In Defense of Seth MacFarlane

Did I Do That?

Really America? This is what preoccupies us? Our country certainly can be disappointing at times. We are poisoning our children, the food we eat, the very air we breathe. Our civil rights are systematically eroding all around us. State-of-the-art, flying robots are being used to execute innocent women and children across the globe. Meanwhile, the companies responsible for all of this death and destruction are reaping benefits never before seen in the history of modern civilization. In light of all this, how do we react? By hurtling endless vitriol at the dude who hosted the Oscars. Obviously.

In order to manufacture outrage in this country, apparently what you have to do is something really obscene. Like sing a lighthearted ditty about female anatomy, wherein many of the subjects of the humor are in on the joke. Then people will be furious. They'll take to the message boards, they'll gather around the proverbial water coolers of their lives and bitch like petulant children.

Somebody Call the Waaambulance.

God forbid you make any sort of self-aware racist barb, anti-semitic quip or homophobic wisecrack. After all, a meta-joke is no defense for a tasteless slur! Except that, it is. Because instead of making fun of blacks, or Jews, or Gays, you're making fun of the people that make fun of blacks and Jews and Gays. That's a substantiative, fundamental difference and if you don't understand it then the joke is on you, as well.

I'm hardly a Seth MacFarlane loyalist. Sure, I'll watch an episode of Family Guy once in a while if it's late, I can't sleep and I've been hanging out in, say, post-2012 Colorado or Washington state. But I'm not in love with the guy (not that there's anything wrong with that). Actually, I wish I wasn't in a position where I'm forced to defend him. But Sweet Jesus, the internet will just not leave this man alone. 

There are so many things to despise about the Oscars. It's a bloated, drawn-out, self-important pageantry of pomp that could easily be condensed into 30 minutes of significance, commercials included. Yet none of these perennially aggravating flaws have anything to do with Seth MacFarlane nor his particular brand of irreverent humor. 

After Glimpsing Into The Future of His Career

Truth be told, if there was any problem with the host this past Sunday it was that he was far too tame. Anybody that has at least a modicum of familiarity with truly offensive humor--from talentless pigs the likes of George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Louis CK, and early 80s Eddie Murphy--would understand the subdued nature of MacFarlane's supposedly vulgar outbursts. 

Worse still are the people that complain that he was predictable and boring in his tastelessness. YOU ARE PRECISELY THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LACK OF EDGINESS. He tamped it down and made it boring to appease you, the self-important, squeamish masses! If you complain this much about him--sans his prickliest barbs--imagine how frothily you'd be foaming at the mouth if you got the full-on Family Guy version of the dude! 

Oh heavens to bitsy! Did he just allude to Jodie Foster's on-screen nudity?! That was from during a (gasp) rape scene! Have you no decency?

How Dare You Objectify Me!

Guess what? The idea of someone pausing the screen during a rape scene to admire Jodie Foster's female form is patently absurd--nobody admires Jodie Foster's female form! If you can't find humor in that, it's you that has the problem. At it's very core comedy is pure magic in its ability to somehow extract laughter from the depths of despair. It's a uniquely human trait--and a miraculous one at that. Don't diminish or cheapen it with your stubborn attempts to prove that someone has hurt your feelings--or worse yet--somebody else's feelings! 

Louis CK once wondered aloud when the soonest appropriate time would be to jerk-off in the wake of 9/11 (for him, it was between the first and second tower falling). Masturbation as related to the greatest single tragedy in our nation's history. This is the same guy whose material includes punchlines about his own daughters being sexually assaulted.  That is offensive stuff. That makes MacFarlane at the Oscars seem like Mother Theresa on Jay Leno. But you know what? People still find it funny. A lot of people, in fact. Louis CK is practically the biggest name in comedy today. Just because you don't find it funny doesn't mean there is no traceable comedic value. To assume so is egotistical and ignorant. Above all, it's insensitive to the tastes of others--which is what you're bitching about to begin with. That makes you a hypocrite at best and a self-righteous prick at worst.

All this phony sanctimony is positively maddening and painfully transparent: people will, without mercy, seek out THE. EASIEST. WAY. to feel better about themselves. We could go march down on Washington, right now, demanding legislators bring our troops home from pointless battles in faraway lands, insist on corporate accountability for our increasingly toxic, cancer-inducing environment--just to randomly name but a couple of serious issues plaguing us on the reg. But that would involve action. You know, like big-time, logging-off-of-Facebook kind of action. It's so much easier to just tweet your displeasure at someone who voices cartoons for a living, feign big ol' crocodile tears and show everybody how socially conscious you are. As if it's not bad enough that we have to live in a world where cataclysmic injustice goes furiously unchecked, now you wanna strip me of my only coping mechanism for dealing with that fact: unapologetically ruthless comedy. As they say, you can either laugh or you can cry.

