, and everyone stops singing for a few seconds.  They're all turned around and in shock.  It takes them a moment to regain their composure, but as you saw, they kicked it up by the power of 10.  What a wonderful video.  Oprah is even teary eyed at the end of it.  Hell, I'm crying at the end of it.

All in all, it was one hell of a night.

An Oscar Night To Remember

Five years ago, on March 5, 2006, the 78th Academy Awards were held in the Kodak Theater, in Los Angeles, California. The favorite for Best Picture was nominated for 8 Oscars that evening. It was an independent film that the world had grown to call a "gay cowboy movie". The strange thing about it was, it didn't have one gay character in it.


The story is about two men, Ennis del Mar, played by Heath Ledger, and Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. They're hired to herd sheep during the summer of 1963 on Brokeback Mountain, in Wyoming. Over the summer, they fall in love. It's a love that lasts for twenty years.


During the span of those two decades, the men get married: Ennis to his long time fiancée, and Jack to a rodeo barrel racer he meets and falls in love with. Things change over the years for both men. Both couples have children. Jack and his wife teeter back and forth on the edge of divorce. Jack has an affair here and there with another woman. Throughout the years, two things remain constant: Jack and Ennis' affection for each other, and their regular "fishing trips" to Brokeback Mountain.


I won't give away any more of the plot or the story, just in case you haven't seen the movie.

The reception for the movie amongst the gay community was phenomenal.  Unfortunately, everyone seemed to forget that Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway played Ennis' and Jake's wives in the film.  Everyone called it a "gay romance", a "gay love story", (god, I hate this term) "that gay cowboy movie".


Regrettably, not one review of the film called it what it was, a bisexual love story.  Worse yet, at the time the movie came out, I can only find one article defending the movie as a bisexual picture (thank you Wikipedia).  It was an opinion piece by Amy Andre on December 16, 2005.  It was published on the National Sexuality Resource Center's site, nsrc.sfsu.edu, under the title "Opinion: Bisexual Cowboys In Love".  The opening paragraph made the most direct and passionate defenses of the movie to date:

"Brokeback Mountain is not a movie about gay people, and there are no gay people in it. There. I said it. Despite what you may have read in the many reviews that have come out about this new cowboy feature film, Brokeback Mountain is a bisexual picture. Why can't film reviewers say the word “bisexual” when they see lead characters with sexual and romantic relationships with both men and women?  I am unaware of a single review of Brokeback calling the leads what they are–a sad statement on the invisibility of bisexual experience and the level of biphobia in both the mainstream and gay media."

Other mainstream writers, although not using the term "bisexual", also acknowledged that this was not a "gay"movie.  In late 2009, Entertainment Weekly published an issued titled, "THE 100 Greatest MOVIES, TV SHOWS, ALBUMS, BOOKS, CHARACTERS, SCENES, EPISODES, SONGS, DRESSES, MUSIC VIDEOS, AND TRENDS THAT ENTERTAINED US OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS".  Sadly, I can't find where 'Brokeback' ranked in the top 100 list, but in describing the film, the magazine said:

 "Everyone called it "The Gay Cowboy Movie." Until they saw it. In the end, Ang Lee's 2005 love story wasn't gay or straight, just human."

Well said.


On Oscar night, 'Brokeback' won three of the eight Academy awards it was nominated for.  Ang Lee won Best Director.  The film also won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score.  Ledger, Gyllenhaal, and Michelle Williams were all nominated for their acting roles, but lost.  The movie itself, surprising lost to the underdog 'Crash'.


If you haven't seen this movie, do what you can to see it.  It is one of the most real and heart wrenching love stories you'll ever see.  I am embarrassed to say that I didn't see it myself until within the last few months, and now I kick myself for not seeing it sooner.  This is a story of true love.  This movie had nothing to do with sex or with lust.  It's a story of a lifelong bond between two bisexual men that I, for one, will never forget.