This Week’s Question:What is the best band name you’ve ever heard?
Grant: Right now, I’d say that title for humor goes to Iron Reagan. Metal, politics. I mean, I’d never listen to anything they ever played, but the name…the name is golden.
This Week’s Question: What is more impressive, the skydiver breaking the sound barrier, or Cool Hand Luke eating 50 eggs?
Grant: I wasn’t even alive when Cool Hand Luke was released. Yet, somehow, I know who Cool Hand Luke is and that he is the bane of poultry. The fact that his feat has continued to hold significance since 1967 makes Paul Newman a man of men. As for the skydiver who broke the sound barrier, his feat was awesome and requires an iron will AND an iron stomach. But nearly fifty years from now, will anyone remember…wait…what was his name again?
This Week’s Question: What is your preferred temperature when eating a steak?
Grant: When eating a steak, I prefer to be around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius. It helps me to enjoy the food, instead of worrying about fever or flu.
With Skyfall dropping next Friday and Daniel Craig’s last two contracted 007 movies having been slated for release within the next three years, a giant void is getting ready to open up in Hollywood. Everyone is asking, Who will be the next James Bond?
There’s a scene in 1987’s Married With Children when the worn and wary schlep of a man, Al Bundy, looks at his wife of twenty-plus years and says “What was I thinking when I said ‘I do’?” He immediately slouches down into his couch, his eyes glazed with something between self-loathing and throwing in the towel, while his doting, ditzy wife rolls her eyes and walks away. The audience eats it up, laughing, cheering and clapping all the way home.
I remember seeing that show, that moment, and even in my six year old little brain, I thought “Marriage is fucked.”
Imagine a stranger comes up to you and promises you that your school-aged child will never die of this one particular disease; this scourge on the human race that has taken so many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. Imagine he says this will only cost a menial amount. Imagine he’s legit and there are no strings attached, no Rapunzel-esque paybacks that will creep up to haunt you later on.
You’d take the deal, without question, right? Who wouldn’t?
After reading the details of the panda cub death at the National Zoo I grieved at first, but immediately afterward I began thinking about some of the facts and I realized that pandas are some lucky assed reproducers. Too soon or not, I think it’s time we took a look at how hard mothers of other species (ours included) have it in comparison.
I’m going to keep it short since I’ve already clearly stated my feelings towards Diaz’s work before. His new book This Is How You Lose Her continues the tale of Yunior, the protagonist/narrator of his last two works Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And while some of the stories in Lose Her might be a little flat or anticlimactic, they still pop with Diaz’s signature prose: that cool laid back style that blends chicano plain-speak with brilliant prose. Where the book shines, and believe me it does shine, is during the sexy interludes with an older woman in Miss Nora and the brutal, cold, hard truth about the author himself in his final story which bears the same title as the book. It’s in this last story that your heart breaks for Diaz. It’s in this last story that the brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning wordsmith exposes himself as just another man, another hot mess screwing up everything in his search for ass.
If you have never read anything of Diaz’s, this would be a great start. The stories are quick, easy and plenty enjoyable. He uses humor like few authors do and never lets up from keeping true to himself.
Nicely done, Junot.
This September is a doozy for art. Talk about shit pouring out in multiple forms every week of the month. Just to keep up with it, I’m going to have to work these books and records like a part-time job, though, unlike a part-time job, this shit is going to pay in spades. Did I mention the stuff dropping this month is quality? Because it is. Take a look.
1. Kanye West’s GOOD Music Group - Cruel Summer - You know that arrogant asshole who made Tay Swift cry and just might be the most prolific musical genius of our generation? Well he’s got this GOOD Music group (featuring artists ranging from Jay-Z to John Legend) that he worked with before releasing the awesomeness that was Dark Twisted Fantasy. Then he went on to drop Watch The Throne and prove the perfectionist in him was also undoubtedly the shit. you can guarantee he isn’t going to disappoint with this collab record, either.. His ego wouldn’t allow it.
2. Junot Diaz - This Is How You Lose Her - For those who don’t know, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao might just be the best book ever written. Before that, MIT prof and literary Illuminati, Junot Diaz, scribed the brilliant Drown, which had me speechless to say the least. Now he’s released his third, a collection of short stories which is something Diaz does exquisitely. I’ve had the pleasure of reading the first and can honestly say that if you’re a fan, you’re in luck. If you’re not, you’re about to become one.
3. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor II - Sure he sampled Pete Rock to many a chagrin. But be honest, that shit was hot, right? So let’s forgive Lupe’s desacration of The Classic and welcome a great lyricists reported last hoorah with Food & Liquor II. The “Kick Push” rapper has never let us down and after his last album, Lasers (which was phenomenal), I can only imagine how good this shit is going to be.
4. Jonathan Tropper - One Last Thing Before I Go - He wowed us with Book of Joe. He continued with How To Talk To A Widower and a slew of others. Finally, he won over mass audiences with This Is Where I Leave You. Tropper has a way with being able to not only write wonderful satire, but mix it with heart wrenching pain and drama. It makes him one of the most readable great contemporaries out there. I haven’t opened up his latest, but I can assure you his track record is impeccable.
Autocorrect This Whit You Tucking Dint
I’ve never really owned a true smart phone or tablet or what have you. For my trip I got a Kindle Fire (because tuck Steve jobs, that’s why). I like it except for this stupid mother tucking autocorrect feature that turns my whey vulgar word into some Battlestar Galactica euphemism. So here’s my autocorrected take on the feature.
Tuck! This stupid goddamned hitch did it again. I type in tots and it gives me tots. I don’t want tots. I want biff heaping mounds of fleshy tots.
This week’s anonymously-submitted question:
What is the distinction between a school prank and school bullying?
Grant: A school prank is when a group of douchebags—or their feminine counterparts, the douchebagettes—decides to deface the institution that served them for four years (sometimes more) and provided an education that, thoughout history, many people would have killed for. No one gets hurt, but the custodians have to pull more thankless overtime hours and the teachers are pissed. School bullying is when you make a kid scared to come to school through physical threats or social humiliation. The teachers still get angry, but a student is mentally scarred. The assholes who make people feel that way are among the lowest forms of scum on this Earth.
Jared: School prank is when you sneak into all the yearbook club photos (or at least that was mine). School bullying is when you give the dude who’s lower than you on the social hierarchy a hard time for no better reason than because you can, because you need to feel better about your position among the ranks. School bullying is pathetic. It’s sad. I usually think school prankers as uncreative, but I usually think school bullies as future fucking losers. Used car sales lots beware.
Let Them Eat Horse
“How would you like your horse done?” The absurdity of the question only falls away to the disgusting image of sitting at a restaurant table gnawing on Mr. Ed head cheese or Seabisquit sirloin. So while horses may be large, farm bred animals, their meat is not something most Americans have ever considered eating.
But all of that could change.
At the age of forty-one, Matt Damon has got the world by the balls. In 2011 alone, he was in five movies, appeared in a recurring role on NBC’s 30 Rock and began work on his directorial debut; a dream of his for years now. And while he might very well be one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces and marketable names, there is still quite a bit that most moviegoers don’t know about the charismatic Damon. Here’s a few:
Come To Butt-head: Why America Is Prime For Two Idiots’ Return
Remember Beavis & Butt-head: the bane of parents and conservatives everywhere at a time in the early 1990’s when rebellion had once again become cool? Of course you do.After all, who could forget their perpetual chuckle? Their brainless banter? They’re ha-whacking-off in Tom Anderson’s trailer?
What toy do you wish you still had even now, as an adult?
(Click READ MORE to see The Dispatch’s reaction.)