But you know what makes me legitimately wanna cry? Aside from the fact that we live in a country where the dude who made a joke about Chris Brown beating up Rihanna catches more flack than the guy who actually beat up Rihanna (last I checked, Chris Brown has sold more records after physically abusing a seven time Grammy award-winning woman than he did before). What saddens me the most is that all this misspent outrage mutates society into one big self-satisfied delusion. As if railing against irreverent humor is a respectable stand-in for retaliating against global atrocities with rampant apathy and consistent inaction. Ultimately we end up with precisely what we deserve: Billy Crystal hosting the Oscars again. And that, my friends, is no laughing matter.

This Is Funny, Right?

Bringing The Heat

AJ's Mango Habanero 'Masterspice'

I like things spicy. Real spicy. Unfortunately, most foods and sauces labeled as such fall underwhelmingly flat, aimed at a country with a proclivity for impossibly bland tastes. I'm looking at YOU, Taco Bell 'Fire' Sauce. And Tabasco doesn't even scratch the surface, although I do at times appreciate its vinegary essence. Conversely, the few hot sauces out there that do deliver on the promise of their label often fail to bring any meaningful medley of flavors to the palate. 

Why does it seem as though I can't have my cake super hot and eat it too?

Spicemaster and entrepreneur Anuj Patel sympathizes with my dilemma. As a connoisseur of Indian flavors, he fully understands the pleasures derived from the happy coexistence of intense taste and insane heat. This is why he created his very own hot sauce, harnessing heaping amounts of locally-grown, organic habaneros which he enhanced with the unexpected addition of fresh mangoes. The result is his newly-minted AJ's Masterspice, a surreal explosion of furious fire and serious soul. By introducing the fruit element, your tongue is able to discern the hidden intricacies of the habanero. It is an unfamiliar exploration to be sure, because most sauces incorporating this infamous pepper, fail to temper the initial heat blast with such gentle precision. You'll find yourself enjoying aspects of the habanero that you never even knew existed.

A gentle dollop of this potent elixir added to your favorite dish reveals a subtle sweetness accompanied by the deep, devilish tones of habanero. When the spiciness drops, it drops BIG. But when used sparingly, it's nothing that can't be tackled by less than a spoonful of yogurt or cucumber sauce. 

To me, however, it's not a real meal unless you've broken a sweat. Hyper-heat can be a spiritual experience--meditative even, as you contemplate the pain, dwell in it and let your mind temporarily elevate you to a higher plane. That being the case, AJ's Masterspice is my new guru. If you see it around, pick it up (carefully, of course). With its stunning packaging, semi-serious warning label, and trademark orangish-yellow hue, the bottles are hard to miss. Just remember, you've been warned: if you can't stand the heat, stick with Frank's Red Hot or something.

Hella Habanero

Review: Muse - The 2nd Law

Courtesy of Muse

Few would accuse Muse's newest studio offering--released October 1st--as being their most groundbreaking work. Yet it surely continues the successful formula which they've ridden to the top: kicking serious ass. 

The gut-busting begins in earnest with Supremacy, a fitting choice for an opener with its guitar scratching, earth-scorching bombast. The stakes are raised almost immediately upon the introduction of a full orchestral accompaniment.  Cue the choir and it's clear that England's favorite hard rock act is setting the controls for the heart of the sun. All of the usual suspects that we've come to associate with the band are on full display, from frontman Matthew Bellamy's operatic falsetto, to the deep, dark riffs  that he so often whips into a frenetic crescendo. It concludes with a twang of whimsical arpeggio, summoning the listener on the aural odyssey to follow.

The voyage veers off-path in a hurry with Madness, their most recent single, and an obvious departure from their tried and true stylings. Decidedly more Pop than Prog, the track finds Bellamy crooning in a sorta futuristic R+ B manner. While not at all what I have come to expect from the power trio, the song is undeniably catchy, beginning with rhythmic electro-bass pulses and building upon itself with purpose as it unfolds. Slowly it gives way to a brief-yet-blistering solo where we find Bellamy channeling his inner May before culminating in a triumphant, emotional climax. It somehow becomes more profound upon sequential encounters. 

Courtesy of Will Ireland/Getty Images

Next up is a dirty little wallop known as Panic Station, featuring a full-on horn section (from the same folks  that brought you the legendary hook in Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"). Bassist Chris Wolstenholme slaps out a driving groove that provides a firm foundation for the intoxicating funk that Bellamy layers on top.  The brass, riffing repeatedly throughout the chorus, melds itself effortlessly into the sonic landscape.  

The mood shifts drastically as the album explores the symphonic grandeur necessary to prelude an olympic anthem. A swinging piano riff emerges, accompanied by the metered cadence of an extended choir and an occasional sopranic flight of fancy. Such is the pomp and circumstance that defines Survival. The official song of London's 2012 games is wrought with such over-the-top delivery that--if  the lead singer's heritage was anything aside from Anglican--we'd have to question wether or not he was putting us on. 

Chris Wolstenholme, Matthew Bellamy and Dominic Howard

The remainder of the album tinkers with the more common trappings of contemporary music, like the dubstep-minded hook in the otherwise pedestrian Follow Me, or the Radiohead-inspired polyrhythms of the melancholic Animals.

Save Me and Liquid State are notable entries. Penned by Wolstenholme and chronicling his struggle with alcoholism, they showcase a surprisingly infectious timbre. As impassioned as his delivery is, the songs are as memorable for what they aren't. Bellamy's trademark wailing has become such a fixture of the Muse sound that these numbers could be mistakenly attributed to another band altogether. 

The chaotic immensity more familiar to the band reemerges in spades for the conclusion of their sixth studio album. The title track is broken down into a two-part suite, as ominous as it is ultramodern. Unleashing a salvo against the insatiable desires of man, Muse continues to weave the thread of social commentary into the core of their music, as they have from the beginning. "A species set on endless growth is unsustainable," we are warned. Begging the question, 'where do we go from here?' If the melodic finale of The 2nd Law serves as any indicator, a rendezvous with post-apocalyptic minimalism is unavoidable. It's not a groundbreaking notion, but that doesn't make it any less provocative.

Deli Melee

Courtesy of Food Republic. Certainly nothing democratic about their comical culinary assertions.

File this under absurd. According to an article from the so-called Food Republic, Los Angeles can lay claim to better pastrami sandwiches than the Big Apple. 

I think I understand what's going on here. Since most people have never heard of the Food Republic, they need to say something inflammatory and utterly preposterous in order to generate the controversy that translates so fluidly into web traffic. I see what you're doing...and I LIKE IT! Just kidding, I abhor it. In other news: Des Moines, Iowa is home to the best arts scene in the country. And the best pizza. And the best beaches in the continental United States. Now let's sit back and watch the clicks rain down o'er me!

PS-- Sorry for the extended hiatus. The editorial staff at the RB has been on location gathering information on some of the most pressing issues of the day. Stay tuned for articles of actual significance (pictures of scantily clad models) throughout the rest of the summer. Politics are heating up--if sleaze and corruption counts as a form of convection--and general economic malaise continues to permeate the globe. Hey, there's even an Ebola outbreak currently ravaging Uganda that could threaten to spread to the U.S. 

So much calamity to write about, so little fucks for society to give.

Never Surrender...sang Corey Hart, before abruptly losing his career to the 90s

Concert Review: Radiohead at Coachella

It is said that Hipsters love irony. Perhaps this is why one of the most universally-embraced bands in that all-too-easily loathsome community is the ever-venerable Radiohead. After a particularly revealing 90 minutes with them in the hot California desert, it became increasingly apparent to me that the World's Greatest Rock Act regards many of their concert-goers with a certain, thinly-veiled disdain. Maybe it's because Thom Yorke and company are so hellbent on promoting some vestige of social awareness in this markedly apathetic world into which we have grown. In return, many of the attendees at a typical Radiohead show--especially at the unforgivably scene-y Coachella Music and Arts Festival--could give two shits about changing the world for the better. They're much more concerned with capturing this live event on their smartphones so they can post incontrovertible proof by way of Instagram and Youtube that they were here--LOOK AT ME! How very fantastic for them, and indeed the world.

On the road promoting their most recent LP, The King of Limbs, most sets from this tour kick-off with the unsettling melancholy of that album's first track, Bloom. In the opening lines, Yorke advises all those that would listen to "open your mouth up wide" in a "universal sigh." This phrase has torn at the tendrils of my soul since the very first time it entered my ear canals. In the bleakly-aware landscape of our times we have traded in our desire to coagulate into meaningful masses in exchange for falsely elevating ourselves onto meaningless pedestals of self-diluted grandeur. Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke suggests that the obligatory response is a billowing sigh.

In the 60s, hundreds of thousands of socially-conscious spirits would descend upon the streets and parks of our cities with minimal amounts of premeditation. Today we have the "social media" at our disposal to facilitate rallies ten times larger, yet instead we all sit at home in front of our screens to post pictures of our latest vacation to Facebook. As Yorke asks in his next number, the techno-rhythmic 15 Step: "You used to be alright, what happened?"

