Pop Cesspool

WHAT FOOKIN' PLANET DID THIS HAPPEN ON?

From EW's Feb. 5 issue, in an article about why nobody has bothered to do another Fletch movie:

Gregord Mcdonald created the character of Irwin Maurice Fletcher while working as a journalist for The Boston Globe. The Harvard-educated Mcdonald joined the paper in 1966 and was given what sounds like the best job in the world -- or in journalism at least. "Go and have fun and write about it," his editor instructed him. "And if you end up cut and bleeding on the sidewalk, call the office." Over the next few years, Mcdonald reported from both sides of society's suddenly chasm-like generation gap, writing about John Wayne, war protesters, Vietnam vets, and On the Road author Jack Kerouac, with whom he went barhopping.

1. People used to get a paycheck for that? Shit, the '60s were a fuckin' fantasy land.

2. Which editor decided that EW readers need to be reminded who Jack Kerouac is?

INEVITABLE 'TWILIGHT' ENTRY

I'm not gonna bore you with some sort of testosteroid riff on the Twi-world, although you know that shit would be funny, because I am so macho, and those vampires are merely good-looking. The sad truth is that I'm too lazy to do the research. Instead, I'll just plug Sigma Twi Omega, because I know one of the freaks on the masthead. Also: They've got like 40 mottoes, and one is: "NOT lame. SO tight," and I sure-as-hell have typed that about some fuckin' mathrock band or gully-rapper in my day. So yeah, we're all nerds, y'know?

DUNNO ABOUT YOU, BUT I'M REALLY TIRED OF THIS ONE APPLE DUDE

DON'T YOU DARE LOOK AT ME THAT WAY, DUDE, I WILL FUCKIN' EAT YOU FOR LUNCH. AND YOUR SUPERIOR-LY DESIGNED iPAD, TOO.

Whatever, though, I might buy one. JUST STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE YOU'RE TRYING TO PERSUADE ME TO SUCK YOUR PENIS.

NOTES ON WU-TANG VS. THE BEATLES

• Producer Tom Caruana obviously employed the breadth of Beatles-derived content -- a smart move, considering the abundance of over-ripe orchestrated covers and cheeky reggae send-ups (subsets that are rich with sonic doo-dads). But here's something to note for anybody else in the mashup market: There's tons and tons of Wu shit out there, too.

• Danger Mouse's Grey Album was awesomely clever; Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers is all about brute creativity. It's unfair to compare them on a 1:1 basis.

• The finished product manages to be totally respectful of all its source material, without seeming cautious. That's love.

• It's invigorating to hear some of the more shopworn Wu raps on top of crisp, snappy beats. In this setting, they're more like masterful mouth-music instead of weird gutter transmissions riding on RZA-haze. (Not that there's anything wrong with RZA-haze.)

• The clips of archival Beatles news reports are a nice touch; they focus on the nascent Fab Four, creating a plausible link between the rebellion of early Beatlemania and the hip-hop fuck-you that came from Shaolin Island. (A few Wu-related clips would've been good, too.)

• If you know O.C.'s "Time's Up," the last section of "Back In The Game" reveals that beat to be from a an orchestral version of "A Day In The Life." Whoo!

• Caruana should've used the version of "Run" with Jadakiss on it.

• Also: I hear lots of Inspectah Deck, but not much GZA.

HOUSECLEANING

Pop Cesspool will remain as shitty as the day it was born, we can promise you that, buckaroo. But for now we're tweaking some of the tech. It means that you might see some weird colors or generic layout features. If so, take more drugs and come back in 12 hours.

LATEPASS: SPARK DAWG'S 'SKYPE HYPE'

He's obviously got an old-school VGA monitor. 'Tis but a quibble, however. Spark is all right in my book. HOT CANDY. (H/T to PhiBu.)

I'M NOT A DESIGN CRITIC, BUT I PLAY ONE ON TELEVISION*

This is the new logo for Allentown, Pennsylvania:

My reaction: What's that curvy thing with the square supposed to be? Oh, it's an "A." OK, fine, but if the slogan is "City without limits," why choose a symbol that obviously has limits? The curve starts in one place and ends in another, like a fast-food drive-through. I'LL HAVE LARGE FRIES AND A MR. PIBB WITH MY ALLENTOWN BURGER, PLEASE. And if the "A" is supposed to imply upward-and-outward movement, why is it all blunted and round, like a water tower? Shouldn't it be a least a little bit pointy, like a rocket cone or the nose of a really fast airplane? ARE YOU AFRAID OF SPACE TRAVEL, ALLENTOWN? Because if you are, then you obviously have limits. I'm so confused.

* The television of my mind, sweetcheeks.

THAT MOTHERFUCKER'S CRAZY, THROW YOUR PANTIES ON THE STAGE

I'm-a let The Daily Swarm handle the Jay Reatard encomiums (note that bitchin' quote from the Village Voice), but I'll drop a little RIP-Teddy-Pendergrass on you, via "Delirious." Go old-school Eddie:

'BITCHES COME'

The Finn called suddenly last night to say, "if you turn on FX right now, within the next 5 minutes you'll hear the greatest line of film dialogue within the last 10 years." I flipped it on, but I got sidetracked by Poppa obligations. This is what I missed:

Word, bitches. In a broader sense, I think "xXx" is officially one of those movies that should be on the TV in the background at your local ironic rock club. At a minimum, those blue-heavy club scenes look like Something -- like maybe the retarded cousin of "The 5th Element." And, y'know, The Vin Diesel is kinda fascinating if the sound is turned down.

LATENT ANALYSIS: 'THE HANGOVER'

They kinda bitch-out, when it comes to using the baby. He doesn't have any scenes with the tiger or Mike Tyson.

HEY, KID!

Yeah you, the "Real World" guy. You may be a virgin and a shit-talker, but I can assure you that at your age, Poppa Cesspool was more of a virgin and more of a shit-talker than you could ever hope to be. So let me break it down: The key to self-actualizing, Andrew, is to *almost* get in some fistfights. Skeeving people out with petty lies and sexual non-sequiturs is boring. Confusing them to the point of near-violence, however, is art. If you're truly a genius, you'll be so gross that you're hot, so full of shit that dudes will find you dangerous. Oh yeah, I forgot one thing: LEARN FROM THE RAPPERS: It doesn't hurt to surround yourself with a posse of freaks. This delightful-loner stuff is a dead-end street. You'll actually get punched one day, because the perpetrators will not fear retribution. And getting punched is not art.

It's possible that all of this advice will be moot because of some plot-twist that turns you into a poet/fuckmachine, but I'm willing to that risk.