Music/Music Video/Song:
The best music discovered last year: doom, or general stoner music. A good blog for this is stonerobixxx, a collective of one person's conscious effort to keep this music, and its variants, alive. Includes stoner, death, desert, space, you name it. Basically, guitar music, rhythmic music, head-banging shit. Favorites for last year: Pantera, Blood Farmers, Church of Misery, Electric Wizard (even though their latest album was not great), Myron Lee and the Caddies (not metal, 1960s rock n' roll, like rock from Mad Men type, think Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry), and perhaps, Adele (through no fault of my own).
Last year I was a bit late to this music video, even though it mostly showed up late in the year. While not generally a fan of this band, the video for what could be the best almost-mainstream song, the Deftones' "You've Seen the Butcher," is fucking unreal. Through the song the band plays, for some reason in a giant library seemingly floating, but with enough space and stellar acoustic to record a melodic metallic pop band like the Deftones. Books begin falling from the limits, probably because the keyboard player is PLAYING REALLY DAMN AGGRESSIVELY! The guitarist's face is nay seen, just a giant Dimebag Darrell-esque coiffure. Chino, the singer, apparently feels he should be in the Beastie Boys, what with his hand gestures letting us believe he owes people money but more people actually owe him. Vaseline is no stranger to the cameraman, I trust familiar in ways we commoners have yet to grasp. Before lapsing into some critique of the sound, the point must be made concerning the director of the video, Jodeb. Masterfully using the slow-mo technique to turn the library ne recording studio into a writhing, sweating moshpit of half-naked coeds, the director builds as the song builds. It gets so hot or steamy, the library's sprinkler system kicks in, the nearly naked coeds are soaked, as is the band, but are the books? The shelves? Erroneous. Our vision shakes, the band "enters" our tomb, and all the while young hot chicks of all descent, and even a few young dudes, stare at us. It must be stressed, and to the credit of Jodeb, the chicks are rare seen behind the Vaseline. Their deadly come-hither locks right in, and the bespectacled grad student in search of Leeuwenhoek's collected works stops and fixes her plaid skirt, raises a creamy leg up to a low shelf, and tugs on her knee socks. Outside the sky turns red, a blonde zero's in, and the drummer lays a beating bovine heart down on the skins. Witnessing a band play in the rain is one thing; witness to a musical autopsy is another bag entirely. A bloody bass is fucking epic, a rebounding down-tuned low E is unforgettably eerie. The singer loses his shirt and becomes Christ before the Romans. And just as the Romans, the quiet study that once was becomes a sloppy, tongue-lapping, smiley orgy of eager sophomores with the perkiest mamms to be bought and a rock band with no remorse for the preservation of incunabula. As the chorus rings out, one is trapped in a tiny library with gory pals and no reading lamp. In another room, perhaps rows NON-FIC 666-999, a couple of leather-clad fatales await to stamp our tickets and let us know when to return. The only chance we get to see those babes comes but a single time, and fleeting it is, lasting maybe eight seconds...eight seconds that seems like eight days. How long was Christ on the cross before they unhinged him? Ask the singer, he was there, he has the wet red rags to prove it. Jodeb leads us down the crimson lane, parting the tides of his people's efforts, and killing the watcher, but not before giving him a new complex: instantaneous and uncontrollable arousal from bound and printed matter. Thanks, thanks alot 'Tones.
The best song of 2011 actually is the best few seconds of a song from an artist who basically blew-the-fuck-up with two tracks. This is the latter of the two tracks, and it was quickly found on the radio in more than one version. The final cut on Adele's "21" is called "Someone Like You," and the best song/musical moment of 2011 occurs at minute 1 second 27 of the nearly 5-minute heart-wrenching and soul-caressing ballad, duration of maybe 6 seconds. That's it. That brief few moments of the curvaceous Brit babe's year-end hit, so completely encompassing of music of the last 50 years, see Aretha Franklin, the recently passed Etta James, and even the Monroe cut from "Some Like It Hot." The video can be found on Adele's website, and it's cool too. "Her eyes, her eyes are a blue million miles," the Captain would say, but here they're a dismal color of black and then gray and then black again. She walks along a bridge in broken England and her hair flies into the wet breeze and the watcher cries and decrees "I know you begged, but he wasn't worth it, love, come sit, spot o' tea then?"
Film:
Last year I made it to the theater a handful of times, and a small hand, a baby's hand, at that. I think I saw Unknown, which featured a dangerous January Jones from Mad Men, Red Riding Hood with the lovely Amanda Seyfried (see 2009's lesbiana film, Chloe), The Hangover II (not great, like the first one, but worse), and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (not great, but the ending was cool, and I saw it with a buddy). I saw even better films on DVD: a slew of Pam Grier films, oh yes, she can be naked anytime for your own author, a ton of black/white films from the noir era, Night of the Hunter, Strangers on a Train, that kind, Nightmare Alley (a so-hot Helen Walker plays a devilish psychologist), Phenomena, the Argento thriller with a cute, fifteen-yr old J. Connelly, the cool Fulci erotique, Perversion Story, a bunch of westerns, and a few flicks on VHS. Blonde in Black Leather (vhs) features my new found favorite blonde (sorry Diana Dors), Monica Vitti, and an aging, but still fine-like-a-bitch, Claudia Cardinale. I love watching movies on tape, many of which will never make it to DVD or Blu-Ray. This is one of those lost articles of almost lewd cinema. There is one scene with Vitti, who wears black leather the entire time mind you, where she has her attire "waxed," and her taut bosoms are polished to a reflection. In the privacy of my own home, I viewed this film but a few weeks ago, and couldn't be happier to have done so. My favorite of all-time, Cardinale, is a little thin, as she is wont in her later years, but her curves show proudly in the opening scene: she works in a dry-cleaners, wearing a white smock, almost like a nurse, and it's thin, the smock, and there is steam EVERYWHERE. Possibilities? Fuck yes.
Food:
Mexican food has never been bigger than it is now, what with chains opening up like it's time to switch from Chinese. Chipotle burritos win, and what sleazier food is there than a burrito? I don't know, but whatever it is didn't make its way into my mouth last year. This year is still young, vibrant, ripe for the sleaz-efying. Oh, I did eat bull penis late last year. Classy.
Magazine:
See my previous entry for the Vogue Italia issue with three very smoking-hot bella donnas. The Lindsay Lohan issue was disappointing, released earlier this year. She needs to hurry up and jump on the "I'm in the adult entertainment business because of a friend and how "much fun" she said she was having" bus.
Adult Film Star:
This is probably a toss between Alexis Texas and Dors Feline. Alexis Texas is always on her game, always on the hunt for game, and never plays games with your psyche (unless you want her to), in all her full-rear glory. Oh, she starred in a low-budget, very low, film about zombies called Bloodlust Zombies, with a soft-core scene, and some full nude scenes. Dors has yet to do hardcore, but I hope she keeps it that way. Here is a sweet 3-minute clip guaranteed to get you hard/wet.
There you have it. My best of 2011. My next post will be back to the paperbacks. Maybe. Probably.