After he's done prancing around the stage in his trademarked maniacal manner, Yorke wonders aloud if the crowd of some 75,000 people are "drinking enough water?" It's a reasonable inquiry for a drug-addled mass of humanity that has been baking in 100+ degree temperatures for much of the day. Yet his sarcastic din implies that he doesn't really give a shit. You can't help but wonder if the sea of cellphones and MDMA is really attune to such nuance. 

The band fearlessly plods forward, offering an enchanting array of new B-sides that didn't make it onto the latest record. Only with Radiohead am I able to feel the same level of inspiration regardless of what era of their catalogue is being showcased. In fact, one of the most transcendent moments of the show came during Staircase. A song that can't be more than a year old, yet offers so much in the way of mesmerizing melody that you can't help but be drawn in upon first listen. Of course the elaborate stage setup helps to up the ante, with a series of large monitors--each displaying a different band member--slowly ascending in a staggered pattern high above.

After a hearty assortment of newer material, Radiohead digs slightly deeper into their repertoire--to the obvious enjoyment of the crowd. Busting out standards like Kid A, steeped in eery post-apocalyptic musings, There There, a heavily percussive piece that always starts off with the guitarists accompanying the drummer's beat with large toms hanging from their necks, and the anthemic Karma Police, which culminates in a (somewhat-forced) sing-along: "phew, for a minute there I lost myself. I lost myself." To me, this is always the most redemptive quality of a Radiohead show--or any great concert--the transcendence of losing yourself to another spiritual plane. These guys can bring you there like no other and for that I am eternally grateful. 

Radiohead's live experience typically features two separate encores, which were somewhat truncated on this late Saturday night/Sunday morning to accomodate the strict cut-off time of Coachella which I assume to be 1AM. As the concert is winding down they decide to break out a few tracks from 2007's In Rainbows. The first of which, Reckoner, is a supremely haunting number warning that you "can't take it with you." A fitting admonishment for this uber-materialistic menagerie of Southern Californians. The tune ultimately arrives at a crescendoing finale of spiritually-uplifting falsetto that I wish would just have the decency to extend into infinity. 

Unfortunately that's not possible and upon the angelic conclusion, Thom takes a moment to tell the horde about why the band chose to play large festivals this summer. Essentially: togetherness. Yet I have to question if there's anything to be gained in the collective process of passive listening; are we really all sharing the wonder or are we just hopelessly quarantined within our own respective bubbles of isolation? Goddamn, somebody's breath smells just downright rank! At any rate, they end the first encore with the gutbusting guitar-driven frenzy of Bodysnatchers, a gritty number that you can tell guitarist/mad scientist Jonny Greenwood just loves sinking his fiery fangs into.

For the grand finale, they decide to unearth a couple of classics from their seminal work, 1997's critical darling, OK Computer. Nobody's going to argue with a decision like that. The spine-tingling, Floyd-esque Exit Music (For a Film) never disappoints. And when Yorke commands us to "wake from your sleep," you have to wonder if anyone is really paying attention, or are they too busy trying to capture his mischievous mug on a million little smartphones speckled high above the landscape. When the drums kick-in halfway through this jarring masterpiece, it marks one of the most visceral moments of the entire show. 

Thom busts out the acoustic guitar for the final number, signaling the inevitable: a performance of their quintessential composition, Paranoid Android. No surprises here; played note-for-note with every iota of its arena-rocking grandeur. Many songs throughout history have hinted at an impending apocalypse and some paint the grim sketches of a dreary, post-apocalyptic world. But no other piece of art captures the end of days--as it unravels in real time--with such compelling vigor as this: "the dust and the screaming...the panic, the vomit." And everything comes to an end with that most classic of ironic lines: "God loves his children." A tidal wave of applause erupts into the desert night. Perhaps a universal sigh would be a more appropriate response.

The Aftermath

**Drive Soundtrack**

Just saw the movie Drive last night for the first time. Not sure exactly how I feel about it. Definitely captivating to watch, with a few scenes that will certainly stick out--particularly for their pronounced gruesomeness--but overall I thought there were some serious pitfalls in the story-telling and a few elements that just didn't make any sense at all. But there was some solid acting from usual standouts like Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks (quite creepy sans eyebrows). From a technical standpoint, it's nice how the filmmakers often eschewed dialogue in favor of creating visceral moods through lighting, expressions and, most notably: music. I was a big fan of the heady beats that permeated the score. It at once felt nostalgic and somehow futuristic. Although I need more time to process my thoughts on the film itself, the undeniable impact of the soundtrack is immediate. Listen for yourself...