Regular Columns

Name: Krasdale Chocolate Flavored Syrup

I've decided a while back that people can be fairly easily split into two categories. I'm not talking about Democrats vs. Republicans, dog people vs. cat people, or people who feel like Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper vs. people who feel like it tastes more like cough syrup. No, a more definitive classification system exists which speaks more to the inner character of a person. Yes, I'm talking about Gummi vs. Chocolate.

The fact is that after a rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific exploration of the phenomenon, I've concluded that when confronted with a choice of sweets, half of people lean toward candy of the gummi genus, whereas the other half pick candies of the (superior) chocolate family. There are, of course, outliers who mess up the data, namely heathens who like both equally or those that like neither. They are dead to me and therefore should not influence the outcome of this very important study.

Rarely have movies about movies been officially acknowledged as a cinematic subgenre. And yet, there have been hundreds of them from many different countries and time periods. When watching a movie whose narrative is in some way a reflection on the filmmaking process, most cinephiles can achieve instant orgasms without having to lift a finger. Does the very self-reflective nature of these films make them inherently vain?

I've been taking pictures and putting them on the internet for a while, but I have just now gotten around to folding my web photo efforts into the Drome Empire. I will hopefully be updating this more frequently now that I have the technical means to do so. My site, Look at my hair! Like the design! can be accessed from the main menu or at lookatmyhair.cosmodromemag.com

Do you know where the name comes from? It is one of the more charismatically delivered and enjoyable asides/repeated theme variations in a popular song. The top picture now is of a grill that Mike and I built. Check it.

It has been a while. Here's another mix. It started out as a "long songs are good" mix but that was a long time ago. It's now different. Download link will expire in 1 week.

1. "Everlasting Love" — Alisa — We Love Katamari OST
I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I LLLOVE YOU

2. "Regret" — New Order — Republic
I guess that's what they all sayyy

3. "Please Return to Me" — The Fleets — The Complete Stax-VoltSingles
All of this Stax/Volt box set is hotness.

Name: Krasdale Cheese Pizza: For One

I knew I was going to be in trouble with this one. The moment I opened the C-Town's freezer door and reached in for the black box of Krasdale's Cheese Pizza adorned with a ribbon with the words "For One" and a cartoony explosion stating "$1.19", a little voice in my head was screaming "Wrong! Wrong!" But I was on a mission and nothing would deviate me from that goal. I am committed to subjecting myself to all that is necessary to make sure you get the best in generic food reviews.

A little back history first: I tend to like microwavable food. I like microwavable pizza. Admittedly, I haven't had one in years, but my formative years (5-10, let's say) were dominated by a surrogate, possibly made up, motherly figure named Celeste. She was my sun, my moon, my grandmotherly oval-encased stars. She could also make the finest of after school snacks.

"J. Edgar Hoover ranked 'the juvenile jungle' right up there with communism as a threat to American freedom."
- Thomas Doherty, Teenagers & Teenpics

The collapse of the studio system in the 1950s and ‘60s has been discussed under many rubrics. One of those rubrics is the rise of youth culture. Exploitation producers like Samuel Katzman and Roger Corman paved the way by making movies that were marketed exclusively towards kids. As films like Rock Around the Clock and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein became surprise hits, the studios followed suit. Suddenly, middle class baby boomer kids, who had Mom and Dad’s allowance to spend, became the prime movie-going audience. The entire cinema industry was revitalized based on the energy of youth, fueled by the simultaneous emergence of Rock ‘N Roll. The initial string of Exploitation “teenpics” influenced the studios to make films like Rebel without a Cause, but they also influenced the emerging European and Asian New Wave filmmakers who shifted the international art cinema’s attention from bourgeois adults to troubled adolescents.

A friend of mine who shall remain nameless (name begins with D and ends with AN SMITH - that narrows it down to about two million) recently expressed to me that he wasn't so fond of the 1970s when it comes to rock n' roll. With several exceptions (namely Bowie), he felt that the decade was pretty much a wasteland. And so the myth goes: while the '60s were radical, the '80s were fun, the '90s remind us of our childhood, and the '00s have witnessed the merger of pop, hip hop, and electronica into one glorious genre of production virtuosity... the '70s, well, there were indulgent solos and there was disco.

Not true.

Larry McMurtry, crotchety old man who wrote Brokeback Mountain and wore jeans to the Academy Awards, has written in depth about the inability of cinema to depict intellectuals and intelligence on-screen. This outlook makes a lot of sense when you consider the common belief that the film medium is inherently made up of visuals and action. As a result, you get intellectuals writing "down," as McMurtry has with Brokeback's inarticulate cowboys and also with films like The Last Picture Show, or as smart actors have, as Marlon Brando was famous for in Streetcar and On the Waterfront. There is something cinematic about inarticulation: characters expressing themselves with their bodies, grunting like cavemen and speaking with their eyes.

And though films with excessive dialogue have always been looked down upon as too "theatrical," especially when they're based on plays, there is a tradition of movies that have cinematically captured intellectualism - the charm, the banter, the power of ideas, the dilemma of the vanguard.

Round 3 of mixes continues on with my selection of choice cuts that are so hot they cook.

1) Plantlife/Nina Sky: "Love 4 the World/Turnin' Me On" (Fabriclive 24: Diplo)
The handclap/"Hey!" background makes this song a burner to start off with. Do I love Diplo cause he's a dope selector or cause he loves Ludacris as much as I do?

2) Kaoma: "Lambada"
The Forbidden Dance. I've been promising it on my first few mixes, but never delivered. Finally makes the cut by popular demand.

Okay, so this mix includes at least two party fowls – see if you can spot them – but, as Lars von Trier says, rules are made to be broken. There’s a bigger picture at work here. And that picture is Jesus. The best song on this mix is by Dusty Springfield.

1. Pulp: "I'm a Man" (This Is Hardcore)
Here I start my journey at my Jewiest. Though Jews are often associated by mass culture with femininity or weakness, I am inverting that stereotype. Jews are some of the most hetero-masculine, homophobic, "square" people I know. Just look at Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David or Woody Allen.